All Comments on 'Encounter'

Inriguing, Clearday. Your words and sonics gave it a nice rhythm and pace, reinforcing the kind of atmosphere I think you wanted to create, ie, not one of fear and anxiety.

I'm not sure "cold" contributes much. "Barren," I think, does and would work weil (at least to my ear) with "would" instead of "could" in the next line without changing the meaning.

I like the way you handled scapegoating in the fourth stanza, and while it needed something further to establish its connection with death, the last stamza was confusing to me.

Cops ......i 5-ed.

indicates you do have life. TK U MLJ LV NV

Particularly, thank you GM for your detailed comments. The poem was sparked by something I first noticed in the smallish software/consultancy companies I worked in for some years. I realised that the more dishonest and deceitful the senior managers/owners were the more suspicious and obsessed they were about staff lying or cheating. The more decent managers/owners were much more relaxed - & probably had better results from the staff. Later I found myself a bit surprised when girl friends or wives accused me of various lies or deceits that had not occurred to me & I realised that this might be because it was the sort of thing they would do. It makes sense that people who lie, etc. will suspect everyone else of doing the same. Their then being enormously indignant about it is human nature I guess.

I then liked the concept of a personified death being accused of horrible things by an implicitly personified ‘life’ whereas it was life that was the liar, etc.

The plain is cold and arid as that was how I envisaged it, something like the Tibetan plateau or Gobi desert in winter. I did not want to portray death as comfortable or cosy. The ‘with the dead all things are impossible’ refers back to ‘With God all things are possible’ in the Matthew gospel.

I had never intended the poem to be obscure. I am unsure if the concept needed more working through or if it is a case of less is more.

Lines 6 and 7 are a bit repetitious with "as we".

10 and 14 as well, leading off with the word "Of".

Otherwise, this is great stuff.

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