Welcome back to a Poem For Your Thoughts! I hope you are all enjoying the column and love r..eading comments. Don’t hesitate to comment on how I can improve each week and provide a more enjoyable reading experience! Any poets you’d like to read? Specific time periods to study? Let me know below!

Last week we discussed the writings of Robert Frost. There were some significant comments on Birches, but this week’s comment comes from the Uproar’s own Gabrielle Kossuth:

“You make rhyming poetry that is truly worth reading- a feat very few are able to accomplish. Outstanding work.”

Thank you so much for the flattering comment! I encourage you to continue posting comments on each weekly edition of this column and you just might end up in next week’s article! Each edition will include two poems, the first being a featured piece written by a famous poet that will be analyzed and interpreted according to my point of view. Of course, everyone’s interpretation is different and valid, and the comment section will be open for any further discussion. The second piece is written by yours truly and will be open to complete interpretation and analysis. Go forth, enjoy, and as you read, remember: “It is not what you look at that matters, it is what you see.” – Henry David Thoreau

Poem One: The Man He Killed by Thomas Hardy

“Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!

“But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.

“I shot him dead because —
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That’s clear enough; although

“He thought he’d ‘list, perhaps,
Off-hand like — just as I —
Was out of work — had sold his traps —
No other reason why.

“Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You’d treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown.”

Thoughts: The first word that comes to mind when reading this poem is irony; of the situational kind. The speaker points out how his relationship with the man he kills is affected by war. In a time of peace, the speaker might have shared a drink with his foe. There is also a key significance to the speaker’s justification of his killing. “He was my foe, / Just so: my foe of course he was/,” says the speaker, in an attempt to rationalize the taking of another man’s life. Hardy presents the psychological struggle of war, and how terrible the effect of war can be, even though the reasons for some young men’s enlistment is simply boredom, lack of work, etc. Quite the thought-provoking poem.

Poem Two: Sit by D.C.

Months have passed since it all ended, months since I called.

She sits behind me, and yet she is quite far ahead.

I never check the stories, I never pay attention to riff-raff.

Yesterday, I broke the normal routine, and regret sits beside me.

He offered her a bouquet, simple and concise; she accepted.

They’ll sit together, while I sit on the hill elsewhere.

Of course, I will smile behind these lifeless eyes.

And yet my smile sits far away, yonder cross the hills.

Time forever passes, never seated atop his throne.

But my time has come and gone, planted on his back.

The cart is far before the horse, the heart behind the mind.

The driver sits asleep at the reigns, not aware of his state.

The whinny of the horse jolts him awake, grumbling with sleep.

He sits in the gravel, full of dismay, the brim of his hat hiding tears.

Wherever the wind blows with the frost of broken bonds,

The ties of fate lay in the dirt, sitting through the storm.

-D.C.

What do you think of Hardy’s view on war? What does my poem envoke in you? Please, let me know in the comment section below and you might be in the next issue!