Classic and Contemporary Poetry
NOCTURNE MILITAIRE, by THOMAS MCGRATH Poet's Biography First Line: Imagine or remember how the road at last led us Last Line: As the night patrol of bombers climbs through the rain and is gone Subject(s): Miami Beach; World War Ii; Second World War | ||||||||
Imagine or remember how the road at last led us Over bridges like prepositions, linking a drawl of islands. The coast curved away like a question mark, listening slyly And shyly whispered the insomniac Atlantic. But we were uncertain of both question and answer, Stiff and confused and bemused in expendable khaki, Seeing with innocent eyes, the walls gleaming, And the alabaster city of a rich man's dream. Borne by the offshore wind, an exciting rumor, The legend of tropic islands, caresses the coast like hysteria, Bringing a sound like bells rung under sea; And brings the infected banker and others whose tenure Is equally uncertain, equally certain: the simple And perfect faces of women -- like the moon Whose radiance is disturbing and quite as impersonal: Not to be warmed by and never ample. They linger awhile in the dazzling sepulchral city, Delicately exploring their romantic diseases, The gangster, the capitalist and their proteges With all their doomed retainers: not worth your hate or pity Now that they have to learn a new language -- And they despise the idiom like an upper class foreigner: The verb to die baffles them. We cannot mourn, But their doom gives stature at last, moon-dazzled, silhouette on the flaming Atlantic. Something is dying. But in the fierce sunlight, On the swanky golf-course drill-field, something is being born Whose features are anonymous as a child's drawing Of the lonely guard whose cry brings down the enormous night. For the sentry moonlight is only moonlight, not Easy to shoot by. But our devouring symbols (Though we walk through their dying city and their moonlight lave us like lovers) Are the loin-sprung spotlight sun and the hangman sack-hooded blackout. * * * Now in the east the dark, like many waters, Moves, and uptown, in the high hotels, those few Late guests move through their remembered places But their steps are curiously uncertain, like a sick man's or a sleepwalker's. Down the beach, in rooms designed for their masters, The soldiers curse and sing in the early blackout. Their voices nameless but full of fear or courage Ring like calm bells through their terrible electric idyll. They are the nameless poor who have been marching Out of the dark, to that possible moment when history Crosses the tracks of our time. They do not see it approaching, But their faces are strange with a wild and unnoticed mystery. And now at the Casino the dancing is nice and no one Notices the hunchback weeping among the bankers, Or sees, like the eye of an angel, offshore, the burning tanker, As the night patrol of bombers climbs through the rain and is gone. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PORT OF EMBARKATION by RANDALL JARRELL GREATER GRANDEUR by ROBINSON JEFFERS FAMILY GROUP by ARCHIBALD MACLEISH THE BRITISH COUNTRYSIDE IN PICTURES by JAMES MCMICHAEL READING MY POEMS FROM WORLD WAR II by WILLIAM MEREDITH ODE FOR THE AMERICAN DEAD IN ASIA by THOMAS MCGRATH |
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