PW Earsman
Traveller in the arts
Posts: 43
(6/3/02 3:05 pm)
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Justice and Deference - (A double-sonnet)
This started out as a single sonnet but gradually spilled over into two.
I'm not entirely happy with it and hope to get some suggestions.
The poem was inspired by a movie on the subject of 'cowardice', with a subtext of class distinction during WW1 starring Dirk Bogard and Tom Courtney.
They found the vacant, smiling, mumbling fool
cross-legged, splashing fingers in the mud,
and bound his wrists with wire so tight and cruel
that both his hands turned white from lack of blood.
They kicked him to his feet and dragged him back
to where the blooody trenches sliced the ground,
to where once smooth young men now dead and black
and soft disintegrate, doomed never to be found.
His crime? His crime was failing to advance
across the 'line' - his sanity took took flight
and coaxed his mind to reel - a crazy dance
to places cool and lovely, pure and light.
The court pronounced him sane, that he should seek
forgiveness; he'd be shot within the week.
So slowly then his sanity returned;
remorse replaced the spinning, happy dream.
He'd let his betters down; his conscience burned
and tortured him, so every day would seem
another knife of guilt deep in his soul.
In crackle-frost they lashed his arms behind
his back, then to a bullet-splintered pole.
The Padre's words were few, but not unkind.
The firing squad took aim, their bullets sped
towards a body willing to be part
of justice, but the spinning scraps of lead
all failed to still the vital, beating heart.
“I'm sorry sir,” he said, “I couldn't fight,
and now I've failed to get the dying right.”
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