Mother's Vigil

The set-up seems a bit odd and the line endings a bit haphazard - apart from that I thought it marvellous. :-)

I agree with fatboy re the layout but the content is brilliant!

There's more to this than meets the eye. The haphazardness of the line endings is quite striking but then again, that's maybe how life is when your son goes to war - haphazard. There's a hint of living from one day to the next - just as the lines seem to run jerkily into each other. Having said that, the break between the penultimate and last line is perfect. Then again, I'm going to have to think about this one. One thing's for sure, this ain't a poem to be read with a cup of tea and a biscuit. and that's a good thing. Damn it. Now I have to think!

I like wot Leander says, he makes a good point, if it was my poem it would look like this: She wills him to outlive the harsh geology of war, surpass the whispering condemned, his fatigues soaked with their breath, his sights with their gore, to soar beyond the faults and crags of mountains with their terrible rocks; to leap above that unreasonable, bluest sky, to arrive at a place of quiet honour. Daily now, and alive like him, she carries stones upon her palms, wishing he were held in these pre-Cambrian dreams. Here are the poised, sharp contourings of combat: here the imprecision of a clock, the uncoloured peaks of warm, bright pebbledash. Here, his absence. but it's not and who really cares as long as wots in it sings.