PoetryKenneth WebbJuly 22, 2024John Curry, Alone The Triumph and the Tragedy of John Curry by Bill Jones, John Curry by Keith MoneyComment

He Lay Upon the Mortuary Slab

PoetryKenneth WebbJuly 22, 2024John Curry, Alone The Triumph and the Tragedy of John Curry by Bill Jones, John Curry by Keith MoneyComment

The Shame of Suicide? Get Real!

Poetry

Why, oh, why is society

Riddled with shame perpetually?

Shame for this.

Shame for that.

Shame for other.

And if we cannot

Find shame,

To be ashamed,

Then to be ashamed

that we live such dullness,

Such emptiness?

Ian Bradley Marshall

My original note is in prose. I have, though, written this short poem from that note, using the method taught and established by Wilfred Owen MC. This methodology, the rhythm and rhyme of assonance enables me to learn new words, nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, synonyms and antonyms.

This is the bedrock of Wilfred Owen’s work, his creativity and his impact on Poetry for more than a century.

For the creative aspect of digital art, I simply wrote the line he lay upon the mortuary slab.

I created the digital art image of the young man last year, and my instruction at that time was to imagine coming across someone late at night, “gone forever” ~ clearly dead, and yet seemingly asleep, by imagining this scene in the newly created artificial garden and woodland on the Liverpool Waterfront that we all walk up and through when heading for the nightlife in Liverpool One from the Albert Dock.

Sources

1 My note dated 31.1.2024 lies in my copy of John Curry Alone The Triumph and Tragedy of John Curry by Bill Jones published in hardback by Bloomsbury in 2014 (page 30 of 336 and point 9% on Kindle) and also

2 John Curry by Keith Money published by Random House in 1978

3 KTW ~ A contemporaneous note dated 31 January 2024

Seemingly asleep, he was not here at all. Gone forever. Suddenly, a series of echoing staccato ‘No’s as the couple’s friends found him, and his girlfriend shrieked in horror.
That dread word uttered. **Spiked!**
He’s been spiked on the Albert Dock!

© 2024 Ian Bradley Marshall

Kenneth Webb

Ken Webb is a writer and proofreader. His website, kennwebb.com, showcases his work as a writer, blogger and podcaster, resting on his successive careers as a police officer, progressing to a junior lawyer in succession and trusts as a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, a retired officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and latterly, for three years, the owner and editor of two lifestyle magazines in Liverpool.

He also just handed over a successful two year chairmanship in Gloucestershire with Cheltenham Regency Probus.

Pandemic aside, he spends his time equally between his city, Liverpool, and the county of his birth, Gloucestershire.

In this fast-paced present age, proof-reading is essential. And this skill also occasionally leads to copy-editing writers’ manuscripts for submission to publishers and also student and post graduate dissertations.