Disabled (poem)

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Disabled is a poem written by Wilfred Owen, a World War I poet. Disabled is about a man who lost his limbs in a battle. The poem describes the man's life after the war. It is about how he signed up without thinking and how underappreciated veterans are.

It is not dissimilar to another one of Owen's poems, The Send Off. Owen wrote many poems about the war itself such as Dulce Et Decorum Est, but he also wrote poems like this. Another one was Mental Cases, a poem about what would later be called post-traumatic stress disorder.

In this poem it seemed that Owen wanted to show the world what war did to people. The man in this poem will never be able to play football again, or flirt with women. It is the tale of a man who is essentially dead.

It is also a poem about disablism - the inequality experienced by people 'disabled' by and in modern society. The subject of the poem does not have access to proper services for his needs and is forced to wait to be put to bed at a time when the nurses decide, in an institution that excludes him from mainstream society. He is forced to accept his condition, his impairment, and to accommodate himself to society. Society refuses to adapt itself to his impairment.

[edit] Disabled

He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,

And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,

Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park

Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,

Voices of play and pleasure after day,

Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.

About this time Town used to swing so gay

When glow-lamps budded in the light blue trees,

And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim,-

In the old times, before he threw away his knees.

Now he will never feel again how slim

Girls' waists are, or how warm their subtle hands.

All of them touch him like some queer disease.

There was an artist silly for his face,

For it was younger than his youth, last year.

Now, he is old; his back will never brace;

He's lost his colour very far from here,

Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry,

And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race

And leap of purple spurted from his thigh.

One time he liked a blood-smear down his leg,

After the matches, carried shoulder-high.

It was after football, when he'd drunk a peg,

He thought he'd better join.-He wonders why.

Someone had said he'd look a god in kilts,

That's why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg,

Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts

He asked to join. He didn't have to beg;

Smiling they wrote his lie: aged nineteen years.

Germans he scarcely thought of; all their guilt,

And Austria's, did not move him. And no fears

Of Fear came yet. He thought of jewelled hilts

For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes;

And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;

Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits.

And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers.

Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.

Only a solemn man who brought him fruits

Thanked him; and then inquired about his soul.

Now, he will spend a few sick years in institutes,

And do what things the rules consider wise,

And take whatever pity they may dole.

Tonight he noticed how the women's eyes

Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.

How cold and late it is! Why don't they come

And put him into bed? Why don't they come?