12.01.2011

dulce et decorum est


vintage fedora and car coat, secondhand velvet t-shirt, deena & ozzy shoes

here's another one of my favorite poems, although it seems like i have too many favorites to count. it's vastly beautiful in its painful, grotesque images, and owen draws one in to the silent yet loud mood. i finally watched woody allen's manhattan last night. if you have not, i highly recommend paying attention to the details. i applaud allen; this was his best film in my eyes. the black-and-white hue complements mariel hemingway in a strange way. she looks as if she were tired, tired of this world, as if she were forty instead of in her young teens, all in a good way. and be sure to vote for me at this new site i joined here!

Dulce et Decorum est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep.  Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod.  All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas!  GAS!  Quick, boys! --  An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime. --
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, --
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie:  Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
--Wilfred Owen