quotes - remains

• remains - title

  • suggests the speaker has been used in the machine of war and has been stripped of his purity, now what remains is a conflicted version of himself

  • suggests that the looters blood “remains“ in the speakers ”mind” - “blood-shadow“ / “his bloody life in my bloody hands”
• “well myself and somebody else and somebody else”

  • repetition is used so the speaker can hide from the unforgiving sin he’s committed

  • minimise the role he took in the event

  • doesnt know who he was with suggest that in war relationships fruitless since it’s likely they’ll die
• “all of the same mind”


  • without human empathy

  • no individuality

  • robot-like
• “i see every round as it rips through his life”


  • metaphor

  • rips - violent imagery, this shows he still has human empathy as he acknowledges in detail he took away a human life.

  • juxtaposition to the colloquial language; “legs it”
• “sort of inside out”


  • euphemism suggests he can’t describe it and is not prepared for the harsh reality of war
• “end of story, except not really“
• “dug in behind enemy lines”


  • war imagery engraved in him and is shown at “home”
• “And the drink and the drugs won’t flush him out”


  • he wants to cleanse himself but the deed was too staining to clear. shows the impact of the murder
• “his bloody life in my bloody hands”


  repetition shows he can’t escape it
• “then i’m home on leave. But i blink”


  caesura interrupts the sentence similar to how the flashbacks to the conflict interrupt the speaker day to day life. the enjambent is done so the reader is placed in his shoes of a never ending cycle of inner termoil so we too think it’s over until we r shown it’s not.