Published September 12, 2009
It’ll all be in the past soon, like the world wars
Or the Holocaust. But leaving it
Is never easy – the memory
Is imprinted forever in the very core
Of my soul, in yours. In this.
I won’t forget you. Not least
That first day when you introduced yourself
To the world, hiding behind oval glasses,
And I barely knew you. Except the epithet
“Mussolini” had attached itself quite quickly.
That was how they looked after you
In those juvenile days, railing against their better wit,
Grey-jacketed shadows skulking in the corridors.
Yet you proved yourself
To be most reliable, rising through the ranks
Like all hotshot lawyers,
Eventually claiming every coveted prize.
I didn’t mind your victory. You deserved it.
We’ll all be looking to you now
To make history, my elder
Younger statesman, with another of those unobtrusively
Clear-noted turns of your voice, a truly
Moral oracle.
And I’ll be sitting on the sidelines somewhere,
Holed up in an office, fingers tapping away furiously
On an ageing keyboard, much like at this very moment,
Except the result won’t be the lilting vowels
Of poetry, but the pithy, tough-nosed consonants
Of English prose. Someday, I’ll put your triumphant photo
On the front page, where your name makes the headlines
Regularly, in frank bold font, always for the right reasons.
They’ll remember you for those glorious policies
Signed forever into a faceless constitution,
The blind law of justice,
The face never just a name in the history books,
And all my poems still lie in some dusty cabinet
Waiting to be found.
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141,304 Literary Works • 674,340 Reviews
Hello.
Amazing piece, I must say. The first part got me thinking what you were driving at but then by the latter part it cleared out. It's a very new concept to write about.
The part about Mussolini was the confusing part for me. In the greater part of your poem you talk about a person who came into greatness and influence. I'm wondering what the lines about Mussolini mean. Are you saying that there was something great in him to begin with or that there was something people were ready to fear in him?
I admire this piece for it's raw truth. You simply showed us a regular event in the world. Something people overlook, but you wrote it so that we saw the profound tragedy of a trend like this. Haha. Can I call it a tragedy? No. It is simply the truth.
Keep writing.
--Knightly
Hiya! I'm Rosey and I'll be your reviewer today.
Well, this poem certainly got me thinking. I enjoyed it a fair bit, actually. The comparison and contrast between yourself and the person you're mentioning is rather striking; I love how you played with the people who are remembered and forgotten in history and how you hint at the qualities it takes to become history.
That'd probably be my only real problem with this poem: somewhere in the middle stanza, I feel you lost that metaphor and comparison. I found myself skimming that part of the poem and not completely understanding it. I think it's these two lines:
These lines just seem to dilute the poem for me. It's a flashback that I can't exactly understand, and it seems a bit long for what it's saying.
Overall, I really enjoyed this poem. Nice work!
PM me with questions.
~Rosey