> Hello Terri,
              Many thanks for your feedback on this one. Glad you liked the description. I´m interested, too, in your response to the ending. I wanted to suggest a sense of regimentation and authority in the phrases `single file´ and `bang of desklids´ to reinforce the images of coercion and control earlier in the poem, the sense of the narrator´s having been to some extent determined by his experience of the education system, but I don´t know whether that comes across at all.



best wishes,   Mike



> Lähettäjä: alderoak <[log in to unmask]>
> Päiväys: 2004/03/15 ma PM 04:21:20 GMT+02:00
> Vastaanottaja: [log in to unmask]
> Aihe: Re: New sub: Soaked
> 
> I love the first five stanzas. Superbly descriptive without spelling it out.
> The smell of wet gabardine is so evocative of my schooldays too.
> 
> I'm not sure about the last stanza. I get the impression that S5 is leading
> up to something but find the last stanza a bit unimpressive as if you are
> not sure what it was you really wanted to say here.
> 
> Terri )O(
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: The Pennine Poetry Works [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
> Of Mike Horwood
> Sent: 15 March 2004 12:10
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: New sub: Soaked
> 
> 
> Soaked
> 
> It was a wet morning in `61 or `2
> when the rain streamed down in rods
> from a grey sky and shattered round our shoes.
> 
> There were jumping pockmarks on a ground
> where we could not separate asphalt from puddle
> on a day before we knew the word `torrential´.
> 
> The playground was deserted and hazy,
> the school entrance a frame for heaving backs
> pushing the blockage in front, and wet, grey socks.
> 
> The jostling mass carried me on to the cloakroom,
> the muggy atmosphere full of the jabber of voices
> and smell of wet gabardine heavy in my nose
> 
> as I squirmed and squeezed along the line
> of uniform navy-blue raincoats to the haven
> of my familiar peg, determined by my rank
> 
> in the height range of my class.
> Then the struggle with belt and sleeves,
> a residual dampness, single file, bang of desk-lids.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mike
>