[Glenn Wright]

Danse Macabre

Hot, heavy air—we wear red, white, and blue—
firecrackers—shoulder-to-shoulder we stand—
hands on hearts, not sure what we should do,
listening for the high school marching band,

awaiting something stirring—a sacred belief,
powerful, patriotic—Here they come!
Cars with flags, the mayor, the fire chief,
horses, batons thrown high, a beating drum.

They pass from left to right, from east to west,
as if God told them to pick a direction and get
the hell out of Eden. My hand slips from my chest.
I smell the tang of gunpowder and sweat.

————————
Edits:
S4L1: Where did they come from? What their destination? > They march along without a destination. > [delete]
S4L2: Is it a punishment or celebration? > [delete]

[Erik Olson]

Glenn,

This is really well done; I enjoyed the read. It’s humorous and clever how you make the town parade seem almost as terrifying as a procession of Flagellants. The viewers wait expectantly for something ‘powerful’ and ‘sacred’ . But the paraders proceed ‘as if God told them to pick a direction and get the hell out of Eden.’ That witty line alone is worth the price of admission. The surface of frivolous celebration seems to belie something more dark and grave. Thus the end line 'Is it a punishment or celebration?'

I was hard pressed to offer any nits. I only wondered what the addition of the missing beat from line 3, stanza 1, and two beats from line 3, stanza 2, would look like. In the first case, adding a syllable like with makes both ‘hands’ and ‘hearts’ stressed, which I like. In the second case, you have an opportunity for further description, which might be interesting, such as—

Heavy cars with flags, the mayor, the fire chief,

But to be sure, it was nothing that prevented me from enjoying the poem. For what it's worth.

Best

EDIT: I just realized, thanks to Roger's comment, I did not describe my metrical observation accurately. My bad. I meant that if you added a syllable or two in those lines, respectively, it would make what is now a complete tetrameter a complete pentameter, like the rest of the lines.
hands on hearts, | not sure | what we | should do,
vs
with hands | on hearts, | not sure | what we | should do,
Take or leave, though, of course.

[Roger Slater]

The first 12 lines are very good, but (for me) the couplet fails to deliver. I do think you have a tendency to rely too much on rhetorical Big Questions, but this time you're ending on questions that are not at all meaty or significant. Parades start and end in non-mysterious places, so why is the pay-off of the first 12 lines simply to wonder in the couplet where the parade started and where it will end? Why wouldn't the speaker already know the answer, or perhaps ask one of the parade organizers?

Or maybe it's not a parade? I don't really get why someone observing a parade would be unsure about what to do. You don't "do" anything. You watch. Unless you are playing a role that the poem itself hasn't mentioned or hinted at. But the poem doesn't really tell us anything about who is speaking or why. It's a well-written description, and the first 12 lines do gather energy and make me wonder and anticipate where you're going with it, but the couplet (for me) is a complete let-down.

PS-- I'm not detecting any missing beats in S1L3 or S2L3.

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Erik and Roger—

Thanks for your helpful and encouraging comments.

Erik—I’m glad you enjoyed the poem. On the issue of meter, the two lines you identified, S1L3 and S2L3, both begin with “headless iambs.” I used a lot of substitutions in the first 8 lines—along with em dashes—to try to suggest a sense of nervous expectancy and the pop of firecrackers. Seven of the first eight lines begin with a stressed syllable, although the meter is IP.

Roger—I took to heart your critique of the final couplet and rather quickly came to agree that the three questions were anti-climactic. I adjusted S4L1, eliminating two of the question marks. If Independence Day parades are supposed to represent a national purpose, I like pointing out that parades never really have a destination.

I intended the “not sure what we should do” in S1L3 to refer most specifically to whether the N should put his hand on his heart when the flag passes by. It could also refer to the fact that one tends to be self-conscious about one’s behavior at a public ceremony. Do I have to take off my baseball cap? If they play the national anthem, should I sing along? Is is okay to continue talking with the people around me, or do I need to stand at attention?

Thanks again, gentlemen. I appreciate you both taking time and effort to generously share your thoughts. They are very useful.

Glenn

[Julie Steiner]

Hi, Glenn!

There are some very nice contrasts in this. I like the juxtaposition of standing shoulder-to-shoulder, suggesting unanimity, and "unsure what we should do" making uncertainty the thing that unites the crowd. The verblessness of "Hot, heavy air" is perfect.

This doesn't strike me as a sonnet-shaped idea, since there is no real turn. What's wrong with leaving it as a 12-line poem, instead of adding a telly couplet to wrap it all up for us, and undermine the lovely "My hand slips from my chest. / I smell the tang of gunpowder and sweat."?

It would be more parade-like to just let one experience follow another, with no summary couplet at the end. And to emphasize the parade of impressions, I would also suggest more standard punctuation, with sentence fragments separated by periods rather than em-dashes. But that's just a personal preference.

You might take a look at the poem's shift from "we" to "I", which perhaps seems more significant to me than you intended.

[Erik Olson]

Originally Posted by Glenn Wright

... the two lines you identified, S1L3 and S2L3, both begin with “headless iambs.” I used a lot of substitutions in the first 8 lines—along with em dashes—to try to suggest a sense of nervous expectancy and the pop of firecrackers.

Say no more. Thanks for cuing me in on the headlessness. I do think the effect of that is appropriate here.

Best

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Julie—

Thanks for dropping in! It’s always good to hear from you. I think you and Roger are right about the couplet. It has to go. You put your finger on it by saying that this isn’t a sonnet-shaped idea. The more I study it, the more I like ending with the simple deflation. There is no need to say any more. It also highlights the switch from plural “we/they” to singular “I.”

I appreciate your helpful comments!

Glenn

[Marshall Begel]

Great images! But I feel like I'm missing context. Is this the effect of forced patriotism in a dictatorship? In response to a specific incident or just general unease with world affairs? That could probably be done in the title.

Headlessness aside, I can't confidently iamb my way through some of the lines without swallowing several syllables. Maybe I'm not supposed to...

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Marshall—

Thanks for your comments. I am attempting to capture the unease of the N as he watches a parade celebrating freedom and democracy at a time when the American people are so deeply divided and when the stated goal of one candidate for President is to end democracy and to revoke the freedoms we cherish to make decisions for our families, to decide whom we love and what we read, even to protect our health with vaccinations and masks.

I used a lot of substitution feet—mainly spondees and anapests—and em dashes to suggest this unease and to imitate the sound of firecrackers and marching. S1L2 and S2L3 might be problematic because the word “fire” can be pronounced with one syllable (mostly by British or Southern Americans) or with two.

Thanks again!

Glenn

[Hilary Biehl]

I think it works, Glenn. I totally got where you were coming from without further explanation. I think it's definitely stronger without the final couplet. The meter is not tripping me up, personally, but maybe I take a looser approach to meter ...