Blood Rain Comments

_____________________________________________ THIS IS A NOTE FOR SOPHY CHEN, who asked for some of my poems to be translated into Chinese: to understand (some of the) meaning(s) of my poem, you can read the commentary Pamela Sinicrope wrote on it, along with some of my own comments below. Cheers. F. _____________________________________________

For millennia, mankind has fought one evil after the other...terror is the evil for today. It is upon us now to stand up and fight for what is right...peace & justice. Thank you Sir for a sad but true portrayal of the sons of terror.

Hi Fabrizio. So, I asked my father, Rob Smith, to read and comment on your poem. He also downloaded our book, POETRY AGAINST TERROR. However, PH would not allow him to post (a glitch?) after three attempts, so he gave up...Here is his comment: 'Wonderful imagery. I'm unclear, however, regarding the ultimate victory. Is it that the rejection of our derogation results in a victory? How is that manifested? What is its result?

Reading again your poem, the image of blood rain is once more paralyzing! Very powerful metaphors, as well! The Greek translation is also a powerful conveyance of the spirit of your poem! Loved both!

Great work Dr Fabrisio

I read this poem when you first submitted it and now I am reading it again and it gives me the same chilling feelings.. What is most amazing about this poem is how rich it is metaphorically.. The image of the 'blood rain' brings into my mind how terrorism has polluted the air and has destroyed Nature.. Rain is refreshing, but in the aftermath of these cruel, inhumanic, cowardly acts the sky is raining blood.. In one way it symbolises the blood of innocents shed by terrorists, on another level, that maybe interpreted as the Nature crying tears of blood to see the lost lives of innocents.. The opening stanza as Pamela expalained below is an immediate highly emotional response to the acts of terror in which the speaker is angry, saddened, and feeling somewhat helpless.. But as the poem continues we find emotions more tender and soft showing us how most humans are compassionate.. The penultimate stanza of the poem sums up the feelings of millions of sensible human beings who find these incidents 'all the more sad'.. Yes, it is sad to lose lives, it is sad to live in a world where blood is raining from the sky. But mostly it is sad to realise how we, as a whole civilisation, had fallen prey to a monster called terrorism... The final stanza is poignant, where blood rain is falling on the barren ground.. It is a striking and heartbreaking image, and yet, maybe as Eliot said even the 'cruelest' of the months can breed lilacs out of the barren land, amidst the worst phrases of humanity, the ancient spirit of peace and unity amongst all of us can lead us to a better world. May we strive for that world.. Peace.

'POETRY AGAINST TERROR' THE POEMS: ~*~ Sayeed Abubakar: A Broom’s Prayer to God against Terrorism Alexandro Acevedo Johns: The Cost of Terror and the Two Chilean Women Saadat Tahir Ali: Smeared in Blood Paul Amrod: Crusader in Black Leah Ayliffe: Lions Khaoula Basty: Belief Lawrence Beck: Slipping Away from Decadence Daniel J. Brick: A Dance Sophy Chen: Faced With Terrorism, Poetry is Nothing's Nothing Terence George Craddock, Terrorism Holds a Bloody Knife At Innocent Throats Sahra Hussein Dahir: Save the Humanity Driss Ezzireg: They're Just Kids Havin' Some Fun Geoffrey Fafard: Face Down in the Sand Weiyao Feng: The Flame of Paris Grant Fraser: Lighthouse Fabrizio Frosini: Blood Rain Negar Gorji: Terror in Swan Lake Bright Kwamina Grantson: The Error of Terror Dilantha Gunawardana: Chess Nosheen Irfan: The Fatal Moment Galina Italyanskaya: Terror is a Synonym of Fear Afrooz Jafarinoor: The Growth of a Word Farzad Jahanbani: My Heart is in Torment Vincent Chizoba John: Blood in the street Kinyua Karanja: War on Terror Sofia Kioroglou: Guns and Bullets Varghese Kuncheria: The Earth Bleeds Kelly Kurt: Unwritten Remedy (Poets for Peace) Lionel Lerch (Cocteau Mot Lotov) : Struggle for Death Birgit Bunzel Linder: On the Train Tapera Makadho: From Paris with Love Kenneth Maswabi: Terror in the Minds of Men Denzel Mbatha: With Wounded Lips.. Mallika Menon: A Cry for Peace Leloudia Migdali: Cries of Pain, Bodies Scattered Asoke Kumar Mitra: The Heartbreak that is Terrorism Zoran Mitrović (Neran Sati) : Prime Lines Istvan Molnar: No Mercy Souren Mondal: Red Ashes of War Anitah Muwanguzi: My Life for Hers Bharati Nayak: Mourning The Death of Innocent Flowers Valsa George Nedumthallil: Down with Terrorism Srijana Neupane (KC) : We Humans? Eunice Barbara C. Novio: The Crescent Moon Fatima Obaid: Terrorism Marcondes Pereira: Stanzas of Sadness (A Sonnet) Sajee Rayaroth: There Will Be Tomorrow.. Marianne Larsen Reninger: Cell Theory Terry Robinson (HE George) : And The Writing's on the Wall Rizwan Saleem: Lend Me Your Tears Leila Samarrai: Où vas-tu, Seigneur? Kirti Sharma: It's been so Many Years.. Anzelyne Shideshe: Mr Terror Osiel Silverino da Silva: Flowers Pamela Sinicrope: Habibi Petra Soliman: Harmony Along Douglas Stewart: Mourning, Marchons Udaya R. Tennakoon: A Thunder Terrified Me Richard Thézé: We are Charlie, We are Paris Savita Tyagi: The Terrorist Mai Murphy Venn: The Music Stopped Niken Kusuma Wardani: Us and Them Snir Yacoby: Might Asma Zenjali: A Rude Awakening ~*~

A poignant poem about the curse of terrorism...A great write in the memory of the terror victims. Its important how we deal with it..by raising our pens when faced with guns. A powerful voice against terrorism will be heard farther than the gunshots.

There's no excuse for murder and terrorism. This poem explores the cruelty of those that unleash terror upon other. Thanks Fabrizio.

Violence always begets violence! And it's the best way of murdering our civilization. Suicidal madness. Dear Fabrizio, thank you for sharing this poignant emotive poem, and for your initiativity and energy! Your are not only a poet. You're an engine!

I don't usually comment on poems simply because I don't know how to technically but this one I had to ;) I could feel the creep ☺

As the poetic voice and fearless leader of our strong 64, we celebrate Fabrizio Fronsini's clear vision of the scourge of terrorism. We all offer our heartfelt solutions, opinions, and world views, but this lovely Italian teaches us to rejoice and join in pitiful disregard and overcome their hatred with our voices. Marianne Larsen Reninger

There is a part of me that always wonders where an idea comes from, above and beyond the specific events of the day. I understand much more now. Brilliant work, my friend!

Poets have a history of contributing to the discourse on the state of our world, with respect to highlighting problems, posing solutions, or providing healing in times of trouble. Often, their goal is to get us simply to think, take notice, and consider our role in society. In the case of ‘Blood Rain’, Frosini shares a viewpoint on the recent attacks in Paris (November 13,2015) . To begin, the title, ‘Blood Rain’, provides an image of pain, darkness, and death that is a metaphor for the innocents killed in all of the terror attacks that affect everyone. Throughout the systematically laid out poem, we view the attacks from a telescopic lens that goes into sharp focus and then pans out again for a larger world view. The poem is laid out systematically. The first stanza provides an emotional outlet for the anger toward the attackers, describing them as ‘Cowards, unworthy, ruthless’ who demand respect but give none. The second and third stanzas, provide a poet’s interpretation of their mind with words that evoke images from T.S. Eliot’s ‘Hollow Men’, suggesting that the terrorists have lost their humanity and their souls, with the words, ‘Cold stares, cruel stares, devoid of humanity / / In the aftermath of love and hatred / That gives hues to their inner world / Their emptiness gives you the creeps’. Here, the emptiness refers to the lack of soul and the preceding words suggest how they got to soullessness, through confusion between love and hatred that left them empty; and we as a society are left to deal with the aftermath of their confusion. You can ‘see’ this emptiness in their cold and cruel stares. Like Eliot’s ‘Hollow Men’, their eyes tell the story. An interesting line in these stanzas is ‘Pity is not what they want’. Here, the writer does not tell us what they want or explain further. We are left to ponder this on our own. This lack of explanation demonstrates the hopelessness of addressing an undefined desire. In the fourth and fifth stanzas, Frosini fades out for a wider perspective. He writes: ‘In a race to the bottom, you’. The line ends with an enjambment. This emphasis literally brings ‘you’ into his poem with poetic force! This is a common theme in his writing, using ‘you’ to refer directly to the reader, but also to society, who is looking in with him on a world problem (the ones who are hopefully still human and have an intact soul) . He continues on to describe a world ‘gut’ reaction of strong emotion, whereby ‘you’ react by calling the attackers names, expressing scorn, and then proclaiming to have victory over them. In essence, Frosini demonstrates strong words on the part of world leaders, but words devoid of thoughtful action to address the complicated problem. He emphasizes this view with the one line fifth stanza, ‘Yet, you [you the individual, and not the world leader] find it all the more sad’. The line ‘in a race to the bottom’, suggests the risk of all of us, for stooping down to the level of the inhuman attackers. What happens then? Are ‘you’ the ones who are most like the ‘Hollow Men’? The final stanza of Frosini’s poem pulls back even further with a dismal assessment on the tragedy and sadness of the event with the words ‘/—Helpless, hopeless, forlorn / The blood rain keeps on falling gently onto / Barren ground /’. The first three descriptive adjectives describe how we all feel: the attackers, the world leaders, poets, all of us. The second line emphasizes the hopelessness, that despite our words, our feelings, our actions, the blood of innocent or ‘gentle’ victims continues to fall on us. The final line of the poem, is the most painful: ‘Barren ground’. Despite everything, our world has not grown or reacted in a healing effective way to fix the problem from its source. Once again, a civilization is self-destructing. While this poem provides a dismal unsettling perspective, I view it as a provocative challenge from Frosini to act to find our collective soul. As a civilization, we can give up, or we can choose to think, to act, to make an effort to stop the rain.

While I read this poem the news are that the blood rain falling again in other place of the world. Salve Fabrizio

It is true that only cowards hide behind their weapons. I really do believe that justice and peace will eventually be dreams come true, but until then, one of the only things we as humans can do is provide each other with the support and care every person deserves... Staying strong and not breaking despite the pressure is our ultimate victory, I suppose. Loved that poem👌😍

answering a Dimitrios's question: the blood of the victims is helpless/hopeless, because it cannot change human nature. I'm not an optimist, Dimitrios, and I am not religious. The evil side of the human nature will live till mankind's last day.. The (gentle) blood of the innocents cannot 'fertilize' a barren ground (= cannot wipe out the evil living in the terrorists' mind) ======================================== From: Dimitrios Galanis Are the adjectives 'helpless, hopeless, folrorn'' atributes [assertive determinations] to the subject of the sentence ''The blood rain'' [keeps....] // If ''yes'' I wonder why, is there not any hope in the world to face that barbarism?

I mistakenly wrote 42 countries.. they are 43: '' 64 Poets from 43 different Countries have joined this project, and I wish to say “thank you” to each of them. The countries, counting both each poet's home country and the ones where some of the poets currently live, are: Australia, Bangladesh, Botswana, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Croatia, Egypt, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Morocco, New Zealand, Nepal, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Somalia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, UAE, Uganda, UK, USA, Zimbabwe. ''

''I condemn and stand with you in your cause.'' - wise words, I'm grateful thank you so much, dear Mohammed!

I condemn and stand with you in your cause. No one can justify the killing under any pretext. Nice poem.