Talking to a fallen foe, C A Cafolini

[cafolini]

How short was that moment
We looked at each other
Before we pulled the trigger.

We brave cowards knew
It was business.
We knew it
In the eternity of that moment,
Now in an empty room so full of prayers.

But there were some differences
Between you and I.
I was fighting for freedom
And you, for slavery.
I was fighting for choices
And you, for culture.

Yet, in the big lotto
We brave slaves play,
That moment stood eternal
When we pushed the bayonet
To finish business,
And the night in that room
Has closed all mirrors.

[Delta40]

I'm not sure you need S3. I especially liked

When we pushed the bayonet
To finish business,
And the night in that room
Has closed all mirrors.

[cafolini]

Thank you Delta. But S3 is the meat of it as I see it. I realize many people are cynical about that. But perhaps it is because of that S3 that they can afford to be cynical here in America.

[Delta40]

Is it? I wouldn't know not being in America. I just felt its flow became explanatory and altered the poem somewhat. However its your baby Cafolini!

[IceM]

I think it's too prosaic to be a poem, but perhaps would work better as a short story. S3 feels like prose chopped into verse form.

It's reminiscient of Twain's "The War Prayer," but with less of a moral tinge. I read this as a reflection on death. If you're intending to add an emotional appeal, this reader hasn't felt it.

[blank|verse]

If I'm brutally honest, cafolini, I'm not sure you need stanzas 2, 3 and 4. The opening stanza is much stronger than the rest (although needs a question mark at the end). I think the poem suffers from spelling things out, or 'telling', too much. I'm not sure what I can suggest to improve that, though, I'm afraid, as that's how the poem works as it stands.

[hillwalker]

This poem degenerates rather rapidly following that arresting opening verse. It's as if you were on a mission to express your opinion; determined to share it by any means possible...

v2 - the term 'business' doesn't do justice to the issues this poem is exploring and I'm not sure what the closing line is supposed to mean.

v3 - this is mediocre prose chopped up into individual lines: a rather lame effort at justifying war, nothing more. Setting out the parameters the way you have here - me good, you bad - does nothing to explain the rationale of two nations in conflict or the irony of both believing they are in the right.

v4 - isn't much better, I'm afraid. A phrase like 'the big lotto we brave slaves play' is a poorly chosen metaphor - for fate presumably.
Then we have 'business' yet again - and the 'trigger' inexplicably replaced by a 'bayonet' - followed by an incomprehensible closing couplet.

All in all not your finest moment.

H

[cafolini]

Ha! Hill. Keep it up. You are doing better all the time.