Refugees rafting on river’s crash,
Seventeen escaping whips sharp lash;
Cigarettes can burn in madman’s hand,
Picturesque mem’ries erased by dams;
Understanding lost in mountain stream,
Recommending mercy gone in screams;
Magazine’s gloss lay mired in clay,
Volunteer heroes at rest in hay;
It doesn’t make sense you freekin’ “bleeps!”
Why today, today, today, you sleep?
Call me Hanq 
dang…would love to get a ref on the story you are playing off of…it is def a sad one….like the playfulness in bleeps it contrasts the tale nicely…some really great touches throughout as well henry…like the grit…and nice background as well with the bloody barb wire…
I really appreciate the kind words, Brian. I kind of liked the barbed wire too. You’re my leading commenter. I thank you for your support!
Rending, you build the story masterfully. Also I am in awe of your slideshow, magnificent.
Thank you, Anna. I like the word rending. Maybe I’ll use it soon. lol. And also glad you enjoyed the slideshow.
I think i know what it means. . .
but i think I’d better keep it to myself. 😉
Love your near-rhymes
I’d love to know what you think it means. That would interest me greatly. Thank you for your comment, I liked the near rhymes too, but come to find out they werren’t required. I need to pay more attention
There is a haunting familiarity here, but you wrap the events up in a kind of river mist of layers which makes things misty and all the more intense–whatever story this came from, I feel regret for the opportunity to be a hero turned into a zeroing out.
Thank you and you’re correct. In some situations in the turmoil of life’s uglier horizons, details are not that clear. I liked the discriptions of layers of mist allowing intermitent peeks into the fragments of scene. Thank you again for your thoughtful comment.
Powerful poem Henry. Wonderfully written. Torture a constant in a world who has forgotten the art of persuasion making your statement here all the more important and impressive.
As to the form – I’ll go through the drill. Perhaps it’s unnecessary. Certainly in a poem such as this, I believe the poet probably SHOULD stray from the strict conventions. But as I am the “instructor of the day” – I will dutifully point out just where you broke from conventions.
I will point out again here. The rhymes at the beginning should only be the first SYLLABLE, and not the first word. That would have given you a bit more room to be free. Although as you reached toward the climax, it was probably important to the poem to draw in from the rhymes at the start and I understand that. Also while I believe you stayed close to nine syllable lines, it really should have been alternating stresses starting with Stressed Unstressed Stressed etc. and ending in Stressed. Again the poet is the master of his composition. One can choose to engage or not. However to be clear, that is the demands of the poem.
Nonetheless, powerful poem here, well written and thank you for participating!
Gay
Dearest Gay,
My sincere apologies for not being true to form. I didn’t have a lot of time, read throug it quickly, thought I got the jist of it, and failed miserably. I’m a terrible student and I will pay greater attention and respect for form next time. Please forgive me. I appreciate you taking the time to instruct us on this interesting format. Any free time I have this weekend wil be devoted to doing one properly. Thank you for your comment and time.
Henry, this is amazing. Enigmatic – hear touches of slavery, the clay, but then the magazines… Whatever your subject, it’s the bursts of phrases that make this shine. I could see everything, and now I wish I had subtitles in a way… you know what I mean? Good work, man. Peace, Amy
http://sharplittlepencil.com/2012/04/20/free-spirit-speaks-couplets-for-dverse/
Amy, thank you for our visit and kind comments. Now, what fun would subtitles be? 🙂 lol. I thought the glossy magazine articles wrongly reporting on the incident while praising the sleepers was, kool, sodden with wet clay, not worth the ink they’re printed with. Well maybe subtitles would have helped 🙂 or an extra line, but I was already butchering the form, so I tried to leave it as close to form as I could. Anyhoot, yes, peace!
The poem is filled with jagged Polaroids of despair and destitution, a sense of futility despite heroic efforts.