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Green is for the fields that line
The rich banks of Mother Euphrates.
White is for the sand that kisses
Badiyat al-Sham and the White Middle Sea.
Black is for the smoke that rises
From each bomb’s billowy blossom.
Red is for the slickness that covers
a boy’s face and drenches his graphic t-shirt.
But grey is his new favorite color.
He sees grey in the windowless
Planes buzzing over his flat
Like angry wasps.
He sees grey in the ten-foot mounds
Of concrete and rebar
That turned noisy homes into
Silent graves.
He sees grey in the dust and ash
Blanketing the streets
Like sorrowful snow.
He saw grey in his father’s hair,
His mother’s hair, his brother’s hair—
Once black as oil, now dull
And lifeless as their body bags.
Now the grey clings to his skin,
Punctuated with shades of brown.
He reaches up to wipe some off
His face and his hand
comes back red and grey.
He looks but doesn’t cry.
His tears were snatched
Away with the green
Fields and white
Sands of Aleppo.
The camera filming him will absorb
Variants of red, green, and blue, but
It will broadcast a rainbow worldwide:
Black for the smoke that rises
From each bomb’s billowy blossom.
Red for the slickness that covers
Syrian faces and drenches graphic t-shirts.
Grey for the thin, dusty hope
That settles on the ground to the tune of gunfire.
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The 'White Middle Sea' prompted me to check out Syria's borders, so thanks for that.
I like how you've described this particular scene without lapsing into sentimentality, and particularly:
He reaches up to wipe some off
His face and his hand
comes back red and grey.
I would have liked it better if you'd ended on 'rainbow worldwide' and changed the line above to 'and will/ broadcast...' to change the meaning slightly (the world sees 'peace: rebel stronghold hit'. The reality being different. Or at least, that is one of the possible meanings.
The final strophe is repetitive.
I also think that the line breaks do not correspond to natural pauses. An example being:
His tears were snatched
Away with the green
Fields and white
Sands of Aleppo.
His tears were snatched away / with the green fields, and white / sands of Aleppo OR His tears were snatched / away with the green / fields and white sands / of Aleppo are more natural.
Also note that you can't 'snatch' tears, so 'wipe' may be more apt.
~ I think I just quoted myself - Achebe
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Love the title. Gets me ready for what's coming. Political poetry hard to write, but maybe this is more about the "after" and not so political. It just is.
Wouldn't mind the colors presented in their own stanzas/lines (more like the ending). The blending of all the colors at the beginning makes me have to sort through it more. Agree w/Achebe about the line breaks. They're too choppy and we don't get the impact of what you're trying to present. A bit of overwriting (e.g. "he looks but doesn't cry" / too much commentary / telling going on with lines like this).
Again here:
"He sees grey in the ten-foot mounds
Of concrete and rebar
That turned noisy homes into
Silent graves." (do you really need the last two lines?...you've already presented the "mounds" to us and yet you tell us again they are graves).
Don't like the repetition of "he sees grey / he sees grey / he saw grey" although I do like the way the color is fleshed out a bit more than all the other colors. Seems fitting it should be grey.
The poem is ambitious. Seems like you are there w/your POV. Are you? I like that.
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(09-12-2016, 01:54 AM)Vox_Nihilis Wrote: I'd consider it political, inasmuch as it moves one to actually participate politics -- just like angry rhetoric that doesn't move me in the slightest isn't political, just plain stupid. It doesn't read like you are there for me -- rather, it reads like you've been there, or you know there, and are now speaking as you watch the news, compare and contrast. Reads as if you're familiar with the language, too, and I'm not talking about the Syrian Desert -- the constructions and such feel somewhat like the stuff of Rumi I've read once. Then again, I'm not that well read, so that may just be me.
Green is for the fields that line
The rich banks of Mother Euphrates. I do think that enhancing archaicness by capitalizing each starter is unnecessary.
White is for the sand that kisses
Badiyat al-Sham and the White Middle Sea. Redundant white is redundant -- or at least feels that way. I can't help but feel like you should maybe go with something else, for the mediterranean.
Black is for the smoke that rises
From each bomb’s billowy blossom.
Red is for the slickness that covers
a boy’s face and drenches his graphic t-shirt. When you said "graphic t-shirt", i immediately thought his t-shirt had graphic images on him -- i mean, it don't make sense, but detracting thought is detracting, even if just for a moment. And the scansion, i think, would be enhanced, removing graphic. maybe even: "a boy's face, drenches his shirt."
But grey is his new favorite color. i'm not sure this is the right device to move on -- i don't think we ever really get into the mind of the boy this way, either in the instigating image or the poem. sure, we get to see things through his eyes, but the poem stops there. there's a different moment in the greyness to be caught, i think.
He sees grey in the windowless
Planes buzzing over his flat
Like angry wasps.
He sees grey in the ten-foot mounds
Of concrete and rebar
That turned noisy homes into
Silent graves. something kinda irks me -- it's the bombs that turned the noisy homes into silent graves, not the silent graves composed of ten-foot mounds themselves! but that problem should be easy enough to solve. like the earlier stanza a lot, though.
He sees grey in the dust and ash
Blanketing the streets
Like sorrowful snow. eh, "sorrowful snow" is pushing it too close to sentiment, i think.
He saw grey in his father’s hair,
His mother’s hair, his brother’s hair— it's a little weird, this sudden shift to past tense -- though the picture is of the boy in an ambulance, i think moving this to the present is equally viable, a la wartime flashbacks.
Once black as oil, now dull
And lifeless as their body bags. really, the greyness of their hair is from that same dust as in the earlier stanza, so i think the two stanzas should be fused, something like
He sees grey in the dust and ash
blanketing the streets, blanketing
his father's hair, his mother's hair, his brother's hair,
all once black as oil, now dull
and lifeless as a body bag.
Now the grey clings to his skin,
Punctuated with shades of brown.
He reaches up to wipe some off
His face and his hand
comes back red and grey. somehow, although this stanza is key to the original image, i think it isn't key to the whole poem. he's already seen the planes, his house blown up, he family dead -- him being wounded becomes kinda secondary to that. and perhaps you could easily skip to the next stanza. Say:
and lifeless as a body bag---
he sees, but doesn't cry.
His tears were snatched
away with the green
fields and white
sands of Aleppo.
and yeah, although the line break sounds kinda unnatural, i don't think it's so unnatural as to be detracting -- rather, its unnaturalness for me is part of the point. and the emphasis on the colors and locations is quite rich.
He looks but doesn’t cry.
His tears were snatched
Away with the green
Fields and white
Sands of Aleppo.
The camera filming him will absorb
Variants of red, green, and blue, but
It will broadcast a rainbow worldwide: there's no but -- variants of red, green, and blue schmutzed together is exactly what a rainbow is. I feel like the thought here -- perhaps on the nature of shades of light coming together to form grey? -- is not translated into words well enough. an off gander:
A camera films him, translates
each dab of grey
into a spectral rainbow:
Black for the smoke that rises
From each bomb’s billowy blossom. Maybe semicolon/comma, instead of period?
Red for the slickness that covers
Syrian faces and drenches graphic t-shirts. Still don't like graphic, and I think Syrian pushes the politic too much -- Syrian, Ukrainian, Ugandan, what matters is it's a boy's (even a human's) face! so the line:
red for the slickness that covers
boys' faces, drenches shirts.
Grey for the thin, dusty hope
That settles on the ground to the tune of gunfire. "to the tune of gunfire" feels either cliche or simply jarring -- I can't really tell. eliminate it -- "settling on the ground." works well enough, but with twice the punch, I think.
But yeah, overall, lovely.
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Thanks to everyone who's commented thus far!
@Achebe: Just to clarify a couple of things, the final strophe was intended to reiterate the new "rainbow" (contrasted with the partially positive aspects of the opening stanza), including the grey that the subject sees everywhere. I agree with your point about the line breaks not necessarily corresponding to natural pauses. I will certainly work on that!
@71degrees: I certainly understand your frustration with the first stanza including all the colors instead of having them broken up into individual stanzas. The struggle there for me was trying to figure out whether or not I should focus on the flow or the symbolism (that being the correspondence between the meaning of the colors and their place on the Syrian flag). I really appreciate your comment about the POV making it seem like I'm actually there. In truth, I'm only 17 and haven't been any further east than Italy, although I do hope to visit the Middle East someday. As a side question, is the ambition that you pointed out positive or negative?
@RiverNotch: Thank you for taking the time to analyze this line by line, it means a lot. As I said with 71degrees, I've never actually been to Syria but was so incredibly moved by the video of Omran Daqneesh sitting in the ambulance that I felt the urge to write this piece. I have an obsession with detail, so the culturally authentic bits that you see are a result of that  Part of the reason why I included the "Now the grey ... / red and grey" stanza was to emphasize the fact that Omran didn't make a sound when he was so clearly in pain. However, I totally see how his emotional pain overshadows that. I really like your point about eliminating the "Syrian" tag on "the slickness that covers / Syrian faces" because it widens the poem's applicability to all victims of war. Ditto with your point about the last line—I recognized while writing this that "to the tune of gunfire" was a somewhat weak ending.
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(09-13-2016, 01:00 AM)Vox_Nihilis Wrote: Thanks to everyone who's commented thus far!
@Achebe: Just to clarify a couple of things, the final strophe was intended to reiterate the new "rainbow" (contrasted with the partially positive aspects of the opening stanza), including the grey that the subject sees everywhere. I agree with your point about the line breaks not necessarily corresponding to natural pauses. I will certainly work on that!
@71degrees: I certainly understand your frustration with the first stanza including all the colors instead of having them broken up into individual stanzas. The struggle there for me was trying to figure out whether or not I should focus on the flow or the symbolism (that being the correspondence between the meaning of the colors and their place on the Syrian flag). I really appreciate your comment about the POV making it seem like I'm actually there. In truth, I'm only 17 and haven't been any further east than Italy, although I do hope to visit the Middle East someday. As a side question, is the ambition that you pointed out positive or negative?
@RiverNotch: Thank you for taking the time to analyze this line by line, it means a lot. As I said with 71degrees, I've never actually been to Syria but was so incredibly moved by the video of Omran Daqneesh sitting in the ambulance that I felt the urge to write this piece. I have an obsession with detail, so the culturally authentic bits that you see are a result of that Part of the reason why I included the "Now the grey ... / red and grey" stanza was to emphasize the fact that Omran didn't make a sound when he was so clearly in pain. However, I totally see how his emotional pain overshadows that. I really like your point about eliminating the "Syrian" tag on "the slickness that covers / Syrian faces" because it widens the poem's applicability to all victims of war. Ditto with your point about the last line—I recognized while writing this that "to the tune of gunfire" was a somewhat weak ending.
Positive. Absolutely. 
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(09-12-2016, 01:54 AM)Vox_Nihilis Wrote: Green is for the fields that line
The rich banks of Mother Euphrates.
White is for the sand that kisses
Badiyat al-Sham and the White Middle Sea.
Black is for the smoke that rises
From each bomb’s billowy blossom. (proper alliteration - I do not like the word "blossom", here, however. It builds on the bright images before contrasting them with darker ones, but it feels asymmetrical, out of place)
Red is for the slickness that covers
a boy’s face and drenches his graphic t-shirt.(some trimming may be in order around here)
But grey is his new favorite color.
He sees grey in the windowless
Planes buzzing over his flat
Like angry wasps.
He sees grey in the ten-foot mounds
Of concrete and rebar
That turned noisy homes into
Silent graves.
He sees grey in the dust and ash
Blanketing the streets
Like sorrowful snow.
He saw grey in his father’s hair,
His mother’s hair, his brother’s hair—
Once black as oil, now dull
And lifeless as their body bags. (I might let "and lifeless" stand alone as a line)
Now the grey clings to his skin,
Punctuated with shades of brown. (this seems to lack something. I feel the shades of brown need physical attachment)
He reaches up to wipe some off (the grouping of this and the following two lines lead me to misread, and not in a way that seemed to help achieve a deeper understanding)
His face and his hand
comes back red and grey.
He looks but doesn’t cry. (out of sonic preference, I think "does not" works better)
His tears were snatched
Away with the green
Fields and white (I totally get what's going on with the line breaks, but I can't agree with them)
Sands of Aleppo.
The camera filming him will absorb
Variants of red, green, and blue, but
It will broadcast a rainbow worldwide:
Black for the smoke that rises
From each bomb’s billowy blossom.
Red for the slickness that covers
Syrian faces and drenches graphic t-shirts.
(again, the whole "x is for the y that z" formula is too much. x y does z. I would only accept your formula if I felt you were depicting a flag, but nothing gives that sense)
Grey for the thin, dusty hope
That settles on the ground to the tune of gunfire.
Sorry my crit is a little simple, but it's the best I can offer right now. I enjoyed the piece, but I would like to see some reason behind the decisions made.
If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room.
"Or, if a poet writes a poem, then immediately commits suicide (as any decent poet should)..." -- Erthona
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@UselessBlueprint: Thanks for taking the time to respond, no worries about its simplicity The first stanza's "x is for the y that z" structure actually was meant to depict a flag. Green, red, black, and white are the colors of the Syrian flag. Basically, the poem shows its transformation in the eyes of this little boy from representative of semi-positive aspects of Syria to relatively negative aspects, perhaps with the exception of the bittersweet grey. Also, what was your misreading of "He reaches ... / red and grey"?
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I got the colours of the flag, but there's just no concrete image to make me (personally) think of the flag. Even just the inclusion of the word "fabric" would have made it solid to me, but nothing distinguishes the colours from being on a painting, a stained glass window, or a flag. That's my issue there. I think of a flag as the physical object, not the image that it bears.
My misinterpretation, which assumed a typo to make syntactic sense, but still lacks some semantic sense:
He reaches up to wipe some off; his face and his hand comes back red and grey.
Also, I'm not sure I would use "grey" as something bittersweet. I typically think of grey as the blur between right and wrong - black and white.
If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room.
"Or, if a poet writes a poem, then immediately commits suicide (as any decent poet should)..." -- Erthona
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