Echoes of a fugue – Remembrance Day, Wizard ~ Sonnet-Interlocking rhyme, full and slant Options

[JaxMyth]

Echoes of a fugue – Remembrance Day
The Bugler Boy

"...and when I'm home, please, never fire guns.
Hide them in dark corners and hide them well.
I'm sick, so sick of slaughter, noise, the smell
of powder, blowing whistles, yells and gains
that measure mud in lives. I'm sick of grunts
of dying men and dead behind each wall.
Dear God I beg, make me once more a small,
beach-bonded boy content with counting grains.”

Those were my words. A poor, expended shell,
too bloody scared to sound retreat, who fell
then ran. You ask of war? Should I begin?
Barren of truth, I have a country’s shawl
as armour round my knees. We’ll let it fall.
I’ll stand up now and ape Munchhausen’s grin.

[JLY]

JaxMyth,
You have given us a powerful message to reflect upon.

My one suggestion would be to change gains to pains in the following:

of powder, blowing whistles, yells and {gains} [pains]

I found these lines to be a great allegorical image:

Barren of truth, I have a country’s shawl
as armour round my knees. We’ll let it fall.

In these troubled times, your poem should be required reading...conflict causes great hardship and reaps few if any rewards.

JLY

[Guest_Kathy_*]

Jax, lately I prepare myself before I read your stuff. It just happened again. I'm slammed back against something hard. I will have to come back.

Pete would have loved it. It reminds me of some of his.

The rhyme scheme, slants and all I will have to squiz at later. Right now the feel of it is in my head.

There are some small bits that may be not quite be in the right place when next I look, or they may be fine as is. ( eg gains that measure mud in lives .... ?? measure lives in mud??

Also perhaps blowing whistles is too trite BUT maybe just right; the small things matter; balance, light an shade all that..

Too hard to know yet. It will have to settle.

-woohoo-

[AMETHYST]

Oh my Jax, I surely owe you a prank ... LOL As I read the octet, and going into some lines of the sestet I was almost to tears with a mixed sense of sadness for old fashioned patriotic emotion and the emotions stirred by the powerful emotions of the narrator's tone and raw, honesty of putting ones hands up and saying I am dun, no more; the image of war having made its scars on the mind and soul

........ and then, in that final line I was in tears with laughter. I do hope that you had intended the irony of that final line, as I perceive it to mean, the bugle boy, had sort of went AWOL, and when he had to face the music, he played his part - staging his illness, that he had gone mad, while he was ill with 'Munchausen syndrome' implied by that sly evil grin! Either way, it works on ALL LEVELs and I just quite enjoyed the amazing twist - so COMPLETELY UNEXPECTED! :)



I apologize, I have no nits at this time - but I can surely say THIS IS A WORK OF ART! :)


Hugs, Liz ..

Happy Holidays!

Echoes of a fugue – Remembrance Day
The Bugler Boy

"...and when I'm home, please, never fire guns.
Hide them in dark corners and hide them well.
I'm sick, so sick of slaughter, noise, the smell
of powder, blowing whistles, yells and gains
that measure mud in lives. I'm sick of grunts
of dying men and dead behind each wall.
Dear God I beg, make me once more a small,
beach-bonded boy content with counting grains.”

Those were my words. A poor, expended shell,
too bloody scared to sound retreat, who fell
then ran. You ask of war? Should I begin?
Barren of truth, I have a country’s shawl
as armour round my knees. We’ll let it fall.
I’ll stand up now and ape Munchhausen’s grin

[JaxMyth]

JaxMyth,
You have given us a powerful message to reflect upon.

My one suggestion would be to change gains to pains in the following:

of powder, blowing whistles, yells and {gains} [pains]

I found these lines to be a great allegorical image:

Barren of truth, I have a country’s shawl
as armour round my knees. We’ll let it fall.

In these troubled times, your poem should be required reading...conflict causes great hardship and reaps few if any rewards.

JLY

Thank you JLY,

'gains' is historically correct.

Your kind words are greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Jax

[JaxMyth]

Jax, lately I prepare myself before I read your stuff. It just happened again. I'm slammed back against something hard. I will have to come back.

Pete would have loved it. It reminds me of some of his.

The rhyme scheme, slants and all I will have to squiz at later. Right now the feel of it is in my head.

There are some small bits that may be not quite be in the right place when next I look, or they may be fine as is. ( eg gains that measure mud in lives .... ?? measure lives in mud??

Also perhaps blowing whistles is too trite BUT maybe just right; the small things matter; balance, light an shade all that..

Too hard to know yet. It will have to settle.

-woohoo-

Thanks Kathy,

Yes Pete would have.

The octet contains much that is found. I read literally, hundreds of letters from the Front. I needed to get the voice right. I have the following as an alternate ending to the octet.

tanned Bondi boy content with counting grains.

The interlocking architecture:

guns/gains well/smell grunts/grains wall/small

shell/fell ...gin/grin shawl/fall

/a bb /a/a cc /a
bb /a cc /a


Marcel Caux / Harold Katte

Regards,

Jax

[JaxMyth]

Oh my Jax, I surely owe you a prank ... LOL As I read the octet, and going into some lines of the sestet I was almost to tears with a mixed sense of sadness for old fashioned patriotic emotion and the emotions stirred by the powerful emotions of the narrator's tone and raw, honesty of putting ones hands up and saying I am dun, no more; the image of war having made its scars on the mind and soul

........ and then, in that final line I was in tears with laughter. I do hope that you had intended the irony of that final line, as I perceive it to mean, the bugle boy, had sort of went AWOL, and when he had to face the music, he played his part - staging his illness, that he had gone mad, while he was ill with 'Munchausen syndrome' implied by that sly evil grin! Either way, it works on ALL LEVELs and I just quite enjoyed the amazing twist - so COMPLETELY UNEXPECTED! :)



I apologize, I have no nits at this time - but I can surely say THIS IS A WORK OF ART! :)


Hugs, Liz ..

Happy Holidays!

Echoes of a fugue – Remembrance Day
The Bugler Boy

"...and when I'm home, please, never fire guns.
Hide them in dark corners and hide them well.
I'm sick, so sick of slaughter, noise, the smell
of powder, blowing whistles, yells and gains
that measure mud in lives. I'm sick of grunts
of dying men and dead behind each wall.
Dear God I beg, make me once more a small,
beach-bonded boy content with counting grains.”

Those were my words. A poor, expended shell,
too bloody scared to sound retreat, who fell
then ran. You ask of war? Should I begin?
Barren of truth, I have a country’s shawl
as armour round my knees. We’ll let it fall.
I’ll stand up now and ape Munchhausen’s grin

Thank you Liz,

I can understand the laughter. I need to flag this more.

The 'man' and not the syndrome. 'Barren of truth'/Baron of lies

It is based on a man who denied his past and yet was given a state funeral

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2004/s1183306.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Caux
http://www.warbooks.com.au/IndividualBooks/marcelcaux.html
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/08/22/1093113062297.html
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2004/s1186903.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2004/s1186903.htm
http://minister.dva.gov.au/media_releases/...8_aug/va082.htm
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/08/...l?from=storylhs

Regards and thank you for your kind words,

Jax

[Guest_Kathy_*]

Jax, you wrote:

Thanks Kathy,

Yes Pete would have.

The octet contains much that is found. I read literally, hundreds of letters from the Front. I needed to get the voice right. I have the following as an alternate ending to the octet.

tanned Bondi boy content with counting grains.

The interlocking architecture:

guns/gains well/smell grunts/grains wall/small

shell/fell ...gin/grin shawl/fall

/a bb /a/a cc /a
bb /a cc /a


Marcel Caux / Harold Katte

Regards,

Jax

#### Thank you for those links. I didn't know about him. How ironic that he was honoured in exactly the way he wished to avoid! How sad it is that he became part of the trap we use to induce our young to go off willingly to war.

As a soldier's wife I tread a narrow path in holding these views, for it seems to dishonour those who made the ultimate sacrifice. That includes my own beloved now. And yet, as long as we continue to make heroes of veterans, to trumpets and drums and stately vaunted parades, as long as we make war glamorous and rewarding, there will be young people eager to follow.

Marcel knew that. Too bad few others did. The media got hold of it and ta rah rah rah! And yet, perhaps the message is there for us to read, if we so choose. Your poem is a scholarly work of art, and with a social conscience as well.

If I could parade it with marching bands through streets closed for the day, I would.


I thought you had included 'found' info in the octet. That's what I meant by needing time to sort it through. But you knew that.

The alternate line doesn't seem significant either way.

Interlocking:

The interlocking architecture:

guns/gains well/smell grunts/grains wall/small

shell/fell ...gin/grin shawl/fall

/a bb /a/a cc /a
bb /a cc /a

I will read it again, again. I love that kind of thing. But you know that too. In fact you may have taught me in the first place....

I usually do my slants etc inside the lines though, rather than at the ends.

K

.

[JaxMyth]

I will read it again, again. I love that kind of thing. But you know that too. In fact you may have taught me in the first place....

...and Peter Moltoni



K

.

Many thanks Kathy,

Regards,

Jax

[Guest_Kathy_*]

I will read it again, again. I love that kind of thing. But you know that too. In fact you may have taught me in the first place....

...and Peter Moltoni



K

.

Many thanks Kathy,

Regards,

Jax

Yes, especially Peter Moltoni. And Jude.

Looking again at your sonnet, I wonder at the obviously deliberate departures from metre and wonder if some of them could be tweeked. As you mentioned elsewhere re one of mine, others may not know your competence.

Likewise your use of slants, alliteratives, and consonants instead of end-rhymes, which may also misplease the purists. For me, the unusual matches lend freshness, adding to the impact in a slightly off-beat way (like the metric substitutions.)
It does limit your audience though, but you knew that. I guess there are competitions for more unconventional sonnets, and I know you have won at least one prestigious prize, so will not harp.

I enjoyed your devices of style, though L2 tends to bump, and coming so soon in the poem, and after a departure from IP in L1, I find that second slight delay/accommodation a distraction. It just seems a bit clumsy. 'and hide them well' serves to emphasis 'hide' in the same way that Tennyson does it in

'flashed all the sabres bare
flashed as they turned in air'

but it doesn't flow as well as he did it, and that makes a difference, to me. I think its because the stress falls on 'and'.

What do you think?




Echoes of a fugue – Remembrance Day
The Bugler Boy

"...and when I'm home, please, never fire guns.
Hide them in dark corners and hide them well.
I'm sick, so sick of slaughter, noise, the smell
of powder, blowing whistles, yells and gains
that measure mud in lives. I'm sick of grunts
of dying men and dead behind each wall.
Dear God I beg, make me once more a small,
beach-bonded boy content with counting grains.�

Those were my words. A poor, expended shell,
too bloody scared to sound retreat, who fell
then ran. You ask of war? Should I begin?
Barren of truth, I have a country’s shawl
as armour round my knees. We’ll let it fall.
I’ll stand up now and ape Munchhausen’s grin.

[JaxMyth]

I will read it again, again. I love that kind of thing. But you know that too. In fact you may have taught me in the first place....

...and Peter Moltoni



K

.

Many thanks Kathy,

Regards,

Jax

Yes, especially Peter Moltoni. And Jude.

I remember Peter M posting an amphisbaenic tour de force though I am not sure if it was at Ozpoet.

Looking again at your sonnet, I wonder at the obviously deliberate departures from metre and wonder if some of them could be tweeked. As you mentioned elsewhere re one of mine, others may not know your competence.

The deviations mainly lie in the octet and go to the credit of voice and emotion in that voice.

Likewise your use of slants, alliteratives, and consonants instead of end-rhymes, which may also misplease the purists. For me, the unusual matches lend freshness, adding to the impact in a slightly off-beat way (like the metric substitutions.)
It does limit your audience though, but you knew that. I guess there are competitions for more unconventional sonnets, and I know you have won at least one prestigious prize, so will not harp.


Owens was the pararhyme specialist KAthy and and that is why I have cast this this way.

I enjoyed your devices of style, though L2 tends to bump, and coming so soon in the poem, and after a departure from IP in L1, I find that second slight delay/accommodation a distraction. It just seems a bit clumsy. 'and hide them well' serves to emphasis 'hide' in the same way that Tennyson does it in

'flashed all the sabres bare
flashed as they turned in air'

but it doesn't flow as well as he did it, and that makes a difference, to me. I think its because the stress falls on 'and'.


Hide them in dark corners and hide them well.
4,2 1,4 3,1 1,4 2,3
I see no stress on 'and'

Thanks Kathy,

regards,

Jax

[Guest_Kathy_*]

Jax, I read it slightly differently:

HIDE THEM in DARK CORNners AND HIDE them WELL.

.

[AMETHYST]

Hi Jax,

Thank you for those links. Quite interesting. I was left wondering though, if he had changed his name and hadn't spoken to no one all of those years about his part in the war, how did they know he was who he was claiming to be? ... oh I know he must have been, but it did get my mind reeling about the what ifs, the who's and whys... LOL

This is a great poem and there is much duality laying beneath the lines.

Best Wishes, Liz

[JaxMyth]

Jax, I read it slightly differently:

HIDE THEM in DARK CORNners AND HIDE them WELL.

.

Aah 'tis always the danger of departure *smile*

That is why I have come to prefer James McCauley's four part stress profile. The soundscape obtained reduces confusion and allows for greater flexibility and suppleness in metred work. The metric pattern is actualised in relative variations of stress.

He wrote:

"...a degree of stress is aproperty of every spoken syllable, so that we will not speak of stressed and unstressed syllables but of relatively stong and relatively weak degrees of stress. Note also that stress being a feature of actual speech, is variable, within limits, according to different speakers and their sense of the semantic and rhetorical requirements.
If we now take a line of verse as an example we can see how stress variation actualizes the pattern. This is an iambic line to which I give a stress profile as shown (though different speakers might wish to modify this somewhat without disturbing the metre):

x / x / x / x / x /
Must all tradition then be set aside
2 4 1 4 1 2 1 3 1 4
(Dryden)

By using this 'and' cannot hold the same stress value of 'hide' and therefore promotion would be merely a rhetorical device. I hope *smile*

Regards,

Jax

[JaxMyth]

Hi Jax,

Thank you for those links. Quite interesting. I was left wondering though, if he had changed his name and hadn't spoken to no one all of those years about his part in the war, how did they know he was who he was claiming to be? ... oh I know he must have been, but it did get my mind reeling about the what ifs, the who's and whys... LOL

This is a great poem and there is much duality laying beneath the lines.

Best Wishes, Liz

Thank you Liz,

It is the stuff of Restoration novels that once seemed so far fetched *smile*

Regards,

Jax

[Guest_Kathy_*]

Jax, I read it slightly differently:

HIDE THEM in DARK CORNners AND HIDE them WELL.

.

Aah 'tis always the danger of departure *smile*

That is why I have come to prefer James McCauley's four part stress profile. The soundscape obtained reduces confusion and allows for greater flexibility and suppleness in metred work. The metric pattern is actualised in relative variations of stress.

He wrote:

"...a degree of stress is aproperty of every spoken syllable, so that we will not speak of stressed and unstressed syllables but of relatively stong and relatively weak degrees of stress. Note also that stress being a feature of actual speech, is variable, within limits, according to different speakers and their sense of the semantic and rhetorical requirements.
If we now take a line of verse as an example we can see how stress variation actualizes the pattern. This is an iambic line to which I give a stress profile as shown (though different speakers might wish to modify this somewhat without disturbing the metre):

x / x / x / x / x /
Must all tradition then be set aside
2 4 1 4 1 2 1 3 1 4
(Dryden)

By using this 'and' cannot hold the same stress value of 'hide' and therefore promotion would be merely a rhetorical device. I hope *smile*

Regards,

Jax

Ah, the relativity of stresses that I've mentioned elsewhere, I think. It looks like a numerical measure of the relative length/strength of syllables.... is this relative to the preceeding and following syllables? Somewhere within Accentual and Gerard Manley Hopkins' Sprung?

James McCauley, eh? Do you have a link to him?

I can't find him or 'four part stress profile' anywhere. I'm very interested in these differences; with a decent system we could show secondary rhythms, perhaps.

.

.

[Guest_Kathy_*]

Ern Malley????

[Guest_Kathy_*]

Ern Malley???? Eeek!

[JaxMyth]

Jax, I read it slightly differently:

HIDE THEM in DARK CORNners AND HIDE them WELL.

.

Aah 'tis always the danger of departure *smile*

That is why I have come to prefer James McCauley's four part stress profile. The soundscape obtained reduces confusion and allows for greater flexibility and suppleness in metred work. The metric pattern is actualised in relative variations of stress.

He wrote:

"...a degree of stress is aproperty of every spoken syllable, so that we will not speak of stressed and unstressed syllables but of relatively stong and relatively weak degrees of stress. Note also that stress being a feature of actual speech, is variable, within limits, according to different speakers and their sense of the semantic and rhetorical requirements.
If we now take a line of verse as an example we can see how stress variation actualizes the pattern. This is an iambic line to which I give a stress profile as shown (though different speakers might wish to modify this somewhat without disturbing the metre):

x / x / x / x / x /
Must all tradition then be set aside
2 4 1 4 1 2 1 3 1 4
(Dryden)

By using this 'and' cannot hold the same stress value of 'hide' and therefore promotion would be merely a rhetorical device. I hope *smile*

Regards,

Jax

Ah, the relativity of stresses that I've mentioned elsewhere, I think. It looks like a numerical measure of the relative length/strength of syllables.... is this relative to the preceeding and following syllables? Somewhere within Accentual and Gerard Manley Hopkins' Sprung?

James McCauley, eh? Do you have a link to him?

I can't find him or 'four part stress profile' anywhere. I'm very interested in these differences; with a decent system we could show secondary rhythms, perhaps.

.

.

http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A150192b.htm

It was his short work A Primer of English Versification (Sydney, 1966) that proposes the method. However, in the forward, he credits its initial formulation to A.D. Hope. It is recast in an essay from his selected prose in The Grammar of the Real (Oxford Press, 1975) ISBN 0 19 550480 1 and in softback ISBN 0 19 550481 x Paperback. Try your library first and then one of the local second hand bookshops.

In recent years it has come up again in the work of the American poet Steele, who credits neither Hope nor McAuley.


Regards,

Jax

[JaxMyth]

Ern Malley???? Eeek!

Yes he and Stewart thought Max Harris was wearing the Emperor's new clothes. However it backfired somewhat in hindsight as it showed that they could not hide their talent even in the hoax.

For those not aware of the literary hoax:

http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/art.../angrypenguins/

Regards,

Jax