Korean War Poems

Listening Post - John Kent

Cold bones,
numbed brain,
blackened sockets
hide two eyes.
Frozen fingers
swell through gloves,
cradled weapon
held with love.
Fetching memories
gone astray,
wondering will it
ever end...

A Summer Walk - John Kent

Trudging on a shell-scarred road,
columns of two,
through swirls of dust
in the early twilight hour;
quilted rice paddies on either side,
reaching out to brooding mountains.
The hot summer wind
blowing the incense
of feeding rice shoots through
our nostrils...we gag!

We've come upon this place,
in this valley of rice,
where the dead lay red, withered;
scattered about like autumn leaves
blowing in the wind;
poked by hunched shapes
wailing like the lost souls
of a netherworld...echoes in my brain.
The leaves carried away,
one by one.

The sky in reddening hue,
subdued,
bringing the night down slowly.
Our bodies baked by the hot sweat
of a summer day.
The leaves turning rancid,
The aroma of shellburst and decay,
pungent in the air.
We walk quietly, with reluctant step,
suppressed conscience,
to another front,
another place...like this one.

Eye Of The Storm - John Kent

Intently, I listen
and the night tells me,
yes, I am quiet
and I am soft.
It is not too cold
and I have hung out the moon,
so you can see through the darkness
...a little.
And the light flashing
above the black hills
...you can see
but not hear the booming.
It is much too far.
And the night tells me,
do not drift into complacency,
war is an insidious beast,
it will kill you while you sleep.

Chosin - John Kent

How deep the cold takes us down,
into the searing frost of hell;
where mountain snows,
unyielding winds, strip our flesh,
bare our bones.

The trembling of uncertain hearts,
scream out to echoes not impressed,
as swirling mists of laughing death,
reach out their fingers to compress.

How white the withered skin exposed,
turns into black and brittle flesh,
and limbs cast out from conscious thought,
still stagger on the arctic frost.

Immobile does the breath extend
as crystal on the mountain wind,
and eyes now fixed in layers of ice,
see nothing through the dawning light.

This road that leads down to the sea,
twists and turns at every bend,
and Chosin's ice that molds like steel,
rains the fire that seeks our end.

The trucks cry out a dirge refrain,
their brittle gears roll on in pain;
upon their beds, the silent dead,
in grateful and serene repose.

Still the mind resists the call,
to lie and die in final pose,
where blood in stillness warms the soul,
and renders nil the will to rise.

The battle carries through the night,
give witness to the dead betrayed,
when frozen weapons fail to fire,
their metal stressed by winter's might.

Still we fight to reach Hungnam,
in solemn oath and brotherhood,
as every able-bodied man,
will bring our dead and wounded home.

Uphold traditions earned in blood,
break through the hordes that press us in,
depress their numbers to the place,
where waves of dead deny their quest.

And on to the sea...

Tell A Friend About Korean-War.info