vergissmeinnicht - keith douglas

• 'three weeks gone'


  temporal marker shows how time goes on, no matter who dies
• 'nightmare ground'


  highlights mental health effect

  everything natural becomes unnatural
• 'soldier sprawling in the sun'


  sibilance creates a calm sound, mocking the soldier
• 'the frowning barrel of his gun'


  the gun has more emotion than the person

  they only view him as his weapon
• 'he hit my tank with one like the entry of a demon'


  places the blame on him even though he did nothing posing him as the enemy
• 'look.'


  imperative implies gloating

  caesura feels heavy and shows their bluntness
• 'steffi. vergissmeinnicht'


  the common name shows its universal

  the only emotion in the whole poem
• 'in a copybook gothic script'


  romanticism: they only see the handwriting, not the meaning behind it
• 'the paper eye'


  highlights delicacy of life

  its also the window to the soul: they can see his sadness but don't care
• 'burst stomach like a cave'


  physical representation of the soldier's lack of emotion
• the title

  its in german to show how they aren't just the enemy, they have feelings too
• structure

  tight traditional structure

  half rhymes create unease about the desensitisation