A Soldier's Monologue

A Soldier’s Monologue By: Sharlene Moss

As I sit here in my trench
Night begins to fall
I am cold and scared
Trying to take in a clean breath of air
And recollect this afternoon’s mayhem



They say war is hell
And all hell broke loose in the valley today.




Shells were falling to the left,
And shells were falling to the right of me
Bullets flying overhead in the air
Like a thousand fireflies.
Hoping the one with my name on it will not find its target.



Throughout today’s fighting
You heard the screams of glory,
And the screams of pain and suffering
You try to survive.
I stayed alive.



As nightfall crept closer
The guns were silenced
The moon above shone bright
Gave us hope for a quiet night.



Yearning anxiously for the coming dawn.



I was looking around and fearful for my friend,
my right hand man.
We look out for each other here.
We are a family; we are a band of brothers.



War is hell there are no heroes,
it is fought in the name of love, religion and one’s country.
It is young men fighting for old man’s lust and greed.
Only the good die young.




As I look up at the night sky;
peaceful and serene,
thinking of my loved ones back home.



I believe the saying goes “Life
is not measured by the number of
breaths you take, but by the moments
that take your breath away”.




This is Corporal Robert Jones, 19 years of age
Proud to be a part of the human race and
I’m coming home.


In this poem the focus was free verse with some rhyming stanzas. The large amount of space is used for pauses/reflection.

I Will Survive

I Will Survive By: Sharlene Moss

We often look for love in different places
But often we are left with empty spaces
We shed tears and feel the pain
With a ray of hope we restrain.


Through this journey, we search and stumble
Listening to the voices, my heart starts to crumble
Knowing my strengths and desires,
the road may be long but my heart will never tire.


They say only the strong survive,
But I am not strong; I am weak
Barely holding on…
Just finding my way to thrive again


Is it love or lust? How do I love thee?
With a promise and a kiss on your patient lips

In this poem there is an abab pattern. There are 3 quatrains and finally a couplet at the end of the poem.

"Flying Japan"

I'm flying
flying over Japan
a world beneath me
such a vast world
yet i'm flying over Japan.


Days are passing;time is gone
never stopping to smell
the beautiful orchids
Life stands still

Now years have past
regret is weighing
heavy on my heart
too bad i never stopped
to smell those blossoming orchids

Japan, Japan is a world away
Today i will be flying farther
away from Japan.

Because I Could not Stop for Death Poetry Explication

In Emily Dickinson's poem "Because I could not stop for Death", the readers are taken on a journey through death. The speaker personifies Death as a polite and considerate gentleman; the speaker reveals a calm acceptance towards death. The overall theme of the poem seems to be that death is not feared since it is a natural part of the endless cycle of life. Dickinson uses different techniques to convey the idea of Imagery, tone and word choice in this poem. For example, when Dickinson reveals the different characters or stages in the poem she is requiring the reader to step outside the box and really analyze who and what these characters truly symbolize. The image that Dickinson creates of the Narrator reveals that she is a woman who calmly accepts death and is not afraid of the afterlife "We slowly drove, he knew no haste, / and I had put away/ my labor, and my leisure too, / for his civility" (lines 5-8). The image of Death is that of a suitor who comes calling for the speaker to escort her to eternity. He is described as a polite and patient man who takes the speaker on a journey to discover and reflect upon the individual’s life as they drive off into eternity together. Along the way they stop and reflect upon different stages in the speaker’s life, and how this sentence of Death is not to be feared, it is supposed to be celebrated. With death comes the "rebirth" of nature and the cycle of life continues. The different stanzas showcase different time periods in a person life. These events need to be dealt with, before crossing the threshold of Death.

The tone of this poem is very comforting and the lines flow effortlessly off the page, the reader's are also able to reflect upon their life as the narrator is traveling through different stages of her life "We passed the school, where children strove /At recess, in the ring; /We passed the fields of gazing grain, /We passed the setting sun" (9-12) the narrator is reliving her childhood, children represent early life and the idea of innocence. With every new stage that approaches a threshold is being crossed. This journey goes through three stages: the first stage is childhood "Children strove"(9), the second stage deals with adolescent youth "We passed fields of grain"(11), and finally the end of her life is symbolized by "the setting sun"(12).
“Scanning the poem we find alternating iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. This gives a tone of calm and doesn't detract from the subject but makes it all seem much more palatable than the subject of death normally is” (Greenberg 218). “The one break with the syllabic pattern is the last line, which has one extra syllable. The effect of this is to suggest eternity that does go on. Each line ends with a stressed syllable, which functions to stop the reader to consider each line. The rhyming pattern reflects a desire for unity and exclusion. The rhyme for line two in the first stanza ("He kindly stopped for me") connects to line four of the second stanza ("For his civility") and the fourth line of the last stanza ("Were toward eternity") thereby uniting them. These stanzas belong together because they are all a view of the spiritual world, while stanzas three and four are views of the material world. However, stanza three is linked to stanzas two and five by the first line in stanza three ("We passed the school where children played"), the second line of stanza two ("And I had put away") and the second line of stanza five ("Feels shorter than the day"). This suggests a secondary importance: namely, that stanza three is not a spiritual view but a view of life stages from a spiritual view. The one stanza that stands alone without connective rhyme is the fourth stanza. Burial is not part of eternity and not important because the speaker has realized immortality”.

As the journey continues the speaker is able to trust Death more, and is able to accept the idea of Death without fearing the outcomes. The most vivid description of the whole poem comes at the last stanza where the speaker’s tone switches from joyous and acceptance to contemplative. Here the speaker is reflecting back on the journey she took with Death so many years ago; and how centuries later she has now become Death "Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each / Feels shorter than the day / I first surmised the horses' heads/ Were toward eternity". She is now guiding other individuals through the same course she took centuries ago. The speaker perceives her reality and becomes calm when she realizes her destiny. This poem exudes true passion and imagery that allows the reader's to get lost within this piece of art. Emily Dickinson took the idea of Death and made it into an everyday journey where life doesn't end, it continues throughout eternity. Death is not to be feared, it is a natural part of the endless cycle of the life. Without Death there is no "rebirth" Death is the essence of life!



Work Cited

Dickinson, Emily. "Because I could not stop for Death". Literature: reading, reacting, writing. Ed. Laurie G. Kirszner, Stephen R. Mendell. Australia: Thomson 2007 312-317

Greenberg, J.M. "Dickinson's Because I Could Not Stop For Death." Explicator 49
(1991): 218-220.


Bob Nikunen, Bob. "Poetry explication: Because I could not stop for death, by Emily Dickinson." Helium. Web. .

Why Poems are so Important???

While reading the poems for the class i realized that i really had no idea what some of them were talking about. It wasn't until we discussed the poems in class, that i was able to finally construct meaning out of them. I was fascinated with the ideas my fellow classmates came up with. For example, in Shakespeare's poem "Shall i compare thee to a summer's day" my fellow classmates indicated that this poem could be written about a man instead of a woman. I also enjoyed analyzing the song "March Violets", this poem is very ambiguous and that made it very difficult to analyze. I assumed that the poem was about war and the idea that sometimes a fight isn't worth fighting for. My fellow classmates introduced some interesting ideas; this is what i love about literature and especially poetry, any idea can be valid as long as it can be justified in the text.