Remains

• "On another ocassion" Remains

  • Not the first time
  • Deal with violence on day to day basis
  • Expected to deal with exposure to suffering and horror helplessly
  • No time to think/ for emotions
  • Reader is preplexed
  • Mirror solider, not emotionally prepared
  • Launched into situations their unaware of
  • Reflect chaos and unpredictability of war
  • Indoctrinated into thinking everyone is enemy, even the 'looter'
• "Well myself and somebody else and somebody are all of the same mind, so all three of us open fire"

  • Taking responsibility
  • Repetition 'all', victim is vulnerable
  • 'Same mind', psychological affect of war, indoctrinated.
  • 'Fire', religious imagery, hell and suffering, punishing looter?
  • War put ordinary people in godlike position to take lives
• 'His blood-shadow stays on the street... I walk right over it week after week"

  • Pronoun 'his', don't know his name, depersobalized.
  • Alliteration, remorse and regret
  • Constantly reminded of what he did
  • 'Blood-shodow', Metaphor, shadows not made of blood, death stains his conscience and memory just like street
  • Shadows follow people, he is haunted by his crime
  • Sibilance, sound of Fear, could be 'shhh', soldier telling himself to stay silent about his feelings and PTSD, shouldn't feel sympathy as a soldier
  • Comforting himself
• "Drinks and drugs won't flush him out" Remains

  • Desperation
  • Haunted by the looter
  • He 'punished' looters, now he is being punished for killing him
  • Regret
  • Wants to forget him and not feel sympathy anymore, soldiers shouldn't feel sympathy
• "Probably armed, possible not"

  • Followed orders unsure of why he got told to do what he did
  • Facing consequences
  • Murder?, biblical imagery, will he go to hell or not?
  • Killing most vulnerable without justifications.
• Remains structure:

  • Quatrains, trying to gain control of his mind and emotions, last stanza shows this is unlikely
• Remains context :

  • Not first hand experience but from ex-soldiers
  • People were opposing to war during this time
  • Raise awareness of effects of war
  • Attack on iraq was unecessary