Hi grasshopper,
I guess when we discuss poems here we explore both form and content...
The form seems to fit it's content well, the words do their jobs well. The
shape of the poem, quatrains, adds, I feel, to the composure of the
character. I can guess that other shapes, other line lengths, help highlight
or help diminish particular aspects of the poem: I guess you've tried them
and weighed the results.
I also like the way you've addressed the mind-set, cultural viewpoint, of
the character. It's so very difficult, with my western appreciation of the
value of human life, to glimpse a view that contradicts what I hold as so
valuable; this poem, however, offers me a way of starting to appreciate
things afresh.
I would never have considered that a suicide bomber may call his explosives
his "beloved" but, with the movement between what may be his partner and the
explosives I can see more of what's going on. (It may just be the bomb he's
talking about all the way through, tho, and I'm not ignoring that!). I like
the way the languages of one relationship and the other blend, merge, oiffer
insight.
Bob
who despairs at the way UK/US governments fail to appreciate that their
world view and other world views don't co-incide and so thinks this poem's
highlighting something important!
>From: grasshopper <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: New sub: Beloved
>Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 13:12:34 -0000
>
> Beloved
>
>He held the Beloved carefully,
>feeling her weight, her promise.
>She coiled around his waist
>like his dead sister's arms.
>
>Tomorrow, we will do God's work.
>he murmured. We will go
>to the marketplace, into the press
>of people, so I can bring you
>
>close to them, and you can bring
>them close to God. With every step,
>I will pray, and see the ache
>in every face which we have come
>
>to end. O Beloved, do not fail me.
>In the last ecstasy of blast
>and metal fused to flesh,
>carry me to heaven.
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