20151117 (tragic relief)

Nothing like the colorful almost festive Crimean War to help one forget Paris

Like all early reports of tragic

Affairs the news from Paris

Grew more confused less

Reliable as the event developed

I decided to give it a rest instead

Gave my mind to a British three

Part series on the Crimean war

Of which I remembered very little

From a college course in world

History some vague lines spoken 

In a play at the Cleveland Play

House in the late seventies 

And a passing acquaintance 

With The Charge of the Light Brigade

Like a visit to a colorful romantic

Fabled country where European

States ventured to become empires

Schemed and plotted against each

Other in Hollywood costumes of

Bright golden flouncy epaulets

Red pantaloons worn with

Flamboyant blue jackets the Brits

Showed up in same red eye-grabbing

Garb they wore fighting their

Rebellious American cousins

All this raffish splendor made

Sense on a battlefield where

Smokeless gunpowder had yet

To appear after a few volleys

Thick acrid clouds blanketed

Most of the battlefield one 

Took care not to bayonet

Warriors wearing the same outfits

As oneself these were wars where

Officers stood on high ground

Accompanied perhaps by nobles

Eager to witness the fray even a

Young officer’s wife the battles

Took place on vast fields

Charges and feints appeared

From the heights much like

Broad arrows on modern maps

Plucky lads with a knack for 

Finding just the right man in 

The melee without getting 

Stabbed by an overeager

Soave ran scribbled notes for 

Changes in strategy down to field

Officers commanding officers

Were rotated every few days

To allow rest and recreation

In tent cities miles away to

Sip tea regret losses at leisure

The young Leo Tolstoy wrote 

Dispatches back to the czar and

The Russian hoi polloi I’ll spare you

Reports of the mindless mayhem

The slaughter uninterrupted

Except for the corpse removal

Truces which were strictly

Honored on each side enemy

Officers saluting each other in 

Victorian politesse occasionally

Exchanging greetings while their 

Exhausted grunts piled bodies on 

Horse drawn wagons the ancillary

Work of war went on amidst the 

Sick odors of gunpowder

Smell of blood dead rotting

Horses men many pleading

To be killed where they lay

One might say it was quite a

Tidy little war one million soldiers

Civilians killed by cannons

Bullets cholera exposure stupid

Administrative errors had

Winter wear delivered in time 

For spring one badly worded

Strategic note annihilated the

Futile but legendary six hundred

The famous poem composed

By a man who was not on the

Scene

c. J.S.Manista, 2015