This poem will be (probably) my submission for the Love In the Ruins project (scroll down to the row of asterisks). This particular anthology is planned to include both prose and poetry. And since I am equally mediocre at both, I thought I'd give poetry a try this time around. Wish me luck. ;)
(Feel free to skip ahead to the poem itself if you don't want to read my navel-gazing introductory thoughts and thereby prejudice your first impression of the work. You won't be missing much.)
The "idea" of this poem is that it's a folk song that ruinmen (i.e. people who sift through the detritus of long-since collapsed industrial civilization seeking things to salvage and sell) might sit around a campfire and sing on a cold night, thinking of family and home, beneath the crumbling remains of a highway overpass stretching from one forgotten metropolis to another. (Although the poem seems to be disapproving of the work ruinmen do, I could see a song like this being popular among the more introspective of ruinmen, who no doubt feel some ambivalence toward their profession. And in any event, pretty much any working person has days when they'd rather be home.)
The form the poem takes is a villanelle, which technically isn't a true folk song form, but which is said to be inspired by country folk songs of the nineteenth century (an "imitation of peasant songs of an oral tradition", as Wikipedia puts it). I have tried to hew as close as I can to that aspect of the traditional villanelle by keeping the poem as simple and folksy as I am able to make it, while still (hopefully) being evocative and interesting as a poem. Did I succeed? That is, of course, not for me to decide.
(And yes, I know that "ruinman" is a coinage from Star's Reach and that the Love in the Ruins project is unrelated to the fictional universe of SR. But in any post-collapse setting, there is likely to be some equivalent to ruinmen. Where ruins and men coexist, there will be "ruinmen".)
***
come back from the ruins where ivy grows?
Come home, come home, ere falls the night.
The lure of riches shining bright
cause men to dig up graves like crows.
My love, my love, d’you think it right?
At home love waits with hearth alight,
and fields are ripe in amber rows.
Come home, come home, ere falls the night.
The ancient men lie dead despite
the wonders ancient science knows.
My love, my love, d’you think you might
find aught to set the world aright?
Or truths profound your spade expose?
Come home, come home, ere falls the night.
Those shabby halls, they say once bright
are tombs for men whom no one knows.
My love, my love, d’you think you might
come home? Come home, ere falls the night.
(Feel free to skip ahead to the poem itself if you don't want to read my navel-gazing introductory thoughts and thereby prejudice your first impression of the work. You won't be missing much.)
The "idea" of this poem is that it's a folk song that ruinmen (i.e. people who sift through the detritus of long-since collapsed industrial civilization seeking things to salvage and sell) might sit around a campfire and sing on a cold night, thinking of family and home, beneath the crumbling remains of a highway overpass stretching from one forgotten metropolis to another. (Although the poem seems to be disapproving of the work ruinmen do, I could see a song like this being popular among the more introspective of ruinmen, who no doubt feel some ambivalence toward their profession. And in any event, pretty much any working person has days when they'd rather be home.)
The form the poem takes is a villanelle, which technically isn't a true folk song form, but which is said to be inspired by country folk songs of the nineteenth century (an "imitation of peasant songs of an oral tradition", as Wikipedia puts it). I have tried to hew as close as I can to that aspect of the traditional villanelle by keeping the poem as simple and folksy as I am able to make it, while still (hopefully) being evocative and interesting as a poem. Did I succeed? That is, of course, not for me to decide.
(And yes, I know that "ruinman" is a coinage from Star's Reach and that the Love in the Ruins project is unrelated to the fictional universe of SR. But in any post-collapse setting, there is likely to be some equivalent to ruinmen. Where ruins and men coexist, there will be "ruinmen".)
***
Come Home Ere Falls the Night
My love, my love, d’you think you mightcome back from the ruins where ivy grows?
Come home, come home, ere falls the night.
The lure of riches shining bright
cause men to dig up graves like crows.
My love, my love, d’you think it right?
At home love waits with hearth alight,
and fields are ripe in amber rows.
Come home, come home, ere falls the night.
The ancient men lie dead despite
the wonders ancient science knows.
My love, my love, d’you think you might
find aught to set the world aright?
Or truths profound your spade expose?
Come home, come home, ere falls the night.
Those shabby halls, they say once bright
are tombs for men whom no one knows.
My love, my love, d’you think you might
come home? Come home, ere falls the night.
That's good. I like that.
ReplyDeleteThanks! =)
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