testing - and still alive!
SallyEon 14/7/04 4:11 pm, hui dewar at [log in to unmask] wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "grasshopper" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, July 12, 2004 11:17 AM
> Subject: Re: newsub/reckoning
>
>
>> Dear Colin,
>> The first thing that struck me is that, with 3 male and unnamed
>> characters,you've got some confusion with the third-person pronoun, which
> I
>> think needs to be addressed.
>> ' the watched boy landed in the couloir
>> till blood dripped from his face like rain.'
>> Did you mean to capitalise Earth in the last strophe?
> NO THIS IS A MISTAKE. THANKS FOR POINTING IT OUT.
>>
>> He landed in the couloir till blood dripped from his face ? That seems to
>> imply he landed several times, which isn't your intention. WELL SPOTTED. I
> COULD ARGUE THAT HE BOUNCED, BUT YOU'RE RIGHT. IT ISN'T MY INTENTION.
>>
>> The poem is weakened by the distancing, I think. We've not even told what
>> the father thought, but of speculation about what he thought, so the poem
>> seems very remote and 'tell-y' to me.
>> Kind regards,
>> grassshopper
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "hui dewar" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Sunday, July 11, 2004 6:14 PM
>> Subject: [THE-WORKS] newsub/reckoning
>>
>>
>>> The reckoning
>>>
>>> Perhaps he was astounded
>>> when the second son wouldn't follow
>>> the same road as the first, but smoked
>>> from the age of ten and injected at twelve,
>>> stashed loot beneath his bed,
>>>
>>> and yet he never thought
>>> why the elder did none of these
>>> but heeded his call to high places,
>>> scarce looked at Cuillin's crest
>>> but sought heaven, as if joy
>>> sprang from the barren rock.
>>>
>>> The old man, widowed as he was
>>> from youth and having nothing else left
>>> but his army pension must have been proud
>>> to see his own young flesh
>>> beckoned by sun beyond cloud.
>>>
>>> That life was odd, with even share
>>> of good and bad, he must have thought,
>>> that fate took with one hand
>>> as it gave with the other,
>>> even to the point when solid rock
>>> gave way. Unfeathered as Icarus,
>>> the watched boy landed in the couloir
>>> till blood dripped from his face like rain.
>>>
>>> He must have been ungrounded
>>> with one lost and the other gone on pathless stone
>>> and yet he never wondered why
>>> the second was ablaze with strength
>>> from the day he dug his brother's grave,
>>> heaped round shovelfuls of Earth
>>> on the rosewood coffin.
>>>
>>>
>>> Colin