The Basra Corniche

[Taxloss]

I don't usually write poetry, but felt the germ of an idea creep in while looking through a friends photographs of a recent trip to Basra. I consider it a work in progress, so feel free to suggest changes/improvements/that I give up writing and become a plumber. And I hope the debt to Robert Lowell isn't too obvious.

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The Basra Corniche

There is grit between the drummer's teeth
On the Basra Corniche
A scrape of soil, of dust
Caught in the mouth
A gold filling of land

In the gnawing city behind
Horns and sirens grin
Against unsmiling semi-automatic crackle
And music, and music from everywhere, laughs
With it, he drums, tasting the grit

Young men stroll earnestly together
Murmuring family, politics, friends, business, and politics
They are serious - to relax is serious
Important business, in Gulf-cooled breeze
The drummer knows

There is no seaborn balm
In his town, five roadblocks from there
Dry winds pick at the fine soil
Leaving grit in his teeth
A communion with country, with his family's land.

[NMMNG]

1. Being no literary critic, I can only comment on the feelings it evokes

And those feelings are mixed. Joy, rage, depression. That these young men can still manage to enjoy themselves amidst a warzone, but that they must endure the chaos of roadblocks, sirens and semi-automatic gunfire all around them as they try to have a simple evening of fun. Never knowing if they will be safe, yet unwilling to cower in their homes--to be victims of fear as well as potential victims of the war.

I enjoyed your poem Taxloss. :thumbsup:

[Taxloss]

2. Thanks.

I suppose I was just trying to express what my friend had been telling me about - that the situation is awful, if anything worse than the version we get, but that there is still a strange amount of normality around. We might talk about withdrawal, but the Iraqis can't "withdraw", it's their country, and they want to stick with it - the grit in the teeth, the thing that won't go away, the land. A sort of "even in the midst of death, life goes on" type of sentiment.

I think it needs a bit of tweaking and refining. There are several elements I'm not content with.