Terrible Angels - Dannie Abse

From within this poem we see the strong connections of it being about war and the effect it had to people.
From the beginning of the poem in the first stanza we see its a memory for the persona but is also a memory for the man that is telling the story. From "One bedtime, my father showed me his war medals" we see that the persona is recalling on the memory of his father telling him a story of war. We see positive imagery being used with how they state the medals to have "pretty coloured ribbons" therefore suggesting a key object that allows the persona to remember when he was younger. From the lines, "how first their invisible presence cause horses to bolt and flocks of meat-snatching birds to rise" we see that these angels caused a great amount of fear towards men. This could be representing how the enemy caused a great deal of terror towards the soldiers and the attacks that they held on each other were a great deal to make horses bolt. They are all scared and we get the impression that this may be talking about the trenches within the war. "invisible presence" can link to them being within the trenches due to how they are unaware of the men until they are close beside them and having to kill them or be killed themselves. Also with the line, "flocks of meat-snatching birds to rise" we could interpret that the more deaths they cause the more of a feast they will gain by it. Altogether this is protrayed as being very negative and is supported with the line, "circle round and around like a carousel". Due to this similie we can interpret that there was no escape and the men were trapped within war and had no choice but to attack the enemy to get out.

From the use of words "silence of gas" we can see that they were silent killers and that the men died due to gas attacks within the trenches. Some were never able to see the enemy and were killed by a gas as it suffercated them. We also see "when they sang it was shrapnel striking helmets" we get the notion of pain and suffering occuring. The word "shrapnel" is an example of some exposive they used within the war and therefore suggests that there was the worry of being bombed as well. The thought of the "striking helmets" portrays to us that it could be refering to the uniform of German soldiers in the World Wars for they had points on the top of their helmets. From this we could make the impression that they were noticable to be the enemy due to this detail and therefore would help the troops know how to attack due to the differences. We then see that the whole land is filled with pain and the belief of death due to the line "soldiers' prayers and soldiers' screams". All men are scared and therefore all are refering to God to help them escape the madness they have been placed in.
We see the use of an oxymoron with the words "stealthily visible" and therefore suggests to us that the angels could be presented all soldiers murdering each other. From the final line "(My father, invalided home, was told he knew more about angels than was healthy)" we see that he had no choice on returning home for he is no longer a healthy man. He might of been hurt within battle and therefore not able to fight anymore or it could refer to how he has unravelled the fact that the war is filled with murderers and we are turning into evil angels that will not be sent to heaven due to the murder we have done. He has become weak due to not being healthy anymore and therefore states to us that he needs to progress slowly into a human once more.
A poem by Larkin that is ideal to the theme of loss is MCMXIV due to how it represents the effect of war and how it caused people to suffer greatly. Not just the women, children and men at home, but the men fighting on the front.