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The Evasive Nation

I crossed the bridge
With muffled footfalls.
Cloaking my caramel skin
Against the harsh white snow

By the border---
Of heavy cold iron and ego
They strip me bare:
My skin shown on opposite spectrum
Of this winter’s day.

They lay their grip
Tight and burning
Over my unfamiliar sounding name
Like an exotic beast they leash their laws
around my naked neck.

I am the dog and they
the masters.
For like a cliché
Of being in Rome
I too must be Roman---

Trashing away my humanity
to walk in all fours
In the name of
The natural order
Of their evasive
nation’s demanding will.



say what you think.

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Reviews


  • William McGarvey
    February 29, 2008

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    Powerful!

    A very powerful piece. I get the sense of someone living under oppression. I truly sympathize with people in those type of situations.

    Good read
    Bill

    . Rewarded 4


    • iphios
      February 29, 2008
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      Yes, it does speak of oppression.Knowing i was able to capture that and you felt the power of it is good to know. Thanks for the time and the comment. Always good to hear from you Bill.

      -iphios


  • gnosisonG
    March 8, 2008

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    Indictment Of Oppression!

    The price of conformity? Suppression of civil liberty and individual freedoms? This is what I gleaned from this; a piece which pulls the reader in with all its first person immediacy, Iphios.
    Since Rome is used nowadays as a metaphor for the USA I gather it´s the growing repression, paranoia, surveillance and fascist tendencies on display in the name of Homeland Security and the way it personally affects the narrator of the poem.
    Let me know if I´m simply reading my own bias into this, please.
    The Evasive Nation. would make f..king brilliant title! if you don´t mind me expletiving.
    Rereading this here and now, Iphios, I wonder if the short line structure might distract a little. Is there over-enjambment here?
    I am noticing a growing body of work on this site concerned with these issues (2084 by Windhover, among others). It seems as though we are tapping into a particularly insiduous zeit-geist.

    Warmest regards

    gGust paranoia?

    . Rewarded 8


    • iphios
      March 8, 2008
      Edit | Reply
      Hi gG,

      I'm glad to find comments from you every time i get to visit the site (as its been rare). You read perfectly. It is about the whole situation, the feeling of their freedom being imposed on others, their concept/ideology as presented to be the only right. Its something i have long wondered about and have been passionate about.
      I liked your title suggestion. I'll use it. And i would definitely take note of the changed in lines. The short lines is how it came in the free write. I might have to check Windhover's poem. Its interesting to read that this subject matter being tackled by others.

      thanks for the read and comment.

      -iphios