[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.

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

[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