Mike, what strikes me most is the depth of witness you’re attempting here. You’re not just recounting war; you’re trying to hold an entire century of it in the same field: from mud, biplanes, and rats to joysticks and the “lethal insects” of our age. That sweep is profoundly ambitious.
What lands is how carefully you show that while the machinery evolves, the human condition beneath it hardly does: hunger, exhaustion, bodies returned to the same dark ecology of earth and rodents. The battlefield becomes less a place than a continuum of history’s fury.
And then that quiet closing turn, “Still / of a morning, birdsong echoes.”
After all the wreckage, you allow the smallest persistence of life to speak.
It feels like you’re reminding us that history scars the land deeply, but it never quite silences it.
I'll go you one step further: of course, this can speak of anywhere, but the imagery is reminiscent of the Ukrainian battlefields of course, and right at the end the sweep includes "hordes, like schools of fish or flights of birds" and "burial mounds" or kurgans; this is speaking of horseborne peoples, whether Turkic, Mongol, Cossack,, Avar, or Scythian that have made those same lands their home.
I felt the sweep of history in the piece, but the specificity you point to: the kurgans, the movement of horseborne peoples across those plains? I didn’t get that because probably my knowledge of history is deficient. That said, now I feel it sharpens the horizon considerably. Those landscapes carry memory differently. They accumulate passage: hoofbeats, migrations, invasions, returns.
What struck me even more on rereading is how naturally the imagery holds that long continuity. Schools of fish, flights of birds, riders across the steppe, the same instinct of movement repeating across species and centuries.
It makes the battlefield feel less like a single moment of conflict and more like one point in a very old current moving through that land.
Technology evolves, but it seems like humanity didnt. War still rages on.
Napoleon Bonaparte once said "The invention of gunpowder swept away chivalry; the musketry killed the feudal system; gunpowder killed knighthood."
In a sword fight, you had to confront with you opponent. Lock eyes with them. Look at every inch of their body and see every drop of blood they bled. You had to train swordsmanship for ages. Every soldier had to put years of effort to kill one or two people, just to die for their country themselves. Some dont even get a kill before dying. The emotional impact amd weightage of war was immense.
Now we hide behind cover throwing bombs at each other, seeing the carnage through screens. The act of killing lost its viscerality and became mechanical. A number on the newspaper. A scoreboard.
That's exactly right, Reisson. The terrible weight of killing has become sanitized; you can't hear it or smell it anymore, and though you can see it, there's a sense of detachment death through a screen is just so many disassembled pixels. Those battlefields are haunted by the carcasses of machines.
I love the first line the most and the last line the most. “The count of years lies at one hundred and eight” opens the poem with such a powerful sense of witness, and the return to birdsong at the end feels profound — nature continuing its song even after all the devastation in between.
Thank you, I agree. Veterans talk of the still and silence after battle, and the incongruity of nature and life filling that silence. It's a powerful image.
Oh my! This is stunning in its depth and breadth whilst wrapping up an entire century of slaughter and ending it with birdsong.
Loving the imagery and the language.
Thank you very much Tony!
Mike, what strikes me most is the depth of witness you’re attempting here. You’re not just recounting war; you’re trying to hold an entire century of it in the same field: from mud, biplanes, and rats to joysticks and the “lethal insects” of our age. That sweep is profoundly ambitious.
What lands is how carefully you show that while the machinery evolves, the human condition beneath it hardly does: hunger, exhaustion, bodies returned to the same dark ecology of earth and rodents. The battlefield becomes less a place than a continuum of history’s fury.
And then that quiet closing turn, “Still / of a morning, birdsong echoes.”
After all the wreckage, you allow the smallest persistence of life to speak.
It feels like you’re reminding us that history scars the land deeply, but it never quite silences it.
Thank you Dipti
I'll go you one step further: of course, this can speak of anywhere, but the imagery is reminiscent of the Ukrainian battlefields of course, and right at the end the sweep includes "hordes, like schools of fish or flights of birds" and "burial mounds" or kurgans; this is speaking of horseborne peoples, whether Turkic, Mongol, Cossack,, Avar, or Scythian that have made those same lands their home.
Mike, that adds a powerful layer.
I felt the sweep of history in the piece, but the specificity you point to: the kurgans, the movement of horseborne peoples across those plains? I didn’t get that because probably my knowledge of history is deficient. That said, now I feel it sharpens the horizon considerably. Those landscapes carry memory differently. They accumulate passage: hoofbeats, migrations, invasions, returns.
What struck me even more on rereading is how naturally the imagery holds that long continuity. Schools of fish, flights of birds, riders across the steppe, the same instinct of movement repeating across species and centuries.
It makes the battlefield feel less like a single moment of conflict and more like one point in a very old current moving through that land.
Thank you for opening that lens a little wider.
Absolutely Dipti. Migration, war, sometimes simultaneously, movement of life, and death
Yes Mike, movement seems to be the constant.
Peoples, armies, herds, even stories themselves crossing the same ground again and again.
What changes are the names we give the moment: migration, conquest, survival.
But the earth remembers only the passage.
Technology evolves, but it seems like humanity didnt. War still rages on.
Napoleon Bonaparte once said "The invention of gunpowder swept away chivalry; the musketry killed the feudal system; gunpowder killed knighthood."
In a sword fight, you had to confront with you opponent. Lock eyes with them. Look at every inch of their body and see every drop of blood they bled. You had to train swordsmanship for ages. Every soldier had to put years of effort to kill one or two people, just to die for their country themselves. Some dont even get a kill before dying. The emotional impact amd weightage of war was immense.
Now we hide behind cover throwing bombs at each other, seeing the carnage through screens. The act of killing lost its viscerality and became mechanical. A number on the newspaper. A scoreboard.
Technology evolved. We didnt.
That's exactly right, Reisson. The terrible weight of killing has become sanitized; you can't hear it or smell it anymore, and though you can see it, there's a sense of detachment death through a screen is just so many disassembled pixels. Those battlefields are haunted by the carcasses of machines.
Have to check my sources again, might notnhave been napoleon bonaparte. I think it was Karl Marx or smtg
Dark and dismal echoes of history and then you bring the light with the birdsong. Excellent and such wonderful language.
Thank you Maria
Fabulous
Thank you syntsxevasion
This was deeply moving
Thank you Marwa
Superb
Thank you Sara
This is so powerful, and the images are so evocative. A harrowing chronicle of our efforts to massacre ourselves!
Thank you Mike
I love the first line the most and the last line the most. “The count of years lies at one hundred and eight” opens the poem with such a powerful sense of witness, and the return to birdsong at the end feels profound — nature continuing its song even after all the devastation in between.
Thank you, I agree. Veterans talk of the still and silence after battle, and the incongruity of nature and life filling that silence. It's a powerful image.
🕊️
This is fantastic.
Thank you Charlie
Feel the echoes
Thank you Hina, nice to see you
Keep up the good work, Pancake!
Pepper
Thank you so much Pepper
Beautiful and dark. I really loved reading this.
Thank you Maxi, glad you liked it!
A strong, powerful piece there. Very evocative and you can see the images in your mind as you read on those looks to the past.
Thank you Gary. Your poetry has that visceral feel as well, especially when it comes to evoking emotions! I appreciate your compliment!
💪🏿💪🏿👌🏽👏👏👏
Thank you V S
I really like the visceral feel of this! Well done 👏👏👏👏