Alan Seeger, 'Rendezvous'

[duathir.livejournal.com]

Cross-post from war_poetry:

Rendezvous

I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air-
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath-
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear.
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

by Alan Seeger

Alan Seeger, killed July 4, 1916 at the battle of the Somme

A Death At The Battle Of The Somme

Letters From Exile – IV, by Hemant Mohapatra

[albatross-flyin.livejournal.com]

Letters From Exile – IV
by Hemant Mohapatra

I woke up at 2 a.m. with a start.
It was raining outside — birds
were angry, the streets full
of fire-engines — and I thought
of you after years: where are you now,
and how are you living, so far away,
with your black and white t.v.
by the window that opens up
to tea stalls, your single-bed
in a square apartment, walls
calendared with gods and goddesses
all the way back to nineteen
ninety-six. Tell me, my beautiful
loss, my hyacinth, how are you living
in the valleys of Dehra,
in that house you have made
with a young man you love.