Please could you proofread my poem

[Bassim]

WELL-BUILT HEALTHY YOUNG MEN


One day some well-dressed men came to my grandfather's village

looking for the well-built healthy young men.

They went from house to house the whole day,

and found only four who had satisfied their criteria.

My grandfather was one of them.


They drove them to the town together with other well built healthy young men from nearby villages,

and gathered them in a large building with thick walls and tall windows.

They ordered them to take off their farmer's clothes

and instead clothed them in thick grey uniforms which smelled strange for the young men.

They gave them a rifle each and sent them away to practice shooting and killing by bayonet,

shouting at them all the time in a foreign language they did not understand.


One day they were transported like cattle to a distant country they never heard about before.

There they met other men from Europe-well-built and healthy like themselves.

They were ordered to dig trenches in the deep frozen land and they were told that the Kaiser loved them all.

When my grandfather heard grenades exploding and his wounded comrades crying in agony he almost shit himself.

His hands were used to a hoe, a rake and a scythe, he did not know that one could cut humans like grass.


When asked what he remembered best from the war, his eyes would look in distance and he would say,

Someone spread the rumours that anyone died unclean would never enter Paradise.

So every morning before the sunrise one could watch hundreds of half-naked men,

trudging barefoot through the frozen snow,breaking the ice, performing their ablutions in cold water

and praying to God before marching into human made inferno.

[Gillnetter]

WELL-BUILT HEALTHY YOUNG MEN


One day some well-dressed men came to my grandfather's village

looking for the well-built healthy young men.

They went from house to house the whole day,

and found only four who had satisfied their criteria.

My grandfather was one of them.


They drove them to the town together with other well built healthy young men from nearby villages,

and gathered them in a large building with thick walls and tall windows.

They ordered them to take off their farmer's clothes

and instead clothed them in thick grey uniforms which smelled strange for the young men.

They gave them a rifle each and sent them away to practice shooting and killing by bayonet,

shouting at them all the time in a foreign language they did not understand.


One day they were transported like cattle to a distant country they never heard about before.

There they met other men from Europe-well-built and healthy like themselves.

They were ordered to dig trenches in the deep frozen land and they were told that the Kaiser loved them all.

When my grandfather heard grenades exploding and his wounded comrades crying in agony he almost shit himself.

His hands were used to a hoe, a rake and a scythe, he did not know that one could cut humans like grass.


When asked what he remembered best from the war, his eyes would look in distance and he would say,

Someone spread the rumours that anyone died unclean would never enter Paradise.

So every morning before the sunrise one could watch hundreds of half-naked men,

trudging barefoot through the frozen snow,breaking the ice, performing their ablutions in cold water

and praying to God before marching into human made inferno.

Poetry is a difficult form to master. It is said that good poetry is literature with everything but the truth strained out. See it as distilled language. A written image has to be so strong as to attract the reader and let the reader know that he has been in the presence of truth. Consider the following poem by Auden -
The Unknown Citizen
(To JS/07/M/378 This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State)He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to beOne against whom there was no official complaint,And all the reports on his conduct agreeThat, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.Except for the War till the day he retiredHe worked in a factory and never got fired,But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,For his Union reports that he paid his dues,(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)And our Social Psychology workers foundThat he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every dayAnd that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declareHe was fully sensible to the advantages of the Installment PlanAnd had everything necessary to the Modern Man,A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.Our researchers into Public Opinion are contentThat he held the proper opinions for his time of year;When there was peace, he was for peace; when there was war, he went.He was married and added five children to the population,Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.-- W H Auden
Though it is not all that important, look for the rhymes in the poem. You might want to attempt to modify your poem by following this example.