(content warning) Suffering

[heslopian]

"In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed—but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." - Harry Lime, The Third Man

Shining like baubles on a Christmas tree,
Raised and lighted by town hall.
The fury of stasis. Even in silence
One can hear the agony,

The heathens, the queers, the adulterers,
Bones snapping like children’s feet
On dry twigs fallen from their trees.
All man’s ingenuity

Has been utilised for pain,
The torment of the enemy,
Real or imagined, some pretend fallacy,
As these monuments attest,

Resting in their hollows like zoo animals,
Behind panes of glass,
Beside small white plaques.
One can almost hear them breathing.

O my love, my honey bee,
I would hold and kiss you here
Surrounded by these implements,
These chisels and racks

And silver thumbscrews.
An echo chamber of sorrow,
Where even down the valley of years
Close listeners will hear the screams.

[billy]

for me the 1st verse needs a bit of clarity and sorry but i don't know how.
it says a lot but doesn't tell us much.

the rest of the poem is and feels, spot on.
i have noticed your poems using a cap on every sentence.
for me it makes seem that every line is a new sentence and as such i take a longer pause.
they negate the preceding comma and render it redundant. if your going to break the rules of grammar, it's often best not to use grammar in the body of the poem. jmo

thanks for thr read.

i forgot. it fits the pic perfectly. and here i am still gearing the shit line from your open mic...

[heslopian]

Thanks for the kind words and feedback Billy. Gearing the shit line? I used a cap at the start of each line to reinforce the heavier structure this poem has than my other pieces, but yeah, it does render the commas redundnat. I'll think about removing them (the caps that is, not the commas). I agree with you about the first verse, though I'm just pleased it came at the start and not the end. Usually my beginnings are much stronger than my endings.

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