The Last Laugh
‘O Jesus Christ! I’m hit,’ he said; and died.
Whether he vainly cursed or prayed indeed,
The Bullets chirped—In vain, vain, vain!
Machine-guns chuckled—Tut-tut! Tut-tut!
And the Big Gun guffawed.
Another sighed,—‘O Mother,—mother,—Dad!’
Then smiled at nothing, childlike, being dead.
And the lofty Shrapnel-cloud
Leisurely gestured,—Fool!
And the splinters spat, and tittered.
‘My Love!’ one moaned. Love-languid seemed his mood,
Till slowly lowered, his whole face kissed the mud.
And the Bayonets’ long teeth grinned;
Rabbles of Shells hooted and groaned;
And the Gas hissed.
Notes
Where John Keats confronted mortality as a quiet, solitary void on the shore of the world, Wilfred Owen thrusts us into the mechanical violence of the Western Front, where the dying human breath is instantly drowned out by the grotesque, metallic mockery of modern weaponry. The speaking subject documents the final, sacred invocations of soldiers crying out for father, Jesus, or mother, only for bullets, bayonets, and artillery shells to answer each petition with cold, stuttering derision, sniggering and spitting across the mud. It anchors September’s theme of Echo in the hollow, horrifying feedback loop of industrialized warfare, where human intimacy and cries for salvation are swallowed by the machines of history, leaving only the sound of weapons chuckling into the silence they create. #September #WilfredOwen #war #guns #Poetry