Saturday, October 22, 2011

Snowdrop sonnet rewrite: Section 6.1

So I'm making a start on rewriting some of Snowdrop's sonnets. Because it has to be done, innit. The previous version of this poem was making Snowdrop sound weedy and needy, too childish. Hopefully this redraft builds on the things she was telling herself earlier in the poem.

Caught in a Hug of Madness

"I do not know you people: soldiers come
to life from history books, I think, and yet
you found me, fed me. Kindness, or ... a threat
perhaps, for something doesn't fit. This slum
of a church -- I knew this place before it congealed.
These stones feel hard and real and safe inside:
ruins they were, their roofless pillars wide
to catch the sun and rain. What magic healed
its broken state -- does your belief in God
build miracles from mists? Oh no. No!
Some prayers to a wood statue glued to a cross
cannot explain this mess, it rides roughshod
through every thing I know. No crop can grow
so quick ... this is a lie, and I'm still lost!"

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