[RCL]

The Canvas Tent

He is as on a slab a canvas tent
At midnight when a chilling winter breeze
Has soaked with mist the ropes that won't relent,
So that in guys it stiffens with the freeze,
And its supporting central iron pole,
An anchorage that's driven Hadesward
And signifies the stiffness of the soul,
Seems to owe all to every straining cord,
And strictly held by them, is tightly bound
By myriad metal ties of might and ought
To everything on earth that men think sound,
And only by one's giving up what's taut
In the tumultuousness of frigid air
Is of a meager freedom made aware.

[Douglas G. Brown]

3,471st Fig

I’ve snuffed my candle, foes and friends,
To put my life in order.
I’ve saved up figs and odds and ends,
And now I am a hoarder.

First Fig, by Edna St.Vincent Millay

[Rob Stuart]

And This is Just To Say

I have
replaced
the plums
in the icebox

because
I remember
that the
last time

I ate them
you went
completely
apeshit.

[Rob Stuart]

A Martian Amends a Postcard Home


A book, rain, a car, a clock,
a telephone, a toilet, sleep!

Turns out that it was nothing
worth writing home about after all.

[Brian Allgar]

Nice one, Roger. I'd been thinking of 'doing' the Marvell, but you took the words out of my mouth before they even got there.

[Douglas G. Brown]

Brian,
I love your "Larkin about". Recycling can be a good thing.

[Rob Stuart]

The Veteran

If I should live, think only this of me;
That there’s some corner of my ageing mind
That is for ever Flanders field. I’ll be
A wretched amputee, perhaps, or blind,
But even if by chance my flesh remains
Untouched by mustard gas or bursting shell,
I’m still a wounded man; my skull contains
Indelible remembrances of Hell.

The evil there will not be shed away,
It’s carved into the bone by bayonet;
The fire and smoke and dreadful noise of battle,
The screams and rats and entrails and decay.
However long I live I’ll not forget
The friends and foes I've seen get killed like cattle.

[Brian Allgar]

Rob, this is a terrific piece in its own right, though I'm not sure it meets the description of a "palinode".

xxxxxxxxmy skull contains
xxIndelible remembrances of Hell

is particularly good.

Typo: line 4 should start with "A", not "An". And I wonder if you can find a more telling adjective for "amputee" than "sorry". "Legless"? "Chair-bound"? "Shrivelled"?

"Shed away" sounds a touch unidiomatic to my ear. "Washed away"? "Bleached away"?

And one final suggestion. For the last line, what would you think of

xxThe friends and foes I saw get killed like cattle

But, I repeat, terrific!

[Rob Stuart]

Thanks, Brian.

You may be right about this not qualifying, but then the palinode form is completely new to me and I'm still not sure what it really means.

I'm tempted to keep 'shed away' because this phrase is in the original Brooke poem, but maybe I don't need to worry too much about that.

Thanks for your other suggestions. I particularly liked your suggestion for the last line. I shall consider carefully.

[Brian Allgar]

Yes, I'd forgotten that "shed away" was in the original. Keep it.

And I wouldn't worry too much about it not qualifying (I had never heard of a palinode, either). Lucy can be quite liberal in the interpretation of the rules.