Epilogue
Dazed, confused, shackled by the epitaphs of existence,
My mind racing with thoughts of lost glories, departed loved ones,
Breaths taken are sharp and laboured,
My hands chained by durable twine,
Strangling the energy of bygone days.
A lone soldier gazes into the distance, hungry for respite.
Yet, none is forthcoming.
Comrades reduced to traitors and turncoats,
We dreamt of something greater, but in our greed and self-indulgence supremacy raged on,
And what we wanted, what we aspired to, gone - in an instant.
Young bodies, slain by the paranoia of battle,
We turned away from the truth, but it destroyed us.
I've forgotten what it was all about.
How did we get here?
Why did we fall so far from our destination?
I thought...and I thought...reason, however, escapes me.
A final breath, this one long and slow, as if hoping to survive, but knowing that hope is to no avail,
I close my eyes and, in a millisecond, I...am...no...more.
(c) NZ 2009.
Comments
Hi Nadrock
i like this work - it is simple and honest in terms of an individual's reflections on being in a space of war - on reading your work it appeals to me as a kind of list of salient points of your feelings of the exhibition.
If this was your angle then you have handled the level well and i applaud you for translating for me how it must have felt for you personally to be in that space.
If this is intended as a poem i feel that your work has yet to be compressed into a 'comprehensive whole'
for example - dazed and confused is a Led Zep track and the use of these words infers for me an assumed connection between the work and the song..if this is your end then that leaves me in a lost space where i have no lead - again if this was your intended direction - then hat's off as it led me into a different direction which made me think of the Fire Water Burn track - but without any indication as to why you nay have picked Dazed and Confused...
Outside of this i felt that lone soldier and other such observations to be a little spent - i apologise if this is a little cutting, however, i want to know passed the 'lone soldier' in terms of his/her internal thoughts and so on - respite doesn't dig enough...
i like epitaphs of existence and other phrases : )
in short - i feel that you have the basis for a poem that, if you forge and hone, will become something much greater than the sum of its parts
steve
Epilogue
Hi Steve,
Thank you very much for your honest feedback, it was very helpful. The Led Zeppelin inferrence was purely coincidental - I'm a fan of their stuff and it just came to me by pure coincidence, although I know the song itself quite well.
The piece was really to explore how the images made me feel and how I responded to them so I hope that worked!
I don't think your comments are cutting at all as I'm beginning to realise that I've opened myself up to a much larger sphere of feedback than usual as I'm new to blogs so I really appreciate your analysis. Thank you!
I wrote this poem after
I wrote this poem after visiting The Artland Gallery's photographic exhibition of "The Space Between" by Christophe Bangert which is known for being graphic in nature, thus portraying a true picture of the Iraq war. I was so inspired by the images portrayed in the exhibition that it gave me the impetus and courage to put forward my own interpretation and thoughts of the war.