This poem was inspired by the 1999 French film Beau Travail, which was directed by Claire Denis. The film is set in the former French colony of Djibouti, and the main characters are all French Foreign Legion soldiers. I haven’t seen the movie (yet) but as I was reading the plot description online, I was struck by the themes of power, cruelty and disorientation in the story. These were the things that were swirling around in my mind when I wrote this poem. It’s also my first time playing with an unrhymed lines in a sonnet – sacrilege!
#2 - Good Work
In this expansive openness, we men
are gods, and just like gods, we seek to cause
destruction of our fellow deities;
a desert of our twisting spite and shame.
This heat incites each man to lose his way –
his empathy a glittering mirage.
This heat incites each god to dissipate –
and we are left as devils on the sand.
The work is always harder than it seems,
and gods and men are harder, still, to bid.
The desert swallows all, no compromise;
it swallows, spits, and saves us from ourselves.
We wanted to believe we did some good;
the wreckage, lying silent, seeping blood.
LM
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| Poster Image via Wikipedia |
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