So time has left, a little sand inside my glass.
It runs so swiftly still, a tremble formless spark,
Be still, my hands as twitching madly still, as mass
A web of fleshy pulp and veins, so oddly stark.
As age has crept upon me here to see Alsace,
As Muse-Argonne will shade my life to this remark;
A war to end all wars, a life for shells of gas
Yet here inside the shadows of the moving dark.
Be still, I hear a sound inside the swirling mists
A call to squash the nerve of soul and swell the tears,
The only color here of grey and black exists
To catch the wind of stripes and stars, a flash of stairs.
As guns resound the beating drums of taps assists
The souls depart on roads undead and shells of flares.
Let me know How this makes you feel, what do you think?
Comments
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Nice.
The rhyme is an older feel, yet not inferior. The purpose of the first line of a poem, is to require the rest of the poem, and likewise. You did just that, and I applaud you for it.
Now I've read it twice, after my comment above, and your rhyme is impeccable. It's that older style that we don't see these days with the newer poets who have found publishers, yet, they would do well to listen.
Aside from a terrible subject, war is terrible. We see it today, the emotions it sends us through the TV, internet, but for that time period, well said...Hits home with the reader.
You plan to revise? My suggestion would be, only look to the flow, if a fault is to be present. This is fantastic, and a wonderful read. Very rarely do I actually re-read to grasp the rhyme, meaning, and flow of a poem, to not miss it. You MADE me do it, and are better for it.
BLESSINGS,
BRANDON
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This poem is full of stark images, fine rhythm and rhyme, and great use of assonance and alliteration to accentuate and magnify the sounds and horror of war. I have a couple of suggestions.
L1: The way I read this line, I don't think you need the comma after "left".
L 7-8: This reads as an incomplete sentence to me, I suggest you replace the word "Yet" with a verb; moves, lives, stays, whatever makes sense.
Great write!
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Ah, you have conjured the awful and terrible sadness of the War to End All Wars... I don't know World War I more than any other war (with the possible exception of the Civil War, for Americans) seems so unutterably sad...
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