Hi Frank,

I like your poem and can't see that it's 'maybe not The Oldie's cuppa'.

At first I thought shell-shorn would be better as shell-torn, but I've since changed my mind; I think you have it right.
Just a few suggestions: I would put a semicolon at the end of L3, and the age-old argument for/against initial capitals looms again! Personally, I think this poem would read far better without them; to begin with, I read that 'But' as being the start of a new sentence. A comma would help after 'Mars'.

The barren, shell-shorn place resembles Mars,
but for a galaxy of large round shot

'atop the road' seems a little odd to me. Wouldn't 'along the road' do?

In the last line, three dots are usual for an ellipsis, and why not end with the slightly more punchy . . . Balls. with a capital 'B'?

Hope this helps a little :)

Hi, Jayne - I wanted to take 'along the road,' as well, but Fenton shot 2 views from the same tripod angle before getting the hell out of there, and though show a ton of shot along the road, but only one shows some balls also on the road, leading to the inquiry about which picture was shot first, balls-on or balls-off, and if "off" came 1st, was "on" "staged." And, if so, does it matter?

Anyway, thanks for the comments - I adopted all of the other suggestions.

Frank

Still slightly bothered by 'shell-shorn'. If the place is barren, a moonscape, Mars-like, then what was there for shells to shear? On the other hand, shells can tear up earth and rock. Having now googled the Fenton pic I wonder if 'wheel-torn' would be a possibilty, as well as 'shell-torn'?

If 'atop' is strange, could the idea gf deliberate placing be reinforced by 'set out on the road'? The cannonballs on the right on what seems to be the roadway do seem to be carefully spaced, those on the left on the edge more of a natural-looking scatter. Seem to be about 60 all told.

Anyway, best of luck with this, Frank

Thanks, Jerome - I'll try it. I want to stick with 'shell-shorn,' though, both because it looks as if the landscape was shorn of trees and plants and because it's one of the few pieces of license I could shoe-horn into what is a pretty reportorial poem.

Anyway, I think I have what I wanted, but my money's on Roger for this one.

Frank

Frank,

I think you have a fine poem here. It's not a 'throwaway' one, as many competition entries are (either topical or very specific) - it's definitely a 'keeper' and deserves to be seen in an anthology, beside Fenton's original photo, which you've captured the esssence of very well, IMO.

Maybe it's worth enquiring whether anyone's planning to produce a new volume of war-related poems?

Meanwhile, it would be great to see it, and Roger's, on the Speccie page :)