Stained Freedom

Gold cherry

By a102866

Mon, 26 May 2014
  • 1297 reads
13 comments
 

A soft, imploring cry
peels from far and wide
from the silted lives of
mercenaries and conscripts,
the coagulated blood of still lifes
leached from stented veins
and strained for national pride

A quiet, solemn echo
bounces off re-sodded hills
and re-capped mountains
of voices muted in their prime
so that indentured revelers
might joyfully trumpet
an unrequited melody
of garnished freedom
and varnished liberty

The curdling wind plays taps
to the itinerant bones
on reefs and ocean bottoms
now hollowed by corrosive waves
of land-faring vagabonds who
continuously pare their calcified genes

Bottled tears that will never drain
remain untapped on distant shores
as their pilfering descendants
salt the museums and memorials
with their gratuitous patronage

Certificate U
Poem
Other Non-fiction

Comments

Submitted by scratch on

Excellent.  You're poetry's never short on conviction.  To write with such unerring schema and readability is no mean feat.  Well done.

 

Submitted by a102866 on

Thanks scratch and Otto for your kind comments. It is Memorial Day in the long lost colonies! I like to pay tribute to the valiant soldiers that brandished our nation's sword. I wonder on what day Memorial Day (or its derivative) falls in Great Britain. I wish we had more poems on the military posted on this site. I look forward to reading more of both of your poems in the near future.
 

Submitted by scratch on

Hey a.  With a re-jig this might match the comptition's entry criteria but at the very least this link will direct you to matters military on ABCtales.

http://www.abctales.com/blog/luke-neima/100-years-%E2%80%93-abctales-com...

Memorial Day in the UK (Armistice day) is an easy date to remember - the eleventh hour of the eleventh day af the eleventh month - it was when hostilities officially stopped to bring the First World War to an end.

 

Submitted by a102866 on

Thanks scratch for the URL to the military posts. I will give the competition a glance.

Submitted by Ray Schaufeld on

My only words are; yes this is good!  The thicknesess of the layered imagery, the weight of lived emotional history.                       Elsie

Submitted by a102866 on

Thanks Elsie for your affirmation of the quality of the syntax. I like to use descriptive language, sometimes overly so.

Submitted by torscot on

Excellent read this one,  I agree with Scratch  "...With a re-jig this might match the comptition's entry criteria..."

Look forwards to seeing  an entry posted soon, plus an entry from dear Scratch.

Regards

torscot

Submitted by scratch on

Entering any kind of competition stresses me witless.  Perhaps one day I might pluck up the courage to send a poem off to a magazine or something, but competitions?  I haven't got the bottle for it.

ps I didn't mean to hijack your page a10!  Sorry.

 

Submitted by a102866 on

Thanks Torscott for your comments. I like competitions, but I just hate to write a poem on an assigned topic. I like to write after my muse gives me inspiration to create a poem on a particular subjest.

Submitted by torscot on

Steph.

Your  tale have been chosen for Pick of the Day  plus golden cherries, congratulations.

Now...don't tell me your muse will  prevent you from submitting an entry for the Competition

Go on

torscot

Submitted by a102866 on

There is an outside chance that I will take the bait, and enter the competition. Then again, I might might ferment my golden cherries, and enjoy a sweet tonic.

Submitted by scratch on

Nicely put a10!

 

Submitted by a102866 on

Thanks scratch for your compliment. I wish all of my poems lived up to that standard!