Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AMMUNITION COLUMN, by GILBERT FRANKAU


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AMMUNITION COLUMN, by                    
First Line: I am only a cog in a giant machine, a link of an endless chain
Last Line: Cog on cog in the gun-machine, link on link in the chain!
Subject(s): Soldiers' Writings; World War I; First World War


I AM only a cog in a giant machine, a link of an endless chain:—
And the rounds are drawn, and the rounds are fired, and the empties return
again;
Railroad, lorry, and limber; battery, column, and park;
To the shelf where the set fuse waits the breech, from the quay where the shells

embark.
We have watered and fed, and eaten our beef; the long dull day drags by,
As I sit here watching our "Archibalds" strafing an empty sky;
Puff and flash on the far-off blue round the speck one guesses the plane—
Smoke and spark of the gun-machine that is fed by the endless chain.

I am only a cog in a giant machine, a little link in the chain,
Waiting a word from the wagon-lines that the guns are hungry again:—
Column-wagon to battery-wagon, and battery-wagon to gun;
To the loader kneeling 'twixt trail and wheel from the shops where the steam-
lathes run.
There's a lone mule braying against the line where the mud cakes fetlock-deep;
There's a lone soul humming a hint of a song in the barn where the drivers
sleep;
And I hear the pash of the orderly's horse as he canters him down the lane—

Another cog in the gun-machine, a link in the selfsame chain.

I am only a cog in a giant machine, but a vital link in the chain;
And the Captain has sent from the wagon-line to fill his wagons again;—
From wagon-limber to gunpit dump; from loader's forearm at breech,
To the working-party that melts away when the shrapnel bullets screech.—
So the restless section pulls out once more in column of route from the right
At the tail of a blood-red afternoon; so the flux of another night
Bears back the wagons we fill at dawn to the sleeping column again ...
Cog on cog in the gun-machine, link on link in the chain!





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net