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I heard this again on the weekend and it always makes me weep

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    I heard this again on the weekend and it always makes me weep

    Carol Anne Duffy writes poem for Henry Allingham - Telegraph

    The Last Post, by Carol Ann Duffy

    In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
    He plunges at me, guttering, choking droning.
    If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin
    that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud...
    but you get up amazed, watch bled bad blood
    run upwards from the slime into its wounds;
    see lines and lines of British boys rewind
    back to their trenches, kiss the photographs from home -
    mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers
    not entering the story now
    to die and die and die
    Dulce - No - Decorum - No - Pro patria mori
    You walk away.
    You walk away; drop your gun (fixed bayonet)
    like all your mates do too -
    Harry, Tommy, Wilfred, Bert -
    and light a cigarette.
    There's coffee in the square,
    warm French bread
    and all those thousands dead
    are shaking dried mud from their hair
    and queuing up for home. Freshly alive,
    a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released
    from History; the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings.
    You lean against a wall,
    your several million lives still possible
    and crammed with love, work, children talent, English beer, good food.
    You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile.
    If poetry could truly write it backwards,
    then it would.

    #2
    Blimey, I thought I was fed up before!
    Practically perfect in every way....there's a time and (more importantly) a place for malarkey.
    +5 Xeno Cool Points

    Comment


      #3
      Originally posted by MaryPoppins View Post
      Blimey, I thought I was fed up before!
      I thought you seemed a little shirt today Mary! Lol!

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by gricerboy View Post
        I thought you seemed a little shirt today Mary! Lol!
        A little "shirt"?
        Practically perfect in every way....there's a time and (more importantly) a place for malarkey.
        +5 Xeno Cool Points

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by MaryPoppins View Post
          A little "shirt"?
          Oops, I meant to say shirty!

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by gricerboy View Post
            Oops, I meant to say shirty!
            Me calling you a knob? Bit harsh, I admit. Sockie or not, no need for me to be mean.
            Practically perfect in every way....there's a time and (more importantly) a place for malarkey.
            +5 Xeno Cool Points

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by MaryPoppins View Post
              Blimey, I thought I was fed up before!
              sorry wasn't meant to depress you, i think it is beautiful and very clever how she makes it seem like it's going backwards

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by Boudica View Post
                sorry wasn't meant to depress you, i think it is beautiful and very clever how she makes it seem like it's going backwards
                I think it's quite clever but not beautiful, free verse in my opinion doesn't lend itself to beautiful poetry although D H Lawrence comes close. It has no rythmn, even blank verse like Marlowe etc even though it doesn't rhyme has a rythmn due to its iambic pentameter.

                This poem also doesn't make you work too hard with illusion etc, its all put on a plate for you and doesn't have that wistfulness of the great war poets.

                Read Rupert Brookes The soldier and you will see what I mean although by no means have to agree.
                But I discovered nothing else but depraved, excessive superstition. Pliny the younger

                Comment


                  #9
                  I like Carol Ann Duffy. This one's good:

                  Prayer

                  Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
                  utters itself. So, a woman will lift
                  her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
                  at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

                  Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
                  enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
                  then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
                  in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

                  Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
                  console the lodger looking out across
                  a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
                  a child's name as though they named their loss.

                  Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer -
                  Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by MaryPoppins View Post
                    Me calling you a knob? Bit harsh, I admit. Sockie or not, no need for me to be mean.
                    Ok, own up, who's stolen MPs login?

                    Comment

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