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The poem in question: Weep For The Damned

I also wrote this poem while sitting in a class at BYU.  It seems I did a lot of that in 1998.  By my count, there are nine poems that I wrote either during class or for a class assignment, or were at least written down in the notebook that I carried with me to school every day.  This particular poem was written during a class called American Heritage.

It seems to be a throwback to Aftermath and Achievement, at least by the subject.  I think I was just bored in class one day and started writing.  I guess I just like morbid battleground scenes.  I do think it’s an interesting idea that the survivors were driven mad by what they had experienced, and eventually the madness started to spread.  It reminds me of Mordeth in the Wheel of Time books.  Who knows, maybe that’s what I was thinking of at the time.

There is one oddity: one copy I have of this poem changes the punctuation on two lines, but I’m not sure how much it affects the poem itself.  I’ll let you be the judge.  Instead of

Haunted faces stare about;
Disabused by fear and doubt,
The scant survivors sigh relief and drop their weary heads.

it reads

Haunted faces stare about,
Disabused by fear and doubt.
The scant survivors sigh relief and drop their weary heads.