Anthem for Doomed Youth

Is a child a man when he turns eighteen?;

halfway beards and limbs gangly, not quite grown.

A thousand children for a thousand men-

Pens scraping paper, bullets scraping bone.

Is he a man when he offs his first boy?

When his young English blood makes love to mud?,

body tossed aside like a baby's toy

though men's hands will kill as babies' never could.

 

Still fingers count down a two minute silence

while restless children's children wait idly,

ancient anticipation unkindly

measuring out moments steeped in violence.

And as a million boys await the passing bell,

it is a monstrous quiet that hardens Hell.

 

 

I wrote this as a response to Wilfred Owen's 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' after reading Pat Barker's 'Regeneration' (I recommend). I am using Owen's rhyme and meter (mostly), as well as some of his phrasing.

Sentiment

Poem V