Forget Me Not by Keith Douglas (1920 - 1944)

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"Vergissmeinnicht was written by Keith Douglas (1920 - 1944 ) during his military service as a tank commander in the Tunisian desert. The poem describes his return to a tank he had destroyed three weeks earlier..Where.he finds the scorched remnant of a photograph of the supposed girlfriend of "Steffi" a young German soldier who lies dead inside the tank that has become his tomb... written in German on the photograph is." Steffi, Vergissmeinnicht" (in English meaning" Forget me not" )..

Here is the link to the page where you can listen online to this and many other classic poems set to music..

http://tinyurl.com/24hzs

Regards

Jim Clark
PS..Dont forget you can if you prefer listen to my sound poems at my Yahoo "sound poetry" web groups (look in "files") heres that link..
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bloozman_u...
You can listen to this particular poem in my second yahoo "Soundpoemz" sound poetry group heres that link..
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/soundpoemz/

All rights to this sound recording are reserved/copyright/patent Jim Clark 2004

Vergissmeinnicht (Forget Me Not)

Three weeks gone and the combatants gone
returning over the nightmare ground
we found the place again, and found
the soldier sprawling in the sun.

The frowning barrel of his gun
overshadowing. As we came on
that day, he hit my tank with one
like the entry of a demon.

Look. Here in the gunpit spoil
the dishonoured picture of his girl
who has put: Steffi. Vergissmeinnicht
in a copybook gothic script.

We see him almost with content,
abased, and seeming to have paid
and mocked at by his own equipment
that's hard and good when he's decayed.

But she would weep to see today
how on his skin the swart flies move;
the dust upon the paper eye
and the burst stomach like a cave.

For here the lover and killer are mingled
who had one body and one heart.
And death who had the soldier singled
has done the lover mortal hurt.

-- posted by hyperbolelad

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