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Note: I can't get the format right in this post, but the second and fourth line of each stanza should be indented.
He Lives to Fight Another Day
Why must you return to her?
Does she sing with Siren’s lure?
Or hold for you some unknown cure
To heal your life, lived impure?
Why, my father, do you run
And leave your wife and your son?
Or are you searching for someone,
To mend you mind, come undone?
And must I too now go among,
The savaged body and drowning lung?
Must I too now go so young,
To meet the dead and wailing tongue?
And here I fight the rich man’s blunder,
And see the sky torn asunder.
As corpses creep I can’t help but wonder,
When will I be sent down under?
In this way we always turn
As bodies rot beneath the fern,
To feel her sting and biting burn.
What War does teach, can we not learn?
Tell me why we turn this way.
To fight the beast and evil slay?
And how in peace can wise men say,
He lives to fight another day.
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(04-28-2014, 12:00 PM)Willpark Wrote: Note: I can't get the format right in this post, but the second and fourth line of each stanza should be indented.
He Lives to Fight Another Day
Why must you return to her?
Does she sing with Siren’s lure?
Or hold for you some unknown cure
To heal your life, lived impure?
Why, my father, do you run
And leave your wife and your son?
Or are you searching for someone,
To mend you mind, come undone? ----------------------------- To mend your mind or come undone?
And must I too now go among,
The savaged body and drowning lung?-------------------------- ravaged body
Must I too now go so young,
To meet the dead and wailing tongue? --------------------------If a tongue is dead, how can it wail?
And here I fight the rich man’s blunder,--------------------------------Did you mean face the rich man's blunder?
And see the sky torn asunder.
As corpses creep I can’t help but wonder, -----------------------------corpses?
When will I be sent down under?
In this way we always turn
As bodies rot beneath the fern,
To feel her sting and biting burn.
What War does teach, can we not learn?
Tell me why we turn this way.
To fight the beast and evil slay? --------------------------------Is this part of the question
And how in peace can wise men say,
He lives to fight another day.------------------------------------This brings up a good question: If you use quotation marks here, could the cliche be forgivable? This seems to begin as a family struggle and maybe a comparison of this family feud to a war in the end. You may be trying to explain/express too much at once here. I say this because I'm guilty of it too. But here we are, both of us in the best Poetry Site, with the best opportunity to learn.
Keep on writing my friend, there will be others coming along soon to teach us both something.
R.T. 
canadian_cowboy
Unregistered
I would remove the "your" from your son... Leaving it as "your wife and son". I agree that savaged body should be changed as well. Although I do like " to mend your mind, come undone" as your referring to the state of the mind.
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You can indent using MyCode, but I believe the old thread showing you how is gone. You may want to ask our site dictator billy. You can also format your poem in OpenWord (a free office suite download) and directly past it into the MyCode window and retain your indents and spaces. Good luck with it./Chris
My new watercolor: 'Nightmare After Christmas'/Chris
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(04-28-2014, 06:17 PM)canadian_cowboy Wrote: I would remove the "your" from your son... Leaving it as "your wife and son". I agree that savaged body should be changed as well. Although I do like " to mend your mind, come undone" as your referring to the state of the mind.
Hi, thank you for the critique. I had wrestled with removing the second "your" as you suggested, but I wanted to maintain a metrical balance in the stanzas. Do you think there is a better way to do this?
(04-28-2014, 01:41 PM)Thoughtjotter Wrote: (04-28-2014, 12:00 PM)Willpark Wrote: Note: I can't get the format right in this post, but the second and fourth line of each stanza should be indented.
He Lives to Fight Another Day
Why must you return to her?
Does she sing with Siren’s lure?
Or hold for you some unknown cure
To heal your life, lived impure?
Why, my father, do you run
And leave your wife and your son?
Or are you searching for someone,
To mend you mind, come undone? ----------------------------- To mend your mind or come undone?
And must I too now go among,
The savaged body and drowning lung?-------------------------- ravaged body
Must I too now go so young,
To meet the dead and wailing tongue? --------------------------If a tongue is dead, how can it wail?
And here I fight the rich man’s blunder,--------------------------------Did you mean face the rich man's blunder?
And see the sky torn asunder.
As corpses creep I can’t help but wonder, -----------------------------corpses?
When will I be sent down under?
In this way we always turn
As bodies rot beneath the fern,
To feel her sting and biting burn.
What War does teach, can we not learn?
Tell me why we turn this way.
To fight the beast and evil slay? --------------------------------Is this part of the question
And how in peace can wise men say,
He lives to fight another day.------------------------------------This brings up a good question: If you use quotation marks here, could the cliche be forgivable? This seems to begin as a family struggle and maybe a comparison of this family feud to a war in the end. You may be trying to explain/express too much at once here. I say this because I'm guilty of it too. But here we are, both of us in the best Poetry Site, with the best opportunity to learn.
Keep on writing my friend, there will be others coming along soon to teach us both something.
R.T.
Thank you for this. I now see some areas where I should work. I have a follow-up question though: in line 11, I meant the dead people and the wailing tongue of those people either dying or in some kind of eternal torment. Any suggestions as to how to express is more clearly? Thanks.
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Hi and welcome. 
Here's the link for how to indent.
If you hit edit on the OP you can add the code if you want to.
billy wrote:welcome to the site. make it your own, wear it like a well loved slipper and wear it out. ella pleads:please click forum titles for posting guidelines, important threads. New poet? Try Poetic DevicesandWard's Tips
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hello,
I have little to say about this one, other than I like it. I mean, I really like it. But, that doesn't really cut much ice in a critical forum, embarrassingly.
but here goes nothing:
1. far from removing the 'your' from 'your son' I would personally add a 'leave' to make it 'and leave your wife and leave your son'.
2. (a positive/negative) do not change the 'wailing tongue' part. It is spot-on.
3. 'The rich man's blunder' although conceptually quite nice, it is a little quaint, don't you think?
4. 'the sky torn asunder' is a cliche. but to be fair, I can't improve it, so...
5. 'what war does teach...' really? you want it that way? Fuck it, the poem is overall too good for me to care about inversion.
6. a comma after 'way' in the final stanza would serve better than a full stop.
on the positive side:
pretty much everything else.
thanks.
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Threads: 1
Joined: Mar 2014
Hi Willpark, the rhyming scheme of the poem is (for me) as bad as it gets, but thats OK, you can only get better. You need the rhyming to come over as natural, as if the rhymes happened without effort.
Watch out for cliches. slay evil, fight another day, wise men say, torn asunder.
Your first 2 verses had some clarity but all the following verses are (for me) lost to abstraction.
"corpses creep" is nonsense.
"To meet the dead and wailing tongue" is nonsense.
You need more clarity in the "whole" for it to make an impact.
hope some of this helps. JG
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Joined: Dec 2009
04-29-2014, 11:10 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-29-2014, 11:12 AM by billy.)
see here
click on reply to this post and have a look at how it's done, use numbers 1, 2, 4, or 8, and leave a space after the 2nd bracket.
(04-28-2014, 12:00 PM)Willpark Wrote: Note: I can't get the format right in this post, but the second and fourth line of each stanza should be indented.
He Lives to Fight Another Day
Why must you return to her?
Does she sing with Siren’s lure?
Or hold for you some unknown cure
To heal your life, lived impure?
Why, my father, do you run
And leave your wife and your son?
Or are you searching for someone,
To mend you mind, come undone?
And must I too now go among,
The savaged body and drowning lung?
Must I too now go so young,
To meet the dead and wailing tongue?
And here I fight the rich man’s blunder,
And see the sky torn asunder.
As corpses creep I can’t help but wonder,
When will I be sent down under?
In this way we always turn
As bodies rot beneath the fern,
To feel her sting and biting burn.
What War does teach, can we not learn?
Tell me why we turn this way.
To fight the beast and evil slay?
And how in peace can wise men say,
He lives to fight another day.
or use [] two brackets with a / inside them you can use [][][][] with 4 / backslashes or any number you wish.
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