Two Orphans Meet edit 0.0001chris

[Leah S.]

Two Orphans Meet
Cry small baby, baby boy. Cry into the empty night. But it's not empty, it's full of ruin, explosions, chaos.
I will hold you like my mother held me to her, held me tight. There's room to fiddle here, lose 'to her' and maybe 'I will hold you' and find a way to imply that it's a grown man telling a boy how his mother held him as a child.
Sky above  bursts bright with fury, earth below lit red and bare; Needs a better image than 'bright with fury,' maybe something that further describes bursting.....?
do not touch the blue-steel saviour, heat of conflict lingers there. All I could think of was an unexploded bomb, but why would anyone run out into a bombardment to touch it? I like the phrase 'blue-steel saviour' and I think you must too, because you're forcing it in where it has to struggle to belong.
Heat of conflict lingers there, reminder of the sting of death. Cliché. sorry. Shakespeare was also alluding to a familiar bible verse about 'the sting of death is sin.' I'm afraid modern readers won't get it, even if that was your intent.
Blood has stained you, flame has burned you, smoke has raked your infant breath. I like this line, especially the last phrase. Plain and grim.
Breathe for me, tomorrow's soldier; you and I will share night's pain; I couldn't help it, 'Breathe for me' called to mind the TV EMT doing CPR.
I can only stay 'til dawning, then we'll be alone again.
I can only stay 'til dawning, hear the nearing battle roar.
We will sleep until the morning, I can't promise any more.
When I leave you, make no murmur; 'neath god's eyes lie safe and still. Lose 'neath please. How about "....make no sound; beneath...."
Curse me when I still your brothers... but it is war I try to kill. I had no trouble with 'still' as a verb.
tectak 2014

I like this poem's subject, but it is already somewhat of a cliché. Many movies exploit this theme of the enemy's child as a victim of war, temporarily comforted by the exhausted soldier. Transcend the cliché and make it as poignant as it deserves to be. At least the soldier didn't kill the child in your poem, and live a tortured life afterward.