Poetic Shop Talk Presents: One Re-Re-Re-Re-Revision, One To-Be-Revised

Here's the new, newer, newest version of the sonnet, which I showed you last back in January. Click here for that last post, which has links to take you to the earlier drafts.

While Your Friend Prepares For War

Just watch the eager child who takes command
of plastic armies in his yard today.
Some minutes later, victims thrown around,
he rushes off in search of other play.

Cut roses by the quick-stop registers.
Too much already dies for vanity.
You single out one bouquet for your girl.
At least this bunch won’t die so pointlessly.

It’s quiet now. The mob is spreading out.
You’re sure they watch and wait for your dissent,
with hanging nooses fitted for your throat
in colors like their ribbons. Still, you went
to walk behind those marching for your friend,
you watch in silence, remain American.

That last line is not metered because Tom really liked the "remain American" in an earlier version and said if it can't be put in iambic pentameter now, do it without.

The fact that so much work I've seen in handed out samples (and in work by fellow students in the workshop) is exemplary pretty much because it doesn't follow the established rules of the assumed form(s) to various degress makes me amazed any form lasted beyond its original creator. Though more informed about form and meter, I think I remain as frustrated with the two as ever.

Now, so neither your eyes nor mine will get torn out by our own hands due to merciless repetition of one single f'ing poem, here's something I wrote very early in the class. It was a ballad that was supposed to be read during the third week of class. I missed that class, but never took advantage to revise it. Turns out I didn't need to, as it was called my best work presented for the workshop (though I hold more hope for my villanelle and sestina, which is why I haven't shown them here yet,as I want to get them published elsewhere). "I think we found your form," Tom told me toward the end of the night.

Anyway, here's the ballad:

Reagan: The Ballad of A Funeral

Though most heroic stories hold
a stunning origin,
the keepers of his reign were told
to focus on the end.

Because the horse was long ahead
folks felt it wrong to lag.
They raced to get in line and see
his stand-in halo flag.

Convenient Jesus 2.0
with credibility.
Kept Judases as payrolled foes
to ensure loyalty.

Alleged prophet, sans the trial
and death for his beliefs.
The nails had gone to other hands
so he could hold the wreaths.

Would further final days beget
a more repenting mouth:
revelatory, slurred regrets
or some untimely truth?

Then maybe there was judgment passed,
deathbed as crucifix,
and buried before he passed on
some inconvenient facts.

The sunset ride with self, then boots
with reels of black and white.
Conflicting tales of hero’s roots
and no gospels to write.

And no one can hope to be healed
with just a coffin’s touch.
to those with bootstraps to be pulled,
they should expect as much.

Now, the problems with the poem are obvious to me now, but they were more obvious to the workshop way before my lightbulb came on (and I thank them for that). The stanzas are dense with meaning, but no one could figure out what those meanings were. Never mind that I misspelled "Reagan" as "Regan" (though they seemed to like this better).

Lauding Reagan as the next Christ figure really bugged me (as anyone who reads my blog could glom, even if they missed my little grave dance at the time. When I wrote stanzas one and two, I had the life and death of Jesus in mind. No one remembers all the pinko-commie-faggot things Jesus said in his life, but they remember he was beaten and executed (the better to beat people into guilt-ridden submission with). That strategy worked perfectly with Reagan with his decades old illness. Of course, guilt had at least a little to do with people refraining from any real criticism (lapdog media theory being set aside for this post). The man probably suffered for years. The horse with his boots was probably already ready to go for months. Let's all be quiet and polite until later. Nancy Reagan's trying to be relevant again--I mean eulogizing.

With "stand-in halo flag," I was trying to evoke the halos most classical paintings gave their religous figures (I always think of Giotto's frescos first), as if it was part of their everyday auras. What would an American do to offset Reagan's obvious (to me) lack of any true holy adornment? A flag, of course. It worked too, people.

The line of payrolled Judases sparked the most debate. In the workshop, they argued how could they be Judases if they were paid and loyal. I tried to say it was my image of the entire political establishment. If his cabinet wasn't being well paid, Reagan would have fallen like a house of cards in a hurricane to any one of their blades (true for any president, though, up to now). Tom said that unless there was more than one real-life example that he could think of (I can't think of the name here), the stanza didn't quite work. Given my view of politics and business relations, I think it works fine, but seeing that Tom shares many of my views on America, and he still couldn't see it my way, I feel I do to take a step back and look at it again with refreshed eyes.

With stanzas 4-6, I tried to give readers more of a Bizzaro Jesus image. Reagan had been invisible for years prior to his death. Why? Was his suffering that great? Or were they even more afraid (than they were back in the eighties, I mean) that his mind was becoming so shattered, that his ability to even lie poorly was compromised? Who knows, (slight aside coming up)? What if the last ten years had gone differently and stem cell research prospered enough (again, this is really stretching) that it could not only have saved Reagan years of life but also restored him? Would he have woken to clarity for the first time in decades and said "My God, what have I done?"

It wasn't crucifiction, but letting him die covered in bedsores away from unprivileged eyes and ears was good enough in this complacent age.

The second to last stanza was trying to evoke his history in movies, which seemed to always supersede any of his real history. His own recounting of the day they opened Auswitch when he was never there comes to mind.

The final stanza, I have to admit, I was constantly thinking of the "Supply Side Jesus" parody in Al Franken's book. Of course no one's going to be healed by Holy Reagan if they haven't produced enough capital to show their love of God.

Interesting, huh? But how many more stanzas would it have taken for all that to come in clearly without my annotations.

Well. The biggest problem for me is that I enjoy what I just wrote about the poem than I do the poem itself (though I do like what I've written). So I really have to revise this piece, perhaps creating many more stanzas, trying to utilize all I touched on above (making this my "Stairway to Heaven" or "Dark Side of The Moon" piece).

More later, perhaps?