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Welcome ! | Home · FAQ · Topics · Web Links · Your Account · Submit Poetry · Top 30 · OldSite Link | 10-June 21:58:46 AEST | ||
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Array
(
[sid] => 134983
[catid] => 1
[aid] => mick
[title] => Stalingrad
[time] => 2007-06-06 10:41:11
[hometext] => long one, please bear with it.
[bodytext] => I was conscripted into the Guard Rifle Division Five, Ordered to defend the Motherland But not to stay alive. They gave me a decent rifle A 36 Mosin-Nagant, And a ghost-drab uniform And a ruined block to haunt. The Germans have their Panzers And eighty-eights and flak, We are armed with courage And the veiled threat “not one step back.” Comrade Stalin’s likely smoking Surrounded by his guard, His pawns kill and are killed in kind For each sacred Russian yard. The Commissars have machine guns And pistols by their side, They shoot “cowards” and “retreaters” Blood for blood for Stalin’s pride. They gathered our whole division Together in the square, The Red Banner urged us forward To whence we did not care. Our charge was surely gallant And our bayonets looked frightening, But we did not impress the Germans Whose helmets bore the double lightening. I was the only one left charging All around me bullets cracking, I had two shots left as I topped the trench- They would not find me lacking. A patrol found me the next Monday Frozen solid where I’d fallen, No shots left in my Nagant I’d spent them for Comrade Stalin. They stripped me of my equipment And dumped me in a shallow hole, A shell dug me up the same day Now all that’s left is my soul. They reformed our division But never told them our tale, We were not to be spoken of For our gallant charge had failed. And it seems I cannot leave this earth Though I’ve long taken my last breath, For in my month at Stalingrad I’d died a thousand deaths. I watch 3 divisions gather For a mass charge in the square, They say they’ll follow the Banner into hell But they are already there. I was conscripted to the Guard To death I served it still, Mother Russia, Comrade Stalin, I’ve paid your butcher’s bill. [comments] => 2 [counter] => 193 [topic] => 57 [informant] => scott [notes] => [ihome] => 0 [alanguage] => english [acomm] => 0 [haspoll] => 0 [pollID] => 0 [score] => 0 [ratings] => 0 [editpoem] => 1 [associated] => [topicname] => war )
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