A Child's Memory of a War
The houses are all left in ruin.
The lamp posts are armed with a dying flame,
welcoming the soldiers home.
The wind howls at the sound
of the war raging in the distance.
The sky is blackened out by smoke.
And I am trapped here, in my room,
forced to listen to the gunshots.
Each night the noise grows louder and louder
until I can hear it knocking on my door,
but I am too scare to answer it.
I mean, what can I do?
Because a child only knows how to make wishes,
like a wish for a hopeful new day,
or a wish for the night to end.
But a wish is wish,
and a gunshot is a gunshot,
firing in the distance, rocking me to sleep.
Font size:
Submitted on May 02, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 38 sec read
- 1 View
Quick analysis:
Scheme | XXX XXX XXX XXX XXX XXX |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 605 |
Words | 129 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3 |
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
"A Child's Memory of a War" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/64145/a-child's-memory-of-a-war>.
Discuss the poem A Child's Memory of a War 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