Take a Ride on the "DEATH TRAIN"

[REDWAVE]

Hey, everybody-- check out my new poem "Death Train," especially if you're against the war and police state repression going on. Let me know what you think about it, pro or con. It's at:
http://literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=31836

 

[daughter]

grim

REDWAVE--

You capture the scene. I think you have more than you need. I dislike the opening explanation. Trust the reader to be literate. Even if they are unaware, the read provides enough for the reader to appreciate the message.

RED, I like your social commentary. Some debate if poetry should be a medium for it. I think so.

With your permission, I'd like to share my take on your draft.

Thanks for the read.

Peace,

daughter

 

[TheDR4KE]

comments

Too much information I feel. More subtlety would work better. You can get the audience more involved if you get them to fill bits in themselves.

No need to mention the concentration camps. Particularly if you don't mention locations in Afghanistan for comparison. Either do both or do neither.

I don't get the point of the line about notes and photographs... It's completely irrelevant to the overall poem, to me. Too much detail that brings me into the now, makes me wonder how the photo you make will then be relevant later, except it won't. Like a character who appears in a story but doesn't contribute to the main plot. Actually, that whole section could go as far as I'm concerned.

A little spacing might also help the poem in terms of how it flows.

I don't mind the newsarticle, but I would prefer to see it at the end of the poem. Let it drive home the reality of what happened.

In haiku we do a lot of rewriting of other's poems. I hope you don't mind that I've done so to yours, as an exercise and because I feel it is worth the effort.

Drake

______________________________________________________

Death Train

After the clicking of wheels on rails
After the boxcars had been emptied and aired out
The looks of horror frozen on the faces of the victims as they gasped for air
And there was none

My mind wanders back to another land and another time
When sealed railway cars also bore a grisly burden
But this is 2001
And these were our prisoners


"Witnesses Recount Taliban Dying While Held Captive
Shibarghan, Afghanistan, Dec. 9-- Dozens of Taliban prisoners died
after surrendering to Northern Alliance forces, asphyxiated in the shipping
containers used to transport them to prison, witnesses say."
-- Carlotta Gall, New York Times, December 11, 2001
______________________________________________________

 

[REDWAVE]

More protest than poetry, really

Thanks for your helpful suggestions, daughter and The DR4KE. I'll take them into consideration. And now that my initial ardor has cooled, I really don't think "Death Train" is all that good a poem. It was more my howl of protest at the latest atrocity and war crime for which the U.S. government is responsible in Afghanistan. I'll get around to at least that one story of your, Drake, as soon as I can, maybe this weekend.

Love your av, daughter-- looks like an African queen, of the now long gone civilization of Zimbabwe, say.