Vergissmeinnicht By Keith Douglas (1920 - 1944)

Everyone can name some WW1 poets. Keith Douglas is one of the few from the second war who achieved any heights of poetic achievement in my opinion. He was killed, aged 24, during the invasion of Normandy.

Three weeks gone

and the combatants gone

returning over the nightmare ground

we found the place again, and found

the soldier sprawling in the sun.

The frowning barrel of his gun overshadowing.

As we came on that day, he hit my tank with one

like the entry of a demon.

Look. Here in the gunpit spoil

the dishonoured picture of his girl

who has put: Steffi. Vergissmeinnicht.

in a copybook gothic script.

We see him almost with content, 

abased, and seeming to have paid

and mocked at by his own equipment

that's hard and good when he's decayed.

But she would weep to see today

how on his skin the swart flies move;

the dust upon the paper eye

and the burst stomach like a cave.

For here the lover and killer are mingled

who had one body and one heart. 

And death who had the soldier singled

has done the lover mortal hurt.