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Unread 07-08-2004, 01:54 PM
Paul Lake Paul Lake is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Russellville, AR
Posts: 1,004
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I've never tried to write a legitimate Sapphic stanza but parasitically used it as the basis of the stanza in the following poem, which has a sort of Greek feel. From *Walking Backward*:

EPITAPH FOR A DRAFT DODGER


Faced with a call to arms, he scorned those lies
That others packed like socks into their duffle,
Knowing that, winged by shot, no soul would rise
Out of the scuffle,

That virtue was no shield with ghostly glamour
To blind an enemy or block a shell
And cased in ego’s large Vulcanic armor
God-like Achilles fell.

Better, he thought, to slave, a hired man
For some dirt farmer, gnawing on wooden bread,
Than rule, a decorated veteran,
Over the wasted dead.

Thus citing precedents, he made his choice,
Never to march in ranks, now forward, backward,
Except to shout with others NO MORE TROYS,
Waving a placard.

Let others die. He traced memorials
Which like long roll calls named those gone to glory,
Then in prestigious periodicals
Published their story.
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