In his darkroom, he is finally alone
with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.
The only light is red and softly glows,
as though this were a church and he
a priest preparing to intone a Mass.
Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.
He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays
beneath his hands, which did not tremble then
though seem to now. Rural England. Home again
to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,
to fields which don’t explode beneath the feet
of running children in a nightmare heat.
Something is happening. A stranger’s features
faintly start to twist before his eyes,
a half-formed ghost. He remembers the cries
of this man’s wife, how he sought approval
without words to do what someone must
and how the blood stained into foreign dust.
A hundred agonies in black and white
from which his editor will pick out five or six
for Sunday’s supplement. The reader’s eyeballs prick
with tears
between the bath and pre-lunch beers.
From the aeroplane, he stares impassively at where
he earns his living and they do not care.
Answer the questions below. Support each answer with a short quotation from the poem.
1 | What do you notice about the form of the poem? [shape, rhyme scheme, rhythm, line structure] |
2 | Who is speaking? |
3 | What is the setting? [physical surroundings, time of day, time of year] |
4 | What is the poem about? [narrative, description, reflection] |
5 | Identify important language features [phonetic techniques, imagery, language features] |
6 | How do these techniques influence readers? |
7 | Comment on a theme in the poem |
