This Poem was Submitted By: arvin r. reder On Date: 2005-11-10 03:28:42 . . . Click Here To Mail this Poem to a Friend!

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Remembrance Day

The fangs of memory, gnash a moment in time. A mourning cemetery, tears standing quiet in mime. Listening to wars brood, as freedoms pass away. The families all stood, bathed in sorrow this day. In coming Legions weep, marching tall through the gate. Beside the wreaths layered deep. Condolence for this date. Wars of interference. Weathered crosses stand tall The cage man gave clearance, The next cage starts to fall.

Copyright © November 2005 arvin r. reder


This Poem was Critiqued By: Dellena Rovito On Date: 2005-11-29 15:45:11
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.75000
Arvin, How terrible it must be to be a soldier. Especially since most wars don't stand for what we think. When war is for greed and a soldier sacrifices his life, that's a prety sad state. The soldier is honorable. The ideals he fought for are true. I hate war and hope no more cages will fall. Good poem remembering, honoring our fallen men. We all weep for the loss, we're all affected. Dellena


This Poem was Critiqued By: Mell W. Morris On Date: 2005-11-25 21:42:08
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
This poem was posted 11-10-O5 so it is the reminder for me this year. Inclusive this year is the illegitimate war in Iraq I think about which all of us are confused. Your metaphors are fitting yet disgusting in that which they represent. Question: in what manner do wars brood? I realize this is not literal in meaning and some poets refuse to answer questions but I would like your thoughts. Stanza 2 is perfect in structure, form, but there is something herein more than meter and rime. You do not proffer reason for pessimistic future but anyone who has taken note of the world today HAS to conclude no happy times on the horizon. Many people notice these things but do not care sufficiently to write. Although you chose the most difficult aspect of an unhappy theme, you captured the sight, sounds, and sensory input in a quite splendid manner. Thank you for posting this extremely important poem. Mell Morris
This Poem was Critiqued By: Mark Andrew Hislop On Date: 2005-11-11 00:44:00
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.85714
Dear Arvin, One word in your first stanza caught my attention, and subsequently gave me a key for reading the entire poem. The word: "mime". At first pass, it read as an inappropriate rhyme, something stuffed in there to rhyme with "time". But then I considered that, as a fully intentional choice, it gave a particular flavour to the entire poem. The tears are "standing quiet in mime". But a mime is an action, not as impassive as it seems. So what exactly are the tears miming? A tear cannot put on face paint, or make shapes in the air that indicate an invisible box: they can only appear, stop momentarily, or descend a face: i.e. their scope for physical action is severely limited. Given that restriction, I took it that the tears can only be (if they are "miming") and hence are miming themselves: that is, they are faux tears trying to pass themselves off as real, and hence emblematic of the unreality of the mourning associated both with death in conflict, and with continuing to send soldiers to early graves in the face of what one might have learnt from mourning the earlier deaths. More clues. "The fangs of memory/gnash a moment in time": with memory characterised as bestial, it seems to strengthen what "mime" had already suggested. Beasts eat in response to the immediate urgings of hunger, and we have no reason to suspect that after eating they wander off and meditate on the inner life of their hunger. They just go to sleep, in response to another immediate urge. Beasts have no memory, in our sense, but they have instinct, a cellular-level memory. So as the tears here are faux tears, the fangs' memory is faux memory: savaging the next victim is not informed by the savaging of any previus victim. Or to use a recent parallel, savaging Iraq appears not to be informed by the previous savaging of Vietnam. So, "wars brood/as freedoms pass away", presumably at the instigation of "the cage man" who "gave clearance". There only only things we put into cages: 1) dangerous animals 2) safe animals to whom we have become the dangerous animal in the act of putting them into a cage and curtailing their freedom. This "cage man" is clearly from the former category. And yet, he runs the show. Sad comment on the dynamics of society: it has all the morality of asking Hannibal Lector to direct regime change in the Sudan. So overall, in the genre of commentary on the futility of war, this piece pointed, for me, at a special and not generally recognised kind of futility: a futility that not only fails to recognise itself as futile (and therefore does not change what is clearly a wrong course), but doubles the insult by miming the faux memory of recognition of futility. In other words, we are trapped in an unrecognised contradiction. We all stand around the graves of our soldiers, pretending to cry real tears for those who fall in the service of inscrutable objectives, while continuing to send more youths to their death. And that's it, isn't it? Remorse over a past crime is no remorse if the crime continues to be committed. That's a very long way of saying I liked what you have achieved here, Arvin. Quite an uncommon depth. Regards Mark.
This Poem was Critiqued By: arnie s WACHMAN On Date: 2005-11-10 10:09:53
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
The first stanza is exceptional but then I think it kind of withered. To make this "sound" better you must use plurals where you started with one...i.e.: the third stanza. The last stanza I did not completely understand what the "cage" man was. Perhaps the "cave" man? I always go to the ceremonies in our town except for this year when it's not possible but will watch proceedings on the tv. Thanks for bringing this to us.
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