I saw a video, on cable news.
Five men,
twenties, thirties,
blindfolded-
but still I see
powerless
desperate
wet
red
wide
eyes.
Each one still in clothes he once put on
in a safer space-
A sister sipping tea in the backroom.
A cat on a window sill.
The smell of the sun on light cotton curtains.
Now, five men,
together
In a field.
And someone is holding the camera
cinema verte
Daylight.
Told to kneel
together.
And there-
in full medium-long-shot,
each one gets
a bullet
to the back of the head
on his own turn.
The next shot
of the clip-
five bloody headed-bodies
laid out on a sidewalk,
together
in a row.
Eyes
wet
red
wide
open
And kneeling next to each body-
a screaming
grieving
loved one.
Desperate
Powerless
Despair.
I saw this all
from the comfort of my couch
with a cozy afghan
wrapped around my legs,
sipping Sleepy Time tea,
watching cable news
on mute.
To preachy?
Comments
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Okay, I'm back.
No. Not preachy at all. Your use of allusion is wonderful. One of my favorite lines is the bit about clothes being put on in a safer place. Those lines are so simple and yet so incredibly effective at conveying a terrible Dorothy moment of "we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto." Right there you have capture a longing for life, for home and all of the safety it entails and also a grim foreboding that a return is not to be imminent. Then you simply tell the story in a wonderfully barren way that simply tells it like it is without interjecting your own philosophies or sermonizing, you let the story tell itself with all of its stark pain and senseless destruction. This comes across as powerfully as I'm sure the video did, plain and barren truth that forces the reader to confront what pieces of shit we are to turn a blind eye to the suffering that sorrounds us daily, because we can. In our afghan, sipping tea, comfortably.
Nice work.
Allanguage: 4, rhythm: 4, subject: 5, tone: 5, form: 4.
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No...
i think the impact of this poem draws from the stanzas where very few words are used. Also, the possibility of sounding preaching is diluted by the fact that the whole poem simply describes the scene and only gives out the point at the end. Yet the point isn't screamed out as "don't" or "shouldn't." It presents the matter as a contrast between all these violence against the one sitting comfortably watching TV.
I saw a similar video of an execution, almost like what you described and i think you captured the details by simply focusing on the critical events. Interesting read.
-iphios -
This is incredible.
I gotta get to work right now, but I'll be back to give this the review it deserves. I Had to tell you how great this was before I left, though.
Al
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