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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyfaYHMNIuA&ab_channel=DUBBINCLUBBIN

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Be still

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Little warrior,

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For we shan't have to soldier

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For all too much the longer.

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There isn't a war that lasts forever

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And you and I - we - 

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Won't be called to soldier, 

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No,

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For near the length 

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That lasts forever.

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Author's Note

I'm planning on extrapolating a short from this, when given the time.

Reviews

[John Alexander McFadyen]

Ok, well it has merit to expand but as is it is a neat and impactful poem tinged one more with the romance of legends, a touch of Lord of the Rings, darkness and light.

[Ookpik]

I'm quite excited by the idea for a short here, and enjoy that you read some Lord of the Rings (wasn't intentional, but it made me smile regardless).

The premise would be a trench warfare setting w/an undisclosed date and time (I like to rely on abstraction for certain shorts, and wouldn't make WWI explicit). And the narrative would revolve around a soldier in combat, who is hallucinating a version of himself from his childhood (fighting alongside him). The idea would be that, contrasted to the horror of war, he would see the depreciation of his hallucinated inner child - and the story would end with their mutual surrender (the protagonist, the child and the enemy). Again, the child would be a hallucination and this would be made clear in the final lines - but the idea would be that each of the combatants were experiencing the same hallucinations (his side, and the enemy's) and surrender would be hinged on the wellbeing of of the whole (meaning both sides).

Apologies for the elevator pitch, but it helps for me to type it out sometimes.

Regardless, thank you for the reviews as they are comprehensive and well intended. And I'll try to return the favor in turn.

-Ook

[John Alexander McFadyen]

Now that sounds both interesting and challenging.

[Ookpik]

I’m a big fan of Waiting for Godot, by Beckett, and would approach it w/much the same kind of allegorical style.

Again, appreciate your reading - both the long winded pitch and the poems.

[John the Baptist]

I pick up something ominous in this one. Have you been having dark thoughts lately?

[Ookpik]

That's the therapist in you eh?

No, I'm fine - I just wrote dialogue to an image (or scene) derived from the album cover of the song. A bit of conflating ideas here - I like to correlate the child soldier motif to the idea of the traumatized, inner child.

You could thus read this literally (taken from a scene, much like a play or movie) or as a metaphor for someone putting to bed inner trauma. Again, conflated, but expressed like abstract art (call it abstract ekphrasis).

[John the Baptist]

Thanks for easing my mind. Certain words cause me to revert reflexively to my crisis counseling days.

[Ookpik]

No crisis here - though were I you, I'd be liable to see the same.