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L'ètranger (The Foreigner)

He walks alone

An unknown soul

A nameless face

Milling with the crowd

A smiling face

Sometimes, he encounters

In a sea of strange faces

He deems unfriendly

Like a hunted animal

He subsists

Scampering into a h***

At the sound of a siren

“Labor Ready” is his home

From dawn to dusk he toils

For a meager sum

To wire home

The night

He spends on a kitchen floor

Leased by a fellow countryman

At a hundred and fifty dollars a week

A marvel he is

The foreigner

A nameless face

Milling through the crowd.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Cleveland W. Gibson on December 27, 2011 at 10:53pm

I enjoyed reading the poem. Did a review then lost it on the screen.

However, consider with thousands of foreigners out there working away, might not your poem be re-titled The Foreign Legion?

Also consider moving the lines in verse one about.

He is a nameless face, who walks alone, without a soul, plunged deep within the crowd. IMO

Must go now. Try to continue line by line.

Best

Cleveland

Permalink Reply by Robert L. Allen on January 3, 2012 at 12:59am

First stanza is very powerful. Second stanza too many (faces) are used. The word (Face is used in first stanza then twice in the second which weakens the poem. Try to use something else to keep the power flowing.

Ex:

Frowning smiles

encountering seas of

unfriendly expressions...or something along those lines...

I agree with Cleveland and take it line by line...Great poem...

Permalink Reply by Birgitta Abimbola Heikka on January 4, 2012 at 5:33pm

Thanks Robert. I'd think of another word to replace face in the 3rd line of the second stanza.

Abimbola.

Robert L. Allen said:

First stanza is very powerful. Second stanza too many (faces) are used. The word (Face is used in first stanza then twice in the second which weakens the poem. Try to use something else to keep the power flowing.

Ex:

Frowning smiles

encountering seas of

unfriendly expressions...or something along those lines...

I agree with Cleveland and take it line by line...Great poem...