Shellshock Dreams

Shrieking with furious madness
a spinning top, dizzy with sadness.
A condition of the human spirit
to kill one self for country and King.
In trenches where young boys
sobbed. Ducking for cover
and hurrying over. Over the top
over above. Into No Mans Land.

This madness that rules men
to master the Weapons fit,
to destroy a land, and history
too. Welcome to wars own tomb.

Fields of Poppies dancing with guilt,
growing where, a dance began, where
indifference lay. Blown softly, while
limbs and life are far below.

Whizzbangs whistling
in memories of old. Joking
and singing to sound of fear.

The silent killer drowning the soul
your body gasps, coughing and spluttering.

Shellshock and trauma, these men faced.
They sunk into the quagmire of Ypre and more.

Legless and blind, the boys fought on
trenchfoot and rats, they destroyed
innocents one by one.

The gurgling and coughs wracking
and wrecking these young men.

Dead souls, as shells echo falling fast
explosion, shaking the ground and reaping the
earth. Blinding and deafening.

Nothing is heard, lots seen,
as through broken glass.

Ringing.

Bodies torn and strewn
around. The blood and gore,
vivid in mind.

The smell the ungodly
stench raping the nostrils.

Inhuman sounds
and terrible bawling.

People vanishing as they fall
under foot and mud, unable
to stand. Crushed by automaton
empty shells. The innocence
of the young and old, rocked
by it all.

Mud and blood,
the limbs rotten.

You remove your boot
to shake it dry, out comes
toes. You weep and scream.

Death cries and yells, as chaos
reigns, all men cower like babes,
hoping it to end. But oblivious
to the rot and wounds, hurting
them.

Gun firing.

Firing fast, loudly
while the ringing continues and
bombs fall.

A man you know lays in mud, gripping
the stumps and weeping hard, rotten
carcasses surround.

Carrying a bag, over mud and marsh,
groaning with the weight. No light
in the dark, a sniper shot, another
mate dead, but if it's all the same.
Now you are alone and insane.

No more faces of friends or
foes. They're blank and empty
shaking with fear.

Thud.

That one, it's getting close.

Thud.

Getting much nearer,

A man
you know only by rank, makes
a cross.

Thud.

The ground shakes as
you turn white.

Thud.

You pray.

Whistle blowers, time to die
up the ladder and over the top.

Boys you joined up one by one
over by Christmas, they swore
they sung. But here you are
at the western front, surrounded
by comrades, surrounded by
death. It's all too quiet on
the Western Front.

Well, of course this poem reminded me of All Quiet on the Western Front except there is no bird singing in the death scene...

You used some great imagery in places, but with the length of the poem I've forgotten exactly where they are. I know how useless that is for me to say!

However, despite the good imagery now and then, your use of language, line breaks, and point of view make this poem hard to get through and not worth, pardon, reading all the way through anyway.

First of all, in a lot of places you either don't finish your sentences or your sentences make no sense. Perhaps you're trying to seem shocked, confused, artistic by doing this but it just comes off as bad and weird.

Here's one example close to then end:

Whistle blowers, time for to die
up the ladder and over the top.

"Time for to die" makes no sense whatsoever, and the whole stanza is rendered useless by its lack of sense in grammar. This happens in a lot of places, so I would advise going through the poem and making it more comprehensible and, I don't want to say this to mean it is poorly written but, well written. The overall poem isn't too poorly written, but when the sentence is confusing and nonsensical, it does appear poorly written rather than done with art or tact.

My second issue was with your line breaks. You have single words on lines - which with "thud" works fine IMHO, but in many other places is merely annoying. Some stanzas are five lines long, some are two. Your rhyme in places, not in others. It's all very chaotic. It could be said that this chaos mirrors the chaos of the battle field, but I'm not sure that's a good excuse for simply not structuring a poem in a good way. It makes the poem jumpy to have two stanzas, then three, then five, then two then two. (I'm not actually transcribing the number of lines or anything, just an example.) If it had more of a solid structure, it might have more flow.

My third and largest problem was your change of point of view. The beginning of the poem to about midway is third person. We are looking into the life of the soldier. Then half way in, we get "you" and from there on out it is second person. I detest this strongly. Pick which point of view you wish to write with, and stick to it. It makes the poem unnecessarily long to carry it out in so many stanzas, and then it's as if you've written two poems regarding the war, one in one tense, one in another, and put them together. Not to mention that second person is difficult to pull off and simply annoying in poetry. Unless you're going to actually put us in the shoes of a soldier for a whole poem, don't do it.

As to putting us in soldier's shoes. Like I said, in several places you did have some good imagery, but overall I felt it lacking. It felt like a long list of things one learns about the war in a slightly vivid manner, but nothing uniquely new or special. I didn't feel like I was in war. I, myself, was not shell shocked. Perhaps you should consider cutting the length entirely, starting over, and focusing more on solid details to tell your story instead of name all the gruesome details that come with war in a not-so-gruesome fashion. If you talked about three objects of war, rather than all of them, and made those three as strong as possible, it would make the overall poem much better.


Hope this helped! Also, you have general grammar errors in places which I didn't feel the need to point out. If you'd read over it, I'm sure they'd be found. Best of luck.

I looked through your poem, its very well described and deatailed making it fell as your really there, poetry isnt really my thing but i have to say this a very good poem you should publish it after a little editing.

That was kool. it was a very good read. poetry really isnt my thing but i still liked yours. i also created characters for your story book if u want them let me know. as for your story it was good.