Arthur,
you're so prodigious, so energetic with yr words and poems!
But the last stanza sounds wrong... to me. Somehow I feel as if what you're
saying ought to hit me with as much energy as all else I've read before it.
The words "that last fifty yards" are so visual - can't they work harder,
can't their be less explanation... I mean we know it was 1944 - so we don't
need to be told it was a (whole) life away... Can't there be more magic,
pain, energy, in bringing us up to date?
Go for it, with poetry you're into winning!
Bob

>From: arthur seeley <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: New sub:Unfinished Mile:1944
>Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 15:07:02 +0100
>
>     The Unfinished Mile: 1944
>
>In borrowed pumps I toed the line,
>seduced to this reckoning by comic books
>and fables of sudden glory.
>
>I was Wilson from the wild moors;
>Wonder Man. I would astonish them all.
>I was eleven.
>
>Around me towered the truth; the stiffened sinews
>and summoned blood of sixth formers,
>sash-haired heroes of their House.
>
>Their disdain questioned my existence.
>The reek and sheen of their embrocation defeated me.
>I did not even smell like a winner.
>
>The shimmering air was rich
>with the balm of cut meadows as I was humiliated
>that hot evening, watched by the whole school
>
>that bayed like hounds, chased
>my narrow back and fluttering number
>round and round the ground.
>
>I padded down corridors of grass
>to trail my shattered fantasies
>into that last long curve of shame
>
>but stepped from the gauntlet of their taunts
>and hid behind the wooden stand
>belittled by their belling, comforted by nettles.
>
>A whole life away yet that last fifty yards
>and the sweet mollification of yarrow
>still mocks all ambition out of me.




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