Escaping Hungary, 1946

[IceM]

She stood with austere poise,
Her blue-gleen eyes
Peering at the yellow pastures of the Plains.
Her wrinkles folded like compressed valleys
clustered together,
Silver slivers poking through her scalp,
Sifting slowly in calm August wind.

Images of Hungary oozed through her mind
Like stale wine:
Pictures of gray buildings,
Barbed wire and sentry posts,
Where pale men with black machine guns
Patrolled the streets.
Or the secret tunnels,
Burrowing beneath the world like tapeworms,
Carrying nothing but black rags and a burnished steak knife,
A last resort.

Passing through Ellis Island at eight,
her black rags and bony ribcage were taken by strangers
to local housing, where,
after eight weeks,
she was free to go.
From there, she went West,
Building for herself a homestead,
A sanctuary of freedom, a barrack against hunger,
goats and cattle feeding her for fifty years.

Standing on the sun-burnt hills of wheat and yellow grain,
A thresher thrashing in the distance,
Her soul echo Sandburg’s words:
“Where to? What next?”

[everyadventure]

A sharp poem, all except for those last two lines... they just didn't do it for me. Loved the burrowing like tapeworms.

[Hawkman]

Hi IceM. I think this is very good. Great imagery informs the poem's atmosphere.

I would query a couple of things though. That rhetorical question in line 2. weakens the image for me. it's too uncertain in comparison to the strength of the scenes you go on to describe. Why not just say, "Her blue-green eyes."

Line 4 I feel, is over-extended. A natural line-break would occur after valleys.

S2 L6 I might suggest dropping "looking for defectors" I don't think it's necessary to provide exposition to the menacing image of "...pale men with black machineguns/ Patrolled the streets."

Tunnel should be tunnels to match the plural of tapeworms.

Line 9 is also over-extended I think, and "carrying none but black rags" do you mean nothing here? I think you could drop burnished too.

Not much to quibble about really. It's a strong poem and I really enjoyed reading it.

Live and be well - H

[Delta40]

I like the strong imagery but also the great void arriving in the West seems to have created for her

[IceM]

Thank you all for reading!

To ea, I like Sandburg's lines at the end, taken from his epic "The People, Yes." And, for Delta, I left out some parts of what I wanted to write, as it would be unnecessary to the poem. It's dedicated to a lady I met at a Starbucks who told her story of escaping the Iron Curtain when she was eight. The void arises, not from coming to the West, but because she had toured the world and lived all she hoped to live, and in the twilight of her life wonders what is left for her. But, in context, I see where your interpretation stems from.

To Hawk, I left burnished in, only because without it, I feel my emphasis on B sounds would be lessened. Throughout the poem I tried to include emphasis on sss and hard B sounds. Burnished has both and allows me to keep it as a temporary motif. I made some adjustments, so we'll see how it fits in now.

Thank you all for reading!