Hi all who've made comments (and all who're reading!)

Thanks for all you've all said! As peoples mouses have been clicked and 
comments have been offered, I've learnt a lot about what I can't say, and 
how I can't say things - as well as what I'm trying to say!

I guess the main stimulus to write this has come from reading some essays by 
Joseph Brodsky, about Mandlestam and Ahkmatova, and getting a flavour of 
what it must have been like in the kind of totalitarian state Russia used to 
be. But, I began to recognise, when I was writing it, that our so-called 
free society has plenty enough restrictions and we, too, need to spread 
rumours about things that matter, freedoms that have been restricted or 
curtailed - ironically, the new restrictions are justified in the name of 
Freedom!
(As an aside… I took part in the launch of an anthology a few days after 
9-11, where the Editor was stressing that how “all” people – no matter what 
their locale or ethnicity - had been welcome to submit poems… and one or two 
of us, independently, had the thought: should we not say “I’m a member of 
such-and-such a group,” but say, “I’m a member of the Taliban…” We didn’t 
say that! But we each knew why we wanted to say it!).

So, Sue, I’m glad you could associate it with folk you recall seeing in a 
hospital. And, Sandre, I like the way the poem makes you feel about what 
could be going on. If you’ve been reading through what grasshopper and I 
have been saying that may explain why I’ve eventually opted to put it into 
the 3rd person. (And, Christina, I've just checked out Helen Clare's poem. 
It's one of those that starts with a "You" part - and then ends with an "I" 
part! It's amazing how intense such poems, poems that work between "You" and 
"I," can become.)

You raise interesting points, too, Gary…
If I broke the lines as you suggest – working with each rhythmical short 
phrase on an independent line - I find I’ve got a poem that looks, and 
feels, far too long… I find I’m then getting distracted by things and I feel 
that it takes so long to read through. (In long-lined poems, tho, I’ve 
sometimes found that a few of the lines are “a line of two halves” – but 
there’s also plenty of lines that flow through the whole length as well.) It 
might be that you noticed these phrases because, previously in the poem, 
I’ve been detailing what the person in the poem is doing (that’s one 
approach to writing a poem) and here I’ve switched to what the person is 
seeing. I love the way Frank O’Hara does that – and then, as well as writing 
in the first person, he also moves easily or enigmatically into his own 
internal thoughts – and I recognise I’m not as subtle, or audacious, as he 
is in doing it.
And replacing the word “trembling” by “trembles” (in respect of the guy’s 
heart) is something I’ve seriously considered already (Ha, I’ve even played 
with using a simile, like a jelly!) and – because this is a very active part 
of the narrative (not passive) so I think I’ll be taking your advice!

I guess it’s now shaping up a little more OK than when I first pressed this 
mouse’s bum and sent it off to splat your screens. I’m grateful.

And the part of the poem that looks around at people and then offers the 
similarity of what's going on to people when they're faced with Uzi’s, 
Christina. Yeh, it could be that I’ve shuffled into sentimentalism, or, at 
least, leant a tad too close to a cliché with what I’m picturing here... 
H'm, when I think about it, I’m now realising how many times I've seen this 
in films and on news reports – plenty! I guess I may need something that 
maybe keeps the echoes of how we're controlled - but makes its own sounds, 
offers its own picture. (I've got long train journey's tomorrow so - if I 
can manage to keep away from folk with card-games and cans - I'll see what 
turns up!)

Bob

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