Les Murray - Troop Train Returning

There’s as much reflection in the going to war as there is in the coming home.  And this is how I would like to introduce a poet I admire and one of Australia’s greatest contemporary poets, Les Murray.  Les is a prolific writer who has written more than most people could ever wish to achieve.  Though for all of that, he is a controversial figure in Australian literature.  He’s made himself that way by being outspoken, critical of academics in the literary world, critical of the city upper-class throughout Australia’s history, champion of the battling country folk, the marginalised, the oppressed.  I see parallels between Les’s view on the world and that of Charles Bukowski – both appear to come from deprived, difficult child-hoods.  Except in Les Murray’s case, a truly gifted intellect took him on to university and established academic success.  Les Murray writes great descriptive poetry through which the exact use of words and perfect turn of phrase paints an emotional image of the scenes he describes in his writing.  Les grew up in the country, near Taree in New South Wales.  Consequently, many of his poems are set in the bush and rural surroundings.  His poem, Troop Train Returning is fitting for our ANZAC day remembrance.  It describes the mood of Aussie soldiers, the survivors of WWII, on the final leg of returning to homes out west to pick up their lives, wheat belt towns, sheep, cattle farms and properties.  What’s amazing about this poem, is that Les Murray obviously wrote it from imagination, not personal experience.  And he wrote it when he was a young man (maybe influenced by the cinemascope, picture theatre news reels of his day).  Anybody who has driven the miles, followed the rail tracks, the telephone lines, crossed the cattle grids linking outback towns like, Dalby, Walgett, Winton, Mildura, Cloncurry, Quilpie or Hay will know that Les has nailed it in, Troop Train Returning.

 

Troop Train Returning

Les Murray (1938 – )

 

Beyond the Divide

the days become immense,

beyond our war

in the level lands of wheat,

the things that we defended are still here,

the willow-trees pruned neatly cattle-high,

the summer roads where far-back bullock drays

foundered in earth and mouldered into yarns.

From a ringbarked tree, as we go cheering by

a tower and a whirlwind of white birds,

as we speed by

with a whistle for the plains.

On kitbags in the aisle, old terrors doze,

clumsy as rifles in a peacetime train.

 

Stopped at a siding

under miles of sun,

I watched a friend I mightn’t see again

shyly shake hands, becoming a civilian,

and an old Ford truck

receding to the sky.

 

I walk about.  The silo, tall as Time,

casts on bright straws its coldly southward shade.

 

All things are spaced out here

each in its value.

the pepper-trees beside the crossroads pub

are dim with peace,

pumpkins are stones

in fields so loosely green.

 

In a little while, I’ll be afraid to look

out for my house and the people that I love,

they have been buried in the moon so long.

 

Beyond all wars

in the noonday lands of wheat,

the whistle summons shouters from the bar,

refills the train with jokes and window noise.

this perfect plain

casts out the things we’ve done

as we jostle here, relaxed as farmers, smoking,

held at this siding

till the red clicks green.

 

My contribution to this post is also written from imagination – imagination of a young man who went to war from a Queensland country town but did not return.  Jimmy Oliver (QX13185) was my grandmother’s young brother.  He enlisted with the 8^th Division, 2/10 Field Regiment, fall of Singapore, prisoner of war, died in Sandakan, Borneo, a mere five months before the Japanese surrendered.  My poem has no title, but it comes from my mother as a little girl recalling a time when Jimmy visited the farm on leave.  I can only imagine his pride and excitement of having already tasted city life beyond the Pioneer Valley and now off to adventure overseas ………

 

1941, Friday, 3rd January          The Commanding Officer received a telephone communication.  All pre-embarkation leave must be completed by the 21^st January

 

They sent Fred and me home on leave

together,

five days, two days

travel time,

I went to visit mum and dad’s grave

before taking the rail motor to Finch Hatton,

looked so forward to catching up,

me in my dress uniform,

and the world beyond

cane paddocks and scrub,

never realized before,

how warm feeling,

distant

kerosene lamp glow gives,

at night from a farm window,

far off,

seems out of touch now,

comfortable and beckoning,

but regretful,

when you know the true brightness.

After only a day

I was eager to get back,

Jess and Rachael talked into the night,

Steve doesn’t understand

or George

I think May was proud of me,

the night stayed at their place

on the Gargett farm,

poor Les itching to get into it,

said my final good-byes.....

                                                   J. O. White

 

 

Bruce Dawe - anti war poems.

I want to continue with Bruce Dawe and poems showing his familiarity with the military.  This one is called, ‘weapons training’.  When you read it you are left in no doubt that Bruce has been part of a squad (all male) receiving instruction from a tough drill sergeant or quarter master gunner with a touch of mongrel in him, like how they used to be.  From the poem you would think maybe this is Bruce taking the ‘mickey’ out of the military system and military instruction.  But I don’t think it is.  I don’t think it’s as much the satire as it first appears.  It certainly comes across as mockingly humorous with impossible personal insults, racial slurs, low level language and cheap gags.  But Bruce hasn’t made anything up here, he has not created a pretend character with pretend lines.  Nor has he created the sequence of the training session.  This is reality.  Every word, every sentence in 'weapons training' is exactly as a drill instructor (from the 1960’s, 1970’s) would have said it.  I find it’s another example of the poet listening carefully to conversation, finding the language colourful and entertaining, and then crafting it into a great poem.  The other reality thread that runs through the poem is the style and sequence of instruction.  Trainers know that there are set steps in a lesson plan – gain attention; state the objectives; link to previous learning, etc, etc.  'weapons training' is a true example of how a military instructor might have delivered a training session given the circumstances and the audience for which it was delivered back in those times.  The reason for training in weapons training, if not in preparation for deployment to Vietnam, is certainly structured with the Vietnam experience in mind (Charlies are coming ..; cockpit drill when you go down ..; mob of the little yellows ..).  In that sense, the consequence of poor performance is extreme, this is life and death stuff (dead dead dead).  The instructor knows this (may even have done his tour).  In terms of his Situational Leadership model (used by the military) he’s got a group at ‘task readiness’ level 1.  That means he’s the one who will do the talking and the others will shut up and listen.  It takes the first eight and a half lines for the instructor to establish his leadership position by singling out likely troublemakers and belittling them so everybody knows their position (no time for political correctness or hurt feelings when it could be you or your mates who get killed, while you thought it would be fun to dick around).  Then the lesson can start, ‘remember first ….’  The instructor’s tone becomes a little friendlier.  He’s set the boundaries.  Now he needs to inject a bit of humour to soften the reality of what these people may face in the field.  The final lines of the poem deal with practice and feedback where the skill is not yet mastered and the trainer paints the mental picture of the consequences of failure – too slow! too slow! dead dead dead.

Interpretation of 'weapons training' is one thing, but what I find more interesting is how it is constructed.  Bruce Dawe seems to have rendered a whole bunch of drill instructor sayings and one liner’s into a single, natural presentation that still manages great rhythm and ryhme.  The things I notice immediately in the poem are, only one capital letter; no commas, no full stops, extra word spacing used to indicate a pause mid-line, and the rhyming is there but so not obvious – ends up as a number of quatrains joined together.  On the syllable count it appears to follow five beats to the line (pentameter, classic) (iambic? maybe).

weapons training

(Bruce Dawe, 1930 - )

And when / I say / eyes right / I want  / to hear

those eyeballs click and the gentle pitter-patter

of falling dandruff    you there what’s the matter

why are you looking at me   are you a queer?

look to your front    if you had one more brain

it’d be lonely    what are you laughing at

you in the back row with the unsightly fat

between your elephant ears    open that drain

you call a mind and listen    remember first

the cockpit drill when you go down    be sure

the old crown jewels are safely tucked away   what could be more

distressing than to hold off with a burst

from your trusty weapon a mob of the little yellows

only to find back home because of your position

your chances of turning the key in the ignition

considerably reduced?    allright now suppose

for the sake of argument you’ve got

a number-one blockage and a brand-new pack

of Charlies are coming at you   you can smell their rotten

         fish-sauce breath hot on the back

of your stupid neck allright now what

are you going to do about it?   that’s right grab and check

the magazine man it’s not a woman’s tit

worse luck or you’d be set    too late you nit

they’re on you and your tripes are round your neck

you’ve copped the bloody lot just like I said

and you know what you are?   you’re dead dead dead
 

For my poem and its’ link to the poet, I’m posting two that are more inspired by ‘homecoming’ than by ‘weapons training’.  I wish I’d listened more to what the drill instructors were saying.  These two poems belong together.  They are not anti-war poems, rather an expression of the senselessness of a person getting killed in these non-war conflicts and a protest against the way the deaths are reported in a statistical manner.  I don’t know why, but I find I’m developing a dislike of stats – cold, hard figures that de-humanise, but broach no argument because they are the facts and everything has to be measured, somehow.

 

2004.  The evening news carries an item informing us that today the one thousandth American soldier was killed in Iraq.  This milestone was reached in less than twelve months since the invasion.

 

                                              The 1 Thousandth

 

Three soldiers were killed in the latest incident

Involving an ambush or suicide bomb or fire fight

Fought along a rubble littered street in Baghdad

But he was singled out as the 1 thousandth.

One thousand blood-smeared, sagging body bags

Lifted at the corners by four thousand buddies

Who remember from boot camp

One thousand NCO’s of the platoon,

Two thousand parents,

Four thousand grand parents

Three thousand brothers and sisters, give or take

The three thousand uncles and aunts,

Six thousand cousins

A thousand wives, sweethearts, girlfriends or lovers

Hug the 4 hundredth child

To have his daddy taken away

In one thousand caskets draped with one thousand flags.

 

2012.  I’m watching TV as I do every night; walk in from work, get a glass of wine, put on ‘Who wants to be a millionaire’ or ‘Deal or No Deal’. Then the news comes on, and I know there was another casualty in Afghanistan (Cpl Scott Smith). A photo of the young soldier is displayed while the standard words are read out – so official, the Prime Minister’s deep sorrow; successful operation; struck a telling blow; disruption to the Taliban – not in vain. And always there’s the obsession with ‘stats’. This is a report of a young life sacrificed on behalf of the free, civilised world’s stand against terrorism, not a bloody number. Say something human for crying out loud! Moving right along, there’s a final insult when the report breaks to an ad with cartoon figures acting out the benefits of chewing Extra gum after you’ve eaten.

                                                  Becoming a Statistic

 

It bursts,

Usually listening to Radio National and then carried

on the 6 o’clock television news channels,

Carried on shoulders, on a C-130 Hercules,

Following the ramp ceremony at Tarin Kowt,

 

The 39^{th Australian}

 

soldier in total since 2002,

To be killed in action in Afghanistan

is shown as he was half turned, seated

in the bush-master turret,

In the studio shot now frozen

to his poor parents mantle-piece,

 

The 18^{th Member}

 

of Special Forces,

To sigh, so young, just a kid

in need of a shave and a haircut,

and a hug, what a shame,

 

The 6^{th Elite Soldier}

 

to be killed by an insurgent IED, and

 

The 15^{th Digger}

 

overall, from IED’s.

 

Then having dealt with the statistics,

The nation returns the audience

to a most ridiculous ad break,

Knowing it’s all over ……. and we can move on,

“Bad boys! bad boys!,

What-cha gonna chew?

What-cha gonna chew,

When they come for you?

Bad boys! bad boys!”

                                                                                 J.O. White