Seed Potatoes ready for launching - eager to be planted.
Parachute Regiment
Squad by squad we line the wall,
No parachutes to stop our fall,
Our khaki ranks wait patiently
In uniformed tranquility
Knowing that at last in our ranks,
No rifles, grenades, bombs or tanks,
We serve our nation with our all,
Each soldier knowing that he may fall,
Yet in our columns, round for round,
We, conquering, will stand our ground.
Comments on writing Poetry and poems.
There is a general notion that poets pour their hearts out to their readers and in general expose their feelings and that poetry is some higher form of literature. This is of course, rubbish, poetry is a way of getting a message across without all that tiresome explanation; the problem for the reader is to interpret what the poet is blabbing on about.
Rule of thumb: if a poem means something to a reader or listener then it has done its job and the poet has created something worth listening to.
And yet when we see what can be done with a little imagination, however odd in a poem about potatoes I can honour our soldiers. The potatoes do what potatoes do - grow and produce food - each one dies to give way to the rest. Our soldiers risk everything doing a task we ask them to do - the difference is that soldiers know what they are getting into subduing their instinct to run and the potatoes have no choice yet they happily grow.
Potatoes are eager for the sunshine and water and will just keep on keeping on.
Poets are weird.