primroseport: Triage

Coverpage (

primroseport) wrote,
@ 2007-03-03 16:09:00

Triage
Triage [Draft 2]

Take this, my splinted arm
And add my weight to yours
I'm a snail leaving a trail of slime
I'm crawling on all fours
Got the tunnel-vision of trench rats
The solitude of the deaf
My lungs are bags of mustard gas
Can you smell it on my breath?
I'm through with playing hopscotch
Dodging mines on two bum legs
I'm through with dancing foxtrot
No more mumbling the peg
I'm leaking like a colander
Cork my bright wine with a thumb
Bullets bored their keyholes red
The stigmata of the gun
The air sweats smoke and vinegar
The earth rolls like a drum
The sky deigns not to fall down
It gapes motionless and glum
I'm clutching at Old Slabsides
And there's one left in the pipe
I may ride it into heaven
If salvation's overripe
Take this, my splinted arm
And add my weight to yours
Let's slither between the salvos
Let the triage run its course
They'll cleanse our wounds with maggots
They'll sew us up with thread
They'll mummy-wrap our injuries
And stretch us among the dead

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hyades
2007-03-04 05:35 am UTC (link)

I like this.

Reminiscent of "Dulce et Decorum Est:"

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	primroseport 2007-03-04 12:22 pm UTC (link)
	Thanks, and--yes, that is a great piece (Reply to this)(Parent)

	meaning this is good rebirtha 2007-03-04 05:48 am UTC (link)
	sometimes I imagine this alternative present where we're together but I would bore the shit out of you, really. Isn't it mumblety-peg? (Reply to this)(Thread)

	Re: meaning this is good primroseport 2007-03-04 12:21 pm UTC (link)
	there's this one other present in which I'm irrelevant and boring you It's mumble the beg and mumbly peg and mumbletypeg and mumbledepeg and... (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	< check this evil rebirtha 2007-03-04 03:30 pm UTC (link)
	it wouldn't be so bad, to be together boring the shit out of one another, except in contrast to this, where we know one another and find each other pretty great. this poem's cool, too. why did you write it? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: < check this evil primroseport 2007-03-04 08:53 pm UTC (link)
	Oh yes I forgot about this present-- I wrote this poem so I'd have an excuse to sing "Old Slabsides" And I have had the first two lines rattling around in my head for a while (Reply to this)(Parent)

	(Anonymous) 2007-03-05 02:48 am UTC (link)
	vivid imagery, i like the description of the bullet-riddled bodies have any idea of the music? (Reply to this)(Thread)

	primroseport 2007-03-05 02:52 am UTC (link)
	thanks--yeah, that's his body with the bullet holes, actually, but with the missing subject one can be uncertain Not sure about the music, though I did use your new western riff as a guide (Reply to this)(Parent)

	hyades 2007-03-05 02:53 am UTC (link)
	Both this and Ragtime have a very interesting cadence. Like something from the 1890s or so. (Reply to this)(Thread)

primroseport
2007-03-05 03:17 am UTC (link)

My favorite lyrical form has been the ballad (not to be confused with the ballade). It's what many folk songs and hymns are written in--it's simple and memorable, and highly singable. Triage and the Ragtime are both written in a loose ballad form, with apologies made for image content and whatnot. Ballads are traditionally composed of lines that alternate from iambic tetrameter to iambic trimeter, usually in stanzas of four lines. Below is an excerpt that shows where I fudge the rules a bit with syllables that lie outside the meter and rests. Read the lines as they are, and don't read the parenthetical words... you'll get a perfect ballad.

The air sweats smoke and vinegar
The earth rolls like a drum
The sky deigns not to fall down; It
Is motionless and glum
I'm clutching at Old Slabsides; And
There's one left in the pipe; (I may)
Ride it into heaven; If (my)
Salvation's overripe

(By way of the ball-peen hammer) <---this line is not in iambic tetrameter
This country was rebuilt
By crossbow, crowbar, cattle prod
By half of scissors quilt
By rust-encrusted rifles (rest)
Its future was secured
(By the screwdriver and petrol bomb
By the ornamental sword) <---these lines don't fit the form, either

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	hyades 2007-03-05 02:05 pm UTC (link)
	Also a bit like kipling both in rhythm and subject matter: When you're wounded and left on afghanistan's plains and the women come out to cut up what remains just roll on your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your Gawd like a soldier! (Reply to this)(Parent)

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