Mesopotamia

Gold cherry
Poem of the week

By Philip Sidney

Sun, 11 Nov 2018
  • 5520 reads
16 comments
 

fragments from the past
will not join
to make a memory

we live in the disconnect 
but for a moment you are there
in a sepia photograph

with Felix
who has an open face
elegant on a stool in a field
an easy way with him
cigarette between fingers

he could be placed as he sits
in a night club
with white tablecloths

but for the coarse-cloth uniform

not a boy but a married man
a father with a joy for life
and his glittering girl with Indian eyes

perhaps as he lay dying
there was an Indian comrade at his side
from Pondicherry

a distant relative of his lovely wife 

I like to think this

but do not know if

he died in Kut
from starvation

or from wounds
in the theft of Baghdad

or from disease without medical care
in the hot fly-blown mud of Basra

oil
always more precious than men.

 

Certificate 12
Poem
Inspiration Point (work that responds to our weekly writing cue)

Comments

Submitted by HarryC on

A powerful poem, Philip.  It hits hard.

I have an ambivalent attitude to photographs.  Like reading a fine poem like this, they stir up more emotions than I can either count or properly understand.  That's the beauty of it all, I suppose.

Submitted by Philip Sidney on

Thanks for reading and commenting Harry.  I don’t know if my perceptions have altered as I have got older, but it’s of photos don’t seem so old to me anymore and the people in them feel as though they should still be around.

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

I think you just won your own inspiration point philip!

 

Submitted by Philip Sidney on

Ha!  Wasn’t even going to write on this topic but one of my sisters shared this picture of our Nana’s first husband and I felt I ought to.  Now another sister has sent me a picture I really should write about - not mention all the others various siblings are sharing - I could be busy...

Submitted by rjnewlyn on

This is our Facebook and Twitter Pick of the Day! Please share/retweet if you like it

 

Submitted by Philip Sidney on

Thank you for picking my poem - and apologies to Felix for the mess we seem to be making. X

Submitted by Di_Hard on

Your poem opens up the photo, the opposite of a picture is worth a thousand words. Both weigh more because of the other. Both tiny in space and time and yet having lasting impact.

How you list all the ways he might have died is so powerful, so many horrible ways that so many did die. We think of our lives now as being more shallow than those in the past and yet their deaths were treated so lightly by those who sent them off.

My Dad had an envelope of old photos of his family. He didn't know who most of them were. There's a lady in one of those big sticking out black dresses and a sort of veil thing on herr head who had the same eyes as me, is so strange. I know EXACTLY  what you mean about thinking people in photos should still be around, as you get older. I hope it is not because we are getting closer to the stream they have crossed

 

Submitted by Philip Sidney on

Thanks Di - photos are such a great inspiration.

Submitted by london_calling79 on

Brilliantly written. The change in tone brings a shudder and is expertly placed.

 

Submitted by Philip Sidney on

What a lovely comment. thanks LC.

Submitted by Ewan on

like this one, but think it might be even better without the last two lines, or with something less overt.

This is our Poem of the Week - Congratulations!

Author Page at the 'Zon
 

Submitted by Philip Sidney on

Thank you for picking my poem Ewan - and you're probably right about the end. :)

Submitted by hudsonmoon on

This is so beautiful that I'll have to read it again. 

Rich x

 

Submitted by celticman on

yeh, oil, more precious than men, as the Sauid pinncess shows. 

 

Submitted by Foster Trecost on

This poem stands alone as a piece of very fine writing, but when coupled with the photo, the words leap to an even higher plane, with both the poem and picture furthering an understanding of the other.

 

Submitted by forest_for_ever on

I totally agree, this is a powerful poem and the sepia photograph made me think too.  Images of the living frozen in time.  I really respect your writing.