Welcome to Poetry.com!
Poetry.com is a collaborative platform for poets worldwide, offering a vast collection of works by both renowned and emerging poets. It's a community-driven project that serves as a hub for poets to share their works, receive feedback, and connect with like-minded fellow poets.
Explore our poetry collection by navigating through subjects, using alphabetical order, or search by keywords. You can contribute a new poem, share your thoughts and rating on existing works, listen to poems with voice pronunciation, and even translate pieces into a variety of languages, both common and uncommon.
The Unknown Soldier
I am the Unknown Soldier and you’re standing on my grave
but please don't confuse me with one considered brave.
I was eighteen years old when I answered the call,
went over the top and one of the first to fall.
I didn't die a hero, indeed an inglorious death.
Calling out for my mother took my dying breath.
The bravest thing that I have ever done
is to tell my story in the shadow of the gun.
They took me from that foreign field where I met my doom
Scraped me into a box and brought me to this tomb
I have been on parade for a hundred years
Politicians and puppets and crocodile tears
The self-same people who determined my fate
blending ceremoniously with the good and the great
Their faces overcome by unmeasurable grief
I grin and bare it as I lay underneath
Please forgive me as I turn in my grave
observing these people and how they behave.
I must confess it's through gritted teeth
I watch them come forward and lay their wreath.
The humble poppy from those fields of green
A symbolic emblem turned money machine.
To our fallen soldiers for whom we cried for
Contradicting the values they thought they died for
I watched proudly as the parades went by,
my old comrades with their heads held high.
Alas, they are no longer that brave band of brothers.
Continually replaced by a brave band of others
I am sorry my comrades I have no wish to offend
but is it time for this charade to end.
Caught up in the euphoria of eternal grief.
I shake my head in disbelief.
And what about our one time foe,
our despised enemy from long ago.
With a tormented past she would rather forget.
Salting her wounds every opportunity we get.
With dignity and compassion she has led the way
In this troubled world we have today
The time has come to bury the past
And seek a peace designed to last
Please don’t imagine that I lack respect
If I do not behave as you might expect
We will never forget those who gave their lives
and never forget those grieving wives.
Those fatherless children and broken hearted mothers.
Devastated comrades, a broken band of brothers
If the drums of war would only cease
Then this Unknown Soldier and many others
would finally rest in peace.
About this poem
This is an anti war poem and conveys my feelings regarding all the remembrance ceremonies that takes place all over the world. I believe they glorify war and nothing more than a recruitment tool.
Translation
Find a translation for this poem in other languages:
Select another language:
- - Select -
- 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
- 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
- Español (Spanish)
- Esperanto (Esperanto)
- 日本語 (Japanese)
- Português (Portuguese)
- Deutsch (German)
- العربية (Arabic)
- Français (French)
- Русский (Russian)
- ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
- 한국어 (Korean)
- עברית (Hebrew)
- Gaeilge (Irish)
- Українська (Ukrainian)
- اردو (Urdu)
- Magyar (Hungarian)
- मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
- Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Italiano (Italian)
- தமிழ் (Tamil)
- Türkçe (Turkish)
- తెలుగు (Telugu)
- ภาษาไทย (Thai)
- Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
- Čeština (Czech)
- Polski (Polish)
- Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Românește (Romanian)
- Nederlands (Dutch)
- Ελληνικά (Greek)
- Latinum (Latin)
- Svenska (Swedish)
- Dansk (Danish)
- Suomi (Finnish)
- فارسی (Persian)
- ייִדיש (Yiddish)
- հայերեն (Armenian)
- Norsk (Norwegian)
- English (English)
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Poetry.com" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 23 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/>.
Discuss the poem The Unknown Soldier with the community...
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In