- Last seen on Apr 7 8:51 PM 2007. Member since March 25, 2007.
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on Simplify Me When I'm Dead by Keith Douglas, on March 25, 2007
Salute from a contemporary
In nineteen forty-four, you climbed from your tank
and met that lethal mortar
while I, some thousand miles further north,
slowly, coldly sank,
living, silent, struggling, down through
the neutral Arctic water,
the aeroplane quietly and humbly collapsing around me.
Contemporaries then in our twenties: we lived, you died.
But the simple facts for survivors
are no simplification here for you.
For you are still there.
You live — trapped in your life like me in my plane.
You did not pass;
it's we who continued and left you behind. You stopped,
touched your temporal limit
and then withdrew as you, like the rest of us,
simply must,
into your own share of space-time
that is your medium,
your definition — your young whole life.
poetry vs songs
His songs are far better than his poetry. It's notable that of his many songs only one was a setting of one of his own poems — at least so far as I can ascertain