View unanswered posts | View active topics
Author |
Message |
Marion Arnott
|
Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 10:50 pm |
|
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 am Posts: 3347
|
I was away for the weekend so I've only just seen this, Richard. I enjoyed the harvest metaphor very much, especially the bullets stem and blooms., and the threshing and baling.
'rid'st' - for me, the one wrong note. Is there anything else you could put there if you agree?
|
|
Top |
|
 |
Richard
|
Posted: Tue Nov 12, 2013 8:38 am |
|
Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2007 10:57 pm Posts: 90
|
Yes I'd agree about that word which had concerned me too, have now made an improvement I think. Thanks for the critique!
_________________ "It's too short!
We need more monkeys! "
|
|
Top |
|
 |
Marion Arnott
|
Posted: Tue Nov 12, 2013 7:24 pm |
|
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 am Posts: 3347
|
I'm a good monkey! What did you put in?
|
|
Top |
|
 |
Richard
|
Posted: Tue Nov 12, 2013 10:41 pm |
|
Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2007 10:57 pm Posts: 90
|
I replaced 'amidst' and 'rid'st' with 'fields' and 'yields' which both work while retaining the pattern of imagery nicely and seem more natural as choices, then replaced the later, now repeated 'fields' with 'rows' in l.7 The latter substitution helps the alliteration along some as well as adding to the internal rhyming scheme.
_________________ "It's too short!
We need more monkeys! "
|
|
Top |
|
 |
Marion Arnott
|
Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2014 8:27 pm |
|
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 am Posts: 3347
|
Field Manual
Kevin Powers
Think not of battles, but rather after, when the tremor in your right leg becomes a shake you cannot stop, when the burned man's tendoned cheeks are locked into a scream that, before you sank the bullet in his brain to end it, had been quite loud. Think of how he still seems to scream. Think of not caring. Call this "relief."
Think heat waves rising from the dust. Think days of rest, how the sergeant lays the .22 into your palm and says the dogs outside the wire have become a threat to good order and to discipline: some boys have taken them as pets, they spread disease, they bit a colonel preening for a TV crew.
Think of afternoons in T-shirt and shorts, the unending sun, the bite of sweat in eyes. Think of missing so often it becomes absurd. Think quick pop, yelp, then puckered fur. Think skinny ribs. Think smell. Think almost reaching grief, but not quite getting there.
|
|
Top |
|
 |
Marion Arnott
|
Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2014 4:10 pm |
|
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 am Posts: 3347
|
Canoe
Well, I am thinking this may be my last
summer, but cannot lose even a part
of pleasure in the old-fashioned art
of idleness. I cannot stand aghast
at whatever doom hovers in the background:
while grass and buildings and the somnolent river,
who know they are allowed to last forever,
exchange between them the whole subdued sound
of this hot time. What sudden fearful fate
can deter my shade wandering next year
from a return? Whistle and I will hear
and come again another evening, when this boat
travels with you alone toward Iffley:
as you lie looking up for thunder again,
this cool touch does not betoken rain;
it is my spirit that kisses your mouth lightly.
Keith Douglas
|
|
Top |
|
 |
Marion Arnott
|
Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2014 7:19 pm |
|
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 am Posts: 3347
|
|
Top |
|
 |
Marion Arnott
|
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 11:18 pm |
|
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 am Posts: 3347
|
The Christmas Truce
Christmas Eve in the trenches of France, the guns were quiet. The dead lay still in No Man's Land – Freddie, Franz, Friedrich, Frank . . . The moon, like a medal, hung in the clear, cold sky.
Silver frost on barbed wire, strange tinsel, sparkled and winked. A boy from Stroud stared at a star to meet his mother's eyesight there. An owl swooped on a rat on the glove of a corpse.
In a copse of trees behind the lines, a lone bird sang. A soldier-poet noted it down – a robin holding his winter ground – then silence spread and touched each man like a hand.
Somebody kissed the gold of his ring; a few lit pipes; most, in their greatcoats, huddled, waiting for sleep. The liquid mud had hardened at last in the freeze.
But it was Christmas Eve; believe; belief thrilled the night air, where glittering rime on unburied sons treasured their stiff hair. The sharp, clean, midwinter smell held memory.
On watch, a rifleman scoured the terrain – no sign of life, no shadows, shots from snipers, nowt to note or report. The frozen, foreign fields were acres of pain.
Then flickering flames from the other side danced in his eyes, as Christmas Trees in their dozens shone, candlelit on the parapets, and they started to sing, all down the German lines.
Men who would drown in mud, be gassed, or shot, or vaporised by falling shells, or live to tell, heard for the first time then – Stille Nacht. Heilige Nacht. Alles schläft, einsam wacht …
Cariad, the song was a sudden bridge from man to man; a gift to the heart from home, or childhood, some place shared … When it was done, the British soldiers cheered.
A Scotsman started to bawl The First Noel and all joined in, till the Germans stood, seeing across the divide, the sprawled, mute shapes of those who had died.
All night, along the Western Front, they sang, the enemies – carols, hymns, folk songs, anthems, in German, English, French; each battalion choired in its grim trench.
So Christmas dawned, wrapped in mist, to open itself and offer the day like a gift for Harry, Hugo, Hermann, Henry, Heinz … with whistles, waves, cheers, shouts, laughs.
Frohe Weinachten, Tommy! Merry Christmas, Fritz! A young Berliner, brandishing schnapps, was the first from his ditch to climb. A Shropshire lad ran at him like a rhyme.
Then it was up and over, every man, to shake the hand of a foe as a friend, or slap his back like a brother would; exchanging gifts of biscuits, tea, Maconochie's stew,
Tickler's jam … for cognac, sausages, cigars, beer, sauerkraut; or chase six hares, who jumped from a cabbage-patch, or find a ball and make of a battleground a football pitch.
I showed him a picture of my wife. Ich zeigte ihm ein Foto meiner Frau. Sie sei schön, sagte er. He thought her beautiful, he said.
They buried the dead then, hacked spades into hard earth again and again, till a score of men were at rest, identified, blessed. Der Herr ist mein Hirt … my shepherd, I shall not want.
And all that marvellous, festive day and night, they came and went, the officers, the rank and file, their fallen comrades side by side beneath the makeshift crosses of midwinter graves …
… beneath the shivering, shy stars and the pinned moon and the yawn of History; the high, bright bullets which each man later only aimed at the sky.
Carol Ann Duffy
|
|
Top |
|
 |
Marion Arnott
|
Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2014 6:01 pm |
|
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 am Posts: 3347
|
Mesopotamia
1917
Rudyard Kiplin
THEY shall not return to us, the resolute, the young, The eager and whole-hearted whom we gave: But the men who left them thriftily to die in their own dung, Shall they come with years and honour to the grave?
They shall not return to us; the strong men coldly slain In sight of help denied from day to day: But the men who edged their agonies and chid them in their pain, Are they too strong and wise to put away?
Our dead shall not return to us while Day and Night divide– Never while the bars of sunset hold. But the idle-minded overlings who quibbled while they died, Shall they thrust for high employments as of old?
Shall we only threaten and be angry for an hour: When the storm is ended shall we find How softly but how swiftly they have sidled back to power By the favour and contrivance of their kind?
Even while they soothe us, while they promise large amends, Even while they make a show of fear, Do they call upon their debtors, and take counsel with their friends, To conform and re-establish each career?
Their lives cannot repay us–their death could not undo– The shame that they have laid upon our race. But the slothfulness that wasted and the arrogance that slew, Shell we leave it unabated in its place?
|
|
Top |
|
 |
Marion Arnott
|
Posted: Mon Nov 10, 2014 12:05 pm |
|
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 am Posts: 3347
|
Hymn After Battle
I Lord of this blood-drenched battle plain, Lord of the foe our hands have slain Glory to Thee amidst the dead, That Thou hast still Thy people led, And shattered thus, O Lord benign, This people that was also Thine!
Lord of our high, triumphant state, Lord of the hearths made desolate -- Shall they not praise Thee, they that rue Beside those hearths the dead we slew? Yea, at Thine altar let them bow, God of their dead and them art Thou!
Lord of the darkness and the sun, While we give thanks for victory won, Surely each blackening wound that gapes Here in these broken human shapes, Mouths but its praise of all Thy powers! Thou wert their God no less than ours.
II Yet is it well that men to-day Recrown their fathers' god of clay? Yet is it well that from his sleep The savage in our blood should leap To flatter from this reeking sod The spirit of his primal god?
Nay, we were best be mute, and raise No blasphemy of boastful praise, Scatter no incense on the air, Nor lift our reddened hands in prayer, But dig the earth our steps defame, And hide these trophies of our shame.
Silence the braggart lips that call The brute that slumbers in us all Back to the ravening triumph foul Of rending claws and bloody jowl -- Lest we forget the heights sublime, And lapse into our ancient slime.
Arthur St. John Adcock
|
|
Top |
|
 |
Marion Arnott
|
Posted: Thu Jun 11, 2015 12:28 am |
|
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 am Posts: 3347
|
Liberté
On my school notebooks On my desk and on the trees On the sands of snow I write your name
On the pages I have read On all the white pages Stone, blood, paper or ash I write your name
On the images of gold On the weapons of the warriors On the crown of the king I write your name
On the jungle and the desert On the nest and on the brier On the echo of my childhood I write your name
On all my scarves of blue On the moist sunlit swamps On the living lake of moonlight I write your name
On the fields, on the horizon On the birds’ wings And on the mill of shadows I write your name
On each whiff of daybreak On the sea, on the boats On the demented mountaintop I write your name
On the froth of the cloud On the sweat of the storm On the dense rain and the flat I write your name
On the flickering figures On the bells of colors On the natural truth I write your name
On the high paths On the deployed routes On the crowd-thronged square I write your name
On the lamp which is lit On the lamp which isn’t On my reunited thoughts I write your name
On a fruit cut in two Of my mirror and my chamber On my bed, an empty shell I write your name
On my dog, greathearted and greedy On his pricked-up ears On his blundering paws I write your name
On the latch of my door On those familiar objects On the torrents of a good fire I write your name
On the harmony of the flesh On the faces of my friends On each outstretched hand I write your name
On the window of surprises On a pair of expectant lips In a state far deeper than silence I write your name
On my crumbled hiding-places On my sunken lighthouses On my walls and my ennui I write your name
On abstraction without desire On naked solitude On the marches of death I write your name
And for the want of a word I renew my life For I was born to know you To name you
Liberty.
Paul Eluard 1940
|
|
Top |
|
 |
Marion Arnott
|
Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2015 10:49 pm |
|
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 am Posts: 3347
|
Rain By Edward Thomas
Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
For washing me cleaner than I have been
Since I was born into solitude.
Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
But here I pray that none whom once I loved
Is dying tonight or lying still awake
Solitary, listening to the rain,
Either in pain or thus in sympathy
Helpless among the living and the dead,
Like a cold water among broken reeds,
Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
Like me who have no love which this wild rain
Has not dissolved except the love of death,
If love it be towards what is perfect and
Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.
|
|
Top |
|
 |
Marion Arnott
|
Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2015 4:06 pm |
|
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 am Posts: 3347
|
War Poet
I am the man who looked for peace and found My own eyes barbed. I am the man who groped for words and found An arrow in my hand. I am the builder whose firm walls surround A slipping land. When I grow sick or mad Mock me not nor chain me; When I reach for the wind Cast me not down Though my face is a burnt book And a wasted town.
Sidney Keyes
|
|
Top |
|
 |
Marion Arnott
|
Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2015 6:16 pm |
|
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 am Posts: 3347
|
Goodbye (1942)
Alun Lewis
So we must say Goodbye, my darling, And go, as lovers go, for ever; Tonight remains, to pack and fix on labels And make an end of lying down together. I put a final shilling in the gas, And watch you slip your dress below your knees And lie so still I hear your rustling comb Modulate the autumn in the trees. And all the countless things I shall remember Lay mummy-cloths of silence round my head; I fill the carafe with a drink of water; You say ‘We paid a guinea for this bed,’ And then, ‘We’ll leave some gas, a little warmth For the next resident, and these dry flowers,’ And turn your face away, afraid to speak The big word, that Eternity is ours. Your kisses close my eyes and yet you stare As though god struck a child with nameless fears; Perhaps the water glitters and discloses Time’s chalice and its limpid useless tears. Everything we renounce except our selves; Selfishness is the last of all to go; Our sighs are exhalations of the earth, Our footprints leave a track across the snow. We made the universe to be our home, Our nostrils took the wind to be our breath, Our hearts are massive towers of delight, We stride across the seven seas of death. Yet when all’s done you’ll keep the emerald I placed upon your finger in the street; And I will keep the patches that you sewed On my old battledress tonight, my sweet.
|
|
Top |
|
 |
Marion Arnott
|
Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2015 10:53 pm |
|
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 am Posts: 3347
|
At A War Grave
No grave is rich, the dust that herein lies Beneath this white cross mixing with the sand Was vital once, with skill of eye and hand And speed of brain. These will not re-arise These riches, nor will they be replaced; They are lost and nothing now, and here is left Only a worthless corpse of sense bereft, Symbol of death, and sacrifice and waste.
John Jarmain
|
|
Top |
|
 |
Who is online |
Users browsing this forum: Bing [Bot] and 1 guest |
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot post attachments in this forum
|
|