Loss in Power and Conflict

A mother at the front door. Ghosts dragging home. Six hundred into the valley. Every one of these poems loses someone.

The quotes

10 quotes, in the order they happen.

Nothing beside remains

Shelley · Ozymandias · power of humans · power of nature · loss

The statue is broken. The empire is gone. The sand is what lasts.

In every cry of every Man, In every Infant's cry of fear

Blake · London · power of humans · loss

Everyone is crying. Even babies are afraid. Blake hears it on every street.

Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred

Tennyson · The Charge of the Light Brigade · conflict · loss

Six hundred men ride into a valley of death. The line comes back again and again.

Slowly our ghosts drag home

Owen · Exposure · conflict · memory · loss

The men imagine going home. Only their ghosts can go.

For love of God seems dying

Owen · Exposure · conflict · loss

Owen loses faith out there. God's love seems to be dying too.

spasms of paper red

Weir · Poppies · conflict · loss · memory

Paper poppies on a blazer. Spasms sounds like pain. A mother pins one on her son.

I was brave, as I walked with you, to the front door

Weir · Poppies · loss · conflict

The front door is her front line. She has to be brave to let him go.

the world overflowing like a treasure chest

Weir · Poppies · loss · conflict

To the son, leaving is exciting. To the mother it is loss.

There once was a country

Rumens · The Emigrée · memory · identity · loss

The first words. Like a fairy tale. The country she remembers may not exist any more.

he must have wondered which had been the better way to die

Garland · Kamikaze · conflict · identity · loss

He turned back and lived. His family never spoke to him again. The last line asks which death was worse.