Tom – by Alex Cockers

This is one of the poems that are labeled “war poems” – which some people might want to rephrase in not-so-flattering terms – that appear on a web page for the western soldiers who are actively involved in the fighting in Afghanistan. War poems written by soldiers have a long tradition from Sophocles, Wilfred Owen, Sassoon, and so on …

·         The introduction to the web page says that it attempts to show war “as not simply a physical thing but also a psychological experience ….[and that through their poetry soldiers] reveal their attitudes to civilians back home who may not understand or sympathies with the role they had been required to take on.” Reading these lines, I was reminded of the protests marches against the US invasion of Vietnam in the  in the very hearts of western strongholds.

·         Alex Cockers was born in April 1985 in England. He was a Royal Marines Commando from 2005-2009 and had served in Afghanistan for 14 months. Commenting on how he came to write his poems, he explains, "During my fourteen months in Afghanistan, I had many feelings and thoughts that I was unable to share with anyone.  Under the stars; in the desert, rhymes would manifest in my head.  I would write them down, construct them into poems and somehow I felt better for getting it off my chest." “Tom” was published in 2010 after he had left RMC.

·         The poem has 5 quatrains with no discernable rhyming scheme possibly signaling the rigidity of military life as well as the meaningless of death. The title of the poem, while it could very well be the name of a fellow soldier of the poet, also stands as a sort of a generic appellation for all the surplus and thereby easily dispensable working class or lower middle-class young men sent to war by countries like the UK and the USA to further their neocolonialist agendas elsewhere in the world in the guise of establishing democracy. In addition, British soldiers are often called Tommie by their allies .

·         Tom and the poetic persona were from the same place, they had attended the same school and later they had joined the Royal Marines Commandos together. They have a shared history which makes Tom’s loss more profound for the voice. The Corps of Royal Marines is an amphibious light infantry and also one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom   

·         The decision to join the RMC had been without regrets for both young men for they had “never looked back”. One usually looks back at something only if it has something better to offer in comparison to the present. Therefore, the phrase “never looked back” suggests a socioeconomic struggle the two men had been only too glad to have left behind. Later, the two had been shipped to the desert – separately, and their subsequent meeting during which they had “a laugh and a chat” in an unfamiliar place must have been a relief to both Tom and the voice. They go on a mission and the voice hears the death of his friend over the communication set: “I heard it over the radio” At this point he does not name the event as death: “I heard it over the radio,” he says. His unwillingness to accept the unpalatable truth underscores his unwillingness to name the happening as death.

·         Then in the next line he denies to himself that it was really his own friend that had died.

“Surely it wasn’t him

I chose to deny

Until we got back in”

·         Once on a mission, one has to concentrate on the mission – any lapse in concentration would result in one’s own name being added to the list of casualties; so, he “chose to deny” his friend’s death until he “got back in” to the base. Upon returning, Drapes, possibly another soldier asks him “for a private word/ With a tear in his eye”.  Here, we see a marine usually portrayed as the toughest of the tough with a tear in his eye. The voice is still in denial: he finds the entire experience absurd.

·         The word “absurd” lends itself to multiple readings: it could be read as

o   What Drapes said was absurd

o   Or Drapes in tears was absurd

o   Or what the soldiers doing there was absurd

o   Or Tom being dead was absurd

o   Or war was absurd

o   Or life in general was absurd.    

·         Tom, another statistic on the long list of casualties of war, will be remembered by the voice forever, he says. But we know there is no such thing as forever, the voice very well could be another Tom the following day. They toast Tom’s life and call him “A soldier to the death” but such empty platitude fails to comfort them, so the remaining young men “cry and cry again.”They are mourning not only the life of their departed friend but also the fragility of their own lives. 

·         The poem is written in the first person and the language is simple and conversational. These invite a feeling intimacy between the poetic persona and the reader. Consequently, the reader is thrust into a position similar to that of a priest at a confessional cubical: the tough ex-marine is bearing his soul and letting us see his tears.     

“Un perro ha muerto” by Pablo Neruda (Translation: “A dog has died” by Alfred Yankauer)

·         “A Dog has died” is one of Neruda’s two last poems written upon his return from his exile to be published on his 74^th birthday in July 1974 but unfortunately he died in late September in 1973. Both “A dog has died” and the other poem “Millennium” deal with mourning, albeit in different ways

·         The original Spanish version of “A dog has died” appears in the posthumously published  Jardin del invierno  in 1974. Jardin del invierno was later  translated as "Winter Garden". “The dog has died” - the original as well as the translation by Yankauer – is in free verse. One might call the poem an elegy – but I would like to think of it as a celebration of a remarkable friendship. Neruda tries to create a sense of objectivity as befits a man of his age and stature with the phrasing of the title – he calls his dog that had died “a dog” – but he shoots that thought in the foot in the very first line of the body of the poem, when he says “My dog has died”. The use of the possessive pronoun “my” in relation to the dog reveals a wealth of emotions. It is also interesting that he never names the dog, not even once in the long poem. One wonders whether this is a form of denial.

·         It is also interesting that he chooses to use the present perfect tense to make the announcement of death in the first line: “My dog has died,” he says. Grammatically speaking, it is the form used to give new information, but at the same time the particular verb form packs a punch by creating a sense of immediacy and thereby marking the freshness of the poet’s grief.

·         Throughout the poem the dead dog is referred to with pronouns usually used to refer to a man thereby giving the dog human status. – incidentally, Neruda does not consider that elevation particularly flattering. However, this elevation alludes to a sense of equality in the relationship between the poet and the dog. They were true companions. 

·         The first four lines of the poem make a statement on the impermanence of all things – the dog, the machine and the man – they all grow old and die.   

·         In the second stanza, Neruda airs a view I too condone heartily – if there is such a thing called heaven, then it’s a place where dogs go after death.The poet believes that he and the entire human race has no place in heaven should there be such a place. Therefore, the image of the poet’s faithful dog who sees no evil in him in the typical dog-fashion waiting for his friend fruitlessly in heaven generates a profound sense of pathos.

·         From the third stanza on wards, we get to see what the dog was to Neruda as well as what Neruda was to the dog. The dog is an old man’s old dog, a companion in exile: 

“… we walked together on the shores of the sea

in the lonely winter of Isla Negra”

·         Their relationship is described in relation to porcupines and stars, signaling physical distance:

“His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine

withholding its authority,

was the friendship of a star, aloof,

with no more intimacy than was called for,

with no exaggerations:

he never climbed all over my clothes

filling me full of his hair or his mange,

he never rubbed up against my knee

like other dogs obsessed with sex.”

·         It is the dog’s independent spirit and the minimum demand he makes on the poet together with the sense of “you are important to me - I’m here for you” he radiates around the poet which Neruda treasures. But the poet’s memories of a pet mongooses he had a few years earlier while he was living  in Sri Lanka reveals more touchy-feely relationship – Could the desire for a more aloof relationship with his new companion be a result of old age, ill-health and exile? The most beloved feature of his dog for the poet is his tail. Anyone who had been fortunate enough see the mad wagging of a tail of a dog at seeing her/him would know the reason why, I believe.

·         In the next stanza, the poet is refreshingly frank in revealing his narcissistic enjoyment of the attention the dog lavishes on him:

“my dog used to gaze at me,

paying me the attention I need,”

·  The absolute purity and selflessness of his dog’s devotion had invited the poet to confront and acknowledge one of his own sins – vanity.  Neruda says that His dog had given him:

“the attention required

to make a vain person like me understand

that, being a dog, he was wasting time,

but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,

he'd keep on gazing at me

with a look that reserved for me alone

all his sweet and shaggy life,

always near me, never troubling me,

and asking nothing.”

·         Recalling the days he walked on the beach with his dog in exile, the poet celebrates his dog’s ability to enjoy the moment and express what he felt freely.

·         Finally, the poet arrives at the secret of his dog’s happiness – he calls it “their shameless spirit” – with which he takes a customary jab at the restrictive social norms that can be found in any society. Human beings, unlike dogs, are hampered by rules and regulations as well as norms and values that dictate how we experience life. The poet seems to feel that humans lose a great deal as a result of these restrictions that make human beings ashamed of expressing what they feel and doing what that would undoubtedly bring them joy. The repetition of the word “joyful” points to the vicarious pleasure the elderly poet derives by watching his dog enjoying his life.

·         The penultimate stanza is rather enigmatic:

“There are no good-byes for my dog who has died,

and we don't now and never did lie to each other.”

·   Does he mean those two lines to be a statement on his continued relationship with his dog that transcended death? Or that he did not believe in goodbyes?

·         In the last stanza the poet comes a full circle and with the last line  - “and that's all there is to it” – I feel that he is making a desperate bid to shake off the sense of utter sadness that clings to him.

Review: "The Road not taken" by Robert Frost

 “The Road Not Taken” – by Robert Frost

 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference

When one reaches a particular stage in life, it is inevitable that one would turn back and look at the road taken.  This would inevitably invite one to ruminate on all the roads that one has not taken. The important thing for me is to realize that no one can walk all the roads and there is no point in thinking about going back. The important thing for me is to make the right decision when one comes to a fork of a road and then make the best of it. In this poem Frost articulates my fears on making choices, and the rationalizations I often make of the choices I have made. 

"The convergence of the twain" - Thomas Hardy

The Convergence of the Twain

Subtitled (Lines on the loss of the "Titanic") by Thomas Hardy

             In a solitude of the sea

            Deep from human vanity,

   And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

 

            Steel chambers, late the pyres

            Of her salamandrine fires,

   Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

 

            Over the mirrors meant

            To glass the opulent

   The sea-worm crawls — grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

 

            Jewels in joy designed

            To ravish the sensuous mind

  Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.

 

            Dim moon-eyed fishes near

            Gaze at the gilded gear

  And query: "What does this vaingloriousness down here?" ...

 

            Well: while was fashioning

            This creature of cleaving wing,

   The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything

 

            Prepared a sinister mate

            For her — so gaily great —

   A Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate.

 

            And as the smart ship grew

            In stature, grace, and hue,

   In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

 

            Alien they seemed to be;

            No mortal eye could see

   The intimate welding of their later history,

 

            Or sign that they were bent

            By paths coincident

   On being anon twin halves of one august event,

 

            Till the Spinner of the Years

            Said "Now!" And each one hears,

   And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.

 

·         One might call this a shaped poem. In shaped poem, the lines are arranged in such way, either the individual stanzas or the entire poem looks like something. In this poem, most stanzas look like little ships. This poem helps me to rationalize some of the incomprehensibilities of life and come to terms with them.

·         Our world is a cycle of creation and destruction – when something is created the thing that would kill it too is created. That is how nature keeps everything on an even keel. What might to us looks like monstrously irrational destruction is a necessary act for nature – Nature being a-moral or para-moral, its acts cannot be judged using human norms and values. The only thing we can do is to accept the binary nature of our world and live with it. This knowledge would also help us to keep a look out for our greatest folly: hubris or over-weening pride in human capability. Each time I read this poem, in the end, I am left with a dreadful sense of nihilism