This is not the first time we've done this poem by ee cummings. Alas. I guess it has to be done periodically. Because the steaming pile we are being asked to eat keeps mounting:
i sing of Olaf glad and big
i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or
his wellbelovéd colonel(trig
westpointer most succinctly bred)
took erring Olaf soon in hand;
but--though an host of overjoyed
noncoms(first knocking on the head
him)do through icy waters roll
that helplessness which others stroke
with brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl,
while kindred intellects evoke
allegiance per blunt instruments--
Olaf(being to all intents
a corpse and wanting any rag
upon what God unto him gave)
responds,without getting annoyed
"I will not kiss your fucking flag"
straightway the silver bird looked grave
(departing hurriedly to shave)
but--though all kinds of officers
(a yearning nation's blueeyed pride)
their passive prey did kick and curse
until for wear their clarion
voices and boots were much the worse,
and egged the firstclassprivates on
his rectum wickedly to tease
by means of skilfully applied
bayonets roasted hot with heat--
Olaf(upon what were once knees)
does almost ceaselessly repeat
"there is some shit I will not eat"
our president,being of which
assertions duly notified
threw the yellowsonofabitch
into a dungeon,where he died
Christ(of His mercy infinite)
i pray to see;and Olaf,too
preponderatingly because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me:more blond than you.
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Olaf was objecting to World War I (at that time called the Great War).
My grandfather, a farm boy from Indiana who spent time in the trenches in France, for the rest of his life (and he made it to 94) would, from time to time, wake up in the middle of the night screaming.
And I would like to add that, during the Bush years, I would express my hope that the Bush Gang would receive fair trials. I also wish that for the relevant members of the Obama Administration. It is the culture of impunity that currently exists which has convinced me recently that it's time for a third party to challenge the MICFiC's duopoly. There will be no fair trials for war criminals as long as the Democratic Party and/or the Republican Party is at the helm.
My dear spouse thinks that we will not live long enough to see such a day (like me, missus charley, m.d. is 50something, though not quite so much) - but as the Firesign Theatre put it, allegorically speaking, "If you push something hard enough, it will fall right over" - and I think They (the National Security State, or the MICFiC, to call them by the appellation which is slowly sweeping the blogosphere - The M ilitary I ndustrial C ongressional Fi nancial C orporate media complex) don't fully realize how hard they are pushing it.
Everything remains the same - until it doesn't.
May the Creative Forces of the Universe stand beside us, and guide us, through the Night with the Light from Above -- metaphorically speaking.
One last comment - this poem was in the poetry anthology we read in my freshman year in college, except that there it was printed as "i will not kiss your f. flag" and "there is some s. i will not eat"
mistah charley: Apologies. I accidentally deleted your third comment (all three were worth reading) and once done there is no way to retrieve them. Picking up a conversation on an earlier thread about the Falklands, WWI is certainly the poster child for stupid wars. ee cummings was a prisoner of war during that one. And at least you had a poetry anthology that included it, even if it cleaned up the language a bit. In my public school in the fifties if you had a poem like that in an anthology the whole anthology would be on the black list.