Requiem for a Forgotten Brother

[Amadeus]

More and more do I find myself
thinking of the space that should have
been filled by those we left
behind.

Names forgotten and untold, brothers
hidden, ushered away into
a distant corner of a foreign
field.

And I think of how our
fathers were betrayed, and
how they betrayed the
father of another -
a gun with one solitary bullet, and a
front line shooting holes into glass.

Here is a mouse -
heart of a lion,
controlled by a lion,
but one less humble.

But, when the trumpet sounds
its gaudy call, and the
pale horse paces the molten
field, its rider will be our
brother. And then the lion will
remember the mouse
who pulled out the thorn
from his paw, and the mouse will
wash his wound again.

[dedalus]

I think people (writers) need to be very very sensitive to the language and style of past generations when they try to write about them in the present time.

This may seem like an oblique criticism, but it cuts to the heart of this poem.

[Amadeus]

I think people (writers) need to be very very sensitive to the language and style of past generations when they try to write about them in the present time.

This may seem like an oblique criticism, but it cuts to the heart of this poem.

thanks for the feedback dedalus. Would you mind elucidating a bit more please?

[spencer_broughton]

Hi there,

Just a structural thing, I'm not sure about this stanza:

Here is a mouse -
heart of a lion,
controlled by a lion,
but one less humble.

It's just that rhyming lion with lion jars abit in this sense. It sounds very repetitive. It's so tricky to rhyme the same words together without it looking too obvious. A really good example of getting it right is Yeats:

HAD I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

He continuously rhymes cloths with cloths, light with light, feet with feet etc but you don't even notice it's so subtle. I think that one line gap is essential.

Anyway it's just a thought!

[Wabznasm]

There is some good imagery in this, in particular the

and the
pale horse paces the molten
field

The antithesis of the molten field to the pale horse alleviates the cliche that could have been present in the horse - I like that.

The mood of the poem suits the subject. It's obviously a passing reflection and the understatement of it helps that. For instance the "But," changes an otherwise heroic line.

I would have to say though, that I agree with dedalus. This poem is ostensibly set in the present, but the mentions of the battlefield and the use of words like "betrayed" make it feel anachronistic. While the idiom is reasonably modern, the language used to evoke feelings and thoughts about the war (that's of course if I only look at it in war terms) is too strong. It really doesn't fit in and feels presumptuous. It is, perhaps, a little insensitive as instead of being a modern interpretation of the old generation, it's more an assumption of what the feelings were at the time.

Perhaps changing the "betrayed" stanza into something more indefinite? Reflecting on the fact that you don't really know.

The final concluding part on the lion and mouse is a nice touch though and turns the initial metaphor in an interesting way.

I hope all of that helps - the poem has some great touches.
Dave

[Amadeus]

Thank you all for the feedback

[kozmikdave]

I didn't find the poem at all offensive. Betrayal is a common theme during recounts of Gallipoli, and several other lost battles. Many soldiers were mere cannon fodder - still are. One of my old mates (now gone) used to cry at his memories of the faces of the young German lads as they flew low over the trenches to bomb Berlin and there was a feeling that the enemy were mere children sent into battle.

This poem struck a chord with me on those levels. I understood the mouse-lion thing that also happened and wondered how it was supposed to fit my understaning of the emotions dredged up by the previous lines. I shall have to think about that some more, for perhaps I have missed the point.

Cheers
Dave