I like this. It contrasts expectations with the reality of combat.
I like the repetition of "What could go wrong?" It could have a couple meanings. The soldier has thoroughly convinced himself everything will be fine, or he is trying to convince himself everything will be fine. Given that you left him anonymous, both can be true at the same time (a Schrödinger's cat sort of thing).
The one detail I question is in the first paragraph: "He hated smoking - it reminded him of the smoldering of an artillery shell after it destroyed a foxhole with your best friend in it." This statement leads me to believe the soldier is a combat veteran. It seems unlikely that someone who knew what it smelled like when a friend gets blown apart by an artillery shell would believe nothing could go wrong on an amphibious landing on a defended beach. This line also takes some of the anonymity away from the main character by suggesting he's a combat veteran.
Consider having cigarette smoke remind him of something like the clouds of cigarette smoke in the cramped bays of the troops ships where he felt helpless and in fear of getting torpedoed. This could tie nicely into his dislike of ships. They make him feel helpless. Give him his rifle, put him on the beach away from the ships and the cigarette smoke and he'll be a powerful warrior, not a helpless passenger.
The title is elegant. I take the title to represent the central theme of the story, the opposing world views of the two characters "bosses", God and the army. The soldier representing the Army's practical, somewhat fatalistic world view that passage through the mountains is impossible and the travelers deaths are guaranteed. Eleazar representing a spiritual view that God will see them through the mountains.
I like how this is a snapshot. It doesn't detail which "boss" is right. For all the reader knows, both views may be right.
I like how the two world views are demonstrated during the conversation without being specifically stated.
I like how neither side gives an inch, but their confrontation isn't overly dramatic. The Army's view is they can die if they want to. The travelers' view is they will be fine and don't need anybody's help.
Just a couple minor specifics:
Calling the soldier "it" in the first few paragraph feel awkward, especially since he is referred to as "the soldier" later in the piece. I personally think it dehumanizes both the soldier and Eleazar, which I think weakens the piece a little. It makes me think Eleazar doesn't even see the soldier as a human being, just an "it". This seems to make the soldier feel a bit cruel, which he isn't. It also seems to make Eleazar seem a bit detached from reality which I don't think is the intent.
This is minor: It seems unlikely the soldier would have come up to the wagon train alone. Since he refers to "my orders" in paragraph 7, I assume he's probably the commander of the patrol. It seems like he'd bring at least a trooper or two along with him.
This is also minor: It feels weird that the soldiers aren't patrolling the trail, but are at the bottom of a valley while the trail is higher up. It seems like it would be more plausible that the patrol's commander would be alone if his patrol met the wagon train on the trail. He might call his troop to a halt at a bit of a distance and ride the short distance to talk to Eleazar.
I really like the simplicity of this piece. The poem does a wonderful job of portraying corruption, hopelessness, arrogance. Because of the few words in the poem, the title becomes very important. Even the position of the title above the poem can be taken to have significance: above gods play games, below the mortals lose.
Short short poems are hard to do, and I think you did a nice job with this one.
Interesting piece. It's unsettling, but I'm thinking that is what you were trying for.
I like that the first line is "The end". I think you should consider dropping the last line. Not having the second end, "How will my tale end", and ending it with "A hand of a loved one" almost makes the poem feel backward with "The end" at the beginning, and no real ending at the end.
Overall: I really like this poem. The first two stanza isolate the narrator, sets an unpleasant tone, drops the reader into an immediate problem, and almost makes the reader a bit paranoid. The rest of the poem puts depth to the feelings and stretches the immediate problem into a chronic feeling.
I love the first two stanzas, they have a chaotic, fast rhythm that seems like eyes jerking around a loud, crowded room or the fast, staccato notes of a drum. Perfectly unnerving.
In this case, I like "they". It turns it into a world vs. the narrator scenario which I am positive was intended. This narrator is alone in a crowded world.
Stanza 3, line 2: This stanza has a nice sort of "two stroke" rhythm that is somewhat interrupted by line 2. It would be awsome to maintain this rhythm while retaining the meaning of this line. Off the top of my head, I can't suggest a way to do that.
Stanza 5, line 4: The fact that the narrator has a "one true love" suddenly, almost jarringly makes the narrator less alone. Consider changing this line to "I choose to" would seem to maintain their isolation, but also tie in nicely to the courage shown in this stanza's first two lines.
Stanza 6, line 4: I like this line, but it clashes with the last line of the previous stanza. If the narrator has a true love, it seems that at least that person would try to understand. If the narrator is receiving nothing, it brings into question the value of the true love. I think this is another reason to change the true love line.
Very nicely done.
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