There but not there

This is a photo of my perspex 'there but not there' Tommy statue.  Following the 2014 ceramic poppies at the Tower of London, which represented the 888,246 British and Commonwealth Service men and women who lost their lives in the First World War, this Tommy commemorates the centenary of the end of the 1914-1918 war and those who lost their lives. Armistice Day is next Sunday, but today is the centenary of the death of the WWI poet Wilfred Owen at the front at the age of only 25.

Dulce et Decorum Est  by WILFRED OWEN

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,
Obscene as cancer, 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.

Note: Latin phrase is from the Roman poet Horace: “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.”