NaPM April 02 2016

[heslopian]

I adore this one, milo, partly for its beautifully macabre ending, which is so much like those wonderfully twisted poems of yore which bring you soft, tranquil, pleasing, and natural images, only to round them off with brutality. It reminds me of that Siegfried Sassoon poem, whose name I can't for my life recall, about a returned WWI soldier standing at his garden gate and reflecting on England's green and pleasant land, before we find out that he lost a leg in battle and is glad to have done so, given the horrors of where he's been.

Under the sycamore tree with Bonnie Mae
On a long gone, unforgotten Summer’s  day
And we began to talk as lovers can
About the things I could do as a man
As I would be in two weeks and a day.

I’d like to travel far away, explore
The sandy dunes of some forgotten shore
Or bear a flag for a distant foreign war
Or see the way the norther lights can burn
And go and go, never to return
Under the sycamore tree.

She said she liked her head upon my lap,
The pool of warmth, a lazy summer nap
And staying where she’d never need a map.
She said that she could make me feel that way
And if she could she knew she’d like to stay
Under the sycamore tree.

What could I do, abandon my endeavor
To occupy my life's adventures, never
Find my path but stay with her forever?
The knowledge of her simple face atones -
I killed her there and left her peaceful bones
Under the sycamore tree.

---

Please tell me how a penitent atones
for bringing forth the flesh and leaving bones?

These are my favourite lines. Chilling and emotional and perfect. I feel bad about my free verse wank-stains of NaPM entries, now