Bring out your dead

[Jerrybaldy]

‘Bring out your dead’, they said
and doorways gave birth to coffins
that slipped outside to cobbled streets.
Windows wide,
to release lost spirits to vacant skies.
Industrial pyres blackened the blue
and smutted a stillborn dawn.

‘Bring out your dead’, they said
and a boy in black rang his bell.
A proud mother pegged bloodied sheets
to a dank ill wind from a distant dale.

Dogs cracked marrowbone.
Wives scrubbed rotten root veg
and muddied floors, their love witheld
in a pinafore.


‘Bring out your dead’
The dirge became a roar.
Lost fathers winked at kids,
slipped silently from home,
walked into the war.

[Jerrybaldy]

Thats the one!

[islandclimber]

Ahhh... Jerry. This is fantastic. The imagery in the last 2 lines of the first stanza is unbelievable. Stanza 3, after the first line, as well. This is poetry. A dark, muddied, mess scented with a mist of the ironic. Maybe also, the iconic. Brilliant. Iconoclast.

[Haunted]

That's what I'm talking about Jerry! Great built-up with images and repetition, leading to a stunning end. This is dead man walking, the soldiers version.

[hallaig]

Ambitious this and very atmospheric.
Not sure if 'coffins' would 'slip onto streets'
Distant dales too reminiscent of Owen's 'sad shires'?
What are the dogs doing with marrowbones? Think they should be in the soup.
I find the 3rd verse a bit of a distraction since the others are tied to the central theme.
Like the last verse a lot, its pared to the bone, no unecessary verbiage, so good it could almost stand alone

[Delta40]

Excellent work Jerry. I loved every line. May you always coat us with your soot.

[hillwalker]

'smutted a stillborn dawn' - a phrase I wish I had written.

Somehow you have managed to find beauty in even the darkest landscape. A tour de force as they say up North.

H

[zoolane]

Sound like someone waiting to died or ghost wondered down street.

[firefangled]

It is to your credit that you bring such amplified language to such solemn content without much strain.


Windows wide,
to release lost spirits to vacant skies.


This line break was jarring to me. Perhaps that was intended, but I wanted to drop "to" and have it read thus:

Windows wide release
lost spirits to vacant skies.

I'm also not sure you need the quotation marks, or "they said;" L2 S4 makes it clear that it is a dirge and to me it was clear even earlier that someone was speaking. The quotes weaken the effect I think.

Nicely done, Jerry.

[qimissung]

You build to a stunning conclusion. Well done. I salute you.

[blank|verse]

This is probably the best poem of yours I've read, Jerry; the opening image is extraordinary and the juxtaposition of imagery from 17th century England with that from the 20th century is very effective. However, I think it could be even better with some tinkering.

I'm reminded of Anthony Hecht's 'It Out-Herods Herod…' (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/179059) which uses a similar technique of delaying the poem's punch till the last line. It also has a similar nursery-rhyme quality; which yours almost has: the first line is iambic trimeter, and the second has three stresses, which isn't a problem in a ballad as you don't have to stick rigidly to metre. You might consider pursuing this form, tightening some of the lines and relineating the stanzas into quatrains. For example (although you'll have to write a line 4!):

‘Bring out your dead’, they said,
and doorways gave birth to coffins
that slipped onto cobbled streets.
???

On re-reading, the final image enriches the poem, which is great, but is also problematic. Like firefangled, I was held up by: 'Windows wide, to release | lost spirits to vacant skies', especially after I'd read it more than once. The image has to work for both the victim of the plague, and for the soldier. I can see how it works for the plague victim, but if we understand the soldier to be the metaphorical coffin leaving the house, whose is the spirit leaving through the window? This is the problem with complex imagery; it has to be tight as a John Donne, or else it becomes distracting.

Also, grammatically, the sentence contains no finite verb, so reads oddly. Perhaps a semi-colon or some way of linking it with the rest of the sentence in the first stanza would solve that. But I would suggest you keep things simple because the strength of the poem lies in the power of the imagery.

I also agree that this line is weaker as there's too much modification; I'd lose the archaic 'ill' for starters.

A proud mother pegged bloodied sheets
to a dank ill wind from a distant dale.

And I'm not sure about 'their love with[h]eld' (check the typo); 'withheld' isn't quite right, I think you mean 'retained' or just 'held'. But it's another great image.

However, I think you should keep the quotation marks.

At the end of the poem, I first thought the repetition of 'spilling' wasn't necessary, but without it, I think you lose the immediacy of the comparison. And as much as I like the ending, I wonder if soldiers left 'silently' for war. Wilfred Owen gives us a very different picture in his poem 'The Send-Off'; it's only on their imagined return does he envisage 'A few, a few, too few for drums and yells, || May creep back, silent, to village wells, | Up half-known roads.'

I notice there's a 'roar-war' rhyme though. Perhaps you could make more of that:

‘Bring out your dead. Bring out your dead.’
The dirge became a roar.
Lost fathers winked at [something] kids,
slipped silently into the war.

But I definitely think you should keep working on this one, as it's a brilliant conceit.

[Scotty Gdog]

Wow, I really liked this - so dark and vivid. I had a mental image of The Plague when I was reading it, like suffering and despair. Not sure if that is what you were going for. But very cool!

[Paulclem]

The

'Windows wide, to release | lost spirits to vacant skies'

reminded me of my wife telling me that it was common practice in hospitals in the North to leave open a window after someone had died. She's a Midlander and was very surprised by this in the 1970s!!

I also clearly saw the coffins

‘Bring out your dead’, they said,
and doorways gave birth to coffins
that slipped onto cobbled streets.

and I felt you nailed that image, though I agree with the modification to one "to".

I thought it was a good poem Jerry.

[deryk]

Really, a great piece. You overtake your landscape with some captivating visions. Plus it sounds great.

[DocHeart]

This is brilliant. Just brilliant. If I ever cried, I would have cried reading S3.

Thanks for sharing, Jerry.

[tonywalt]

One of the best poems I've seen on here in a long time - good emotional impact.

[Jerrybaldy]

Thank you all for your responses. Despite the plague references it was all set in the 2nd war. The bloodied sheets were a memory of having read that mothers of less than virginal brides would spill chicken blood on bedsheets and hang them on the line to reassure neighbours of their daughters purity. Seemed to fit into the general theme. The coffins leaving the houses were of course the fate of the soldiers. It was all inspired by a programme I was watching at the time recalling a british documentary series called world in action that showed a stop animation clip of coffins leaving terraced houses.

All by the by. I am happy you enjoyed, as it seemed to me I had managed something better than normal.
Thanks again.