Feedback Please - Untitled

[Countess]

Tread gently, I'm oozing blood and soul from my veins these days.
The part I'm concerned with goes from ...

"Decaffeinated and disenfranchised" ...to "after all,
it wasn’t always this way.”

I can't figure out how to make it more powerful. This is half-finished - I think. When its done, I can die in peace.


If wise men spoke the truth,
the world would be a different place,
But wise men don’t speak, they listen.

I
The world is filled with the griminess of people,
Hacked and hewn - each of us strewn
With second-hand sentiment and second-rate rhetoric,
Though it is personal experience
That proves our mortal wound.

We are the toil of the earth,
The black tar of highway 101,
The neon traffic lights
With tri-colored eyes,
The dense smog
Smothering the sun.

We are the chosen ones,
With our screaming sirens,
And base-bangin radios,
- the speakers of which
cover the back seat -
We are the cell phone intrusions,
The trash in our cache,
The senseless mess crashing
Our hard drive memory.

We are the information highway,
Reiterating media ideology,
We are the plague of the planet,
We are the wreck of the world.

II
The alarm shrieks, high-pitched and piercing,
“ING! ING!”
A would-be aural injury to meek morning
Save this alarm is damp and cold, permeating
Last nights fresh sheets with musky sweat -
At 38 I’m already centuries old -
Too old to tell time by precise details
Like digital clocks.

Decaffeinated and disenfranchised, I, on
the dazed drive to work am marked
by moments of clarity -
consider the metal machines staring
back at me from across the lawn,
or barking orders from the car-jacked,
traffic-backed boulevard.
More people. People inside people that run on gas.
Must everything we contrive look human?

Last nights restless rest has me hugging the sides,
so I consider a foray into the forest,
a forging of my own unique path as they say
Though the foliage sentinel promises to block
My way, this reincarnated soldier of nature’s fortune.

Would it be so bad to join him,
To end it all at last?
“One day, I promise; till then,
remember the past - after all,
it wasn’t always this way.”

I grew up on marshed farmland on the banks of Gloucester, VA
Resenting my parents for their wherewithal to suggest
A bucolic setting for my early youth.

My first night there was an nightmare’s paradise,
Inside this solar-paneled home with broad, double-decked
Windows I shivered and shrunk beneath the covers,
Watching wide-eyed the gray ghouls that crept and
Surprised, unmoved then metamorphosized,
long-beaked faces lunging and plunging on white walls
Before retreating to laugh. Several moments passed
Before I realized those impish trees had only been
Playing a trick on me.

The second night I spent in detached scrutiny.

The third night I joined them at my window,
A spectator shaman to these spineless porkypines -
These dancing voodoo pagans in psilocybin trance,
zephyr icarous wailing wildly from
The deep, black Chesapeake -
And its psychedelic ecstasy when
the axis mundi descends upon me.

The Northwest howls, a werewolf’s testimony -
Dark, black clouds meet and growl
Like armied phalanx’s for a battle.

Overhead ocean, bright with sea stars,
With celestial cities like crystal eyes of Zion,
- the holy children we celebrate -
Retreat, surrender quietly to the onslaught
Army from the west, and I bow
In dereference to nature’s wrath
Against her enemy - the stark city
Of industry which glows and glowers
Of man fades behind a slate of rain,
And is gone.

I am in awe.
I am in love.
I am a part of her that moves above.
I am part or particle of Whitman’s god.
And so I pray.

III
I never saw a tree insult its neighbor,
to shame it to its feet,
Or a star, jealous for its own glory,
burn brighter to a brother’s defeat.

I never saw the sea, so rich in resources,
Order tribute or a tempest make,
Or the moon, in murderous madness,
Linger too long, or for the sun lie in wait.

I never saw a tiger tear its prey
With a vicious, mortal rage -

But then I’ve never been a
tiger, a tree or a star…
Still, I do see.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Oh my God, Countess! This is a lifetime - or two or three - summed up in lines that are simultaneously spontaneous sounding and etched in blood! I could do without these prefatory lines

Tread gently, I'm oozing blood and soul from my veins these days.
The part I'm concerned with goes from ...

"Decaffeinated and disenfranchised" ...to "after all,
it wasn’t always this way.”

I can't figure out how to make it more powerful. This is half-finished - I think. When its done, I can die in peace.


If wise men spoke the truth,
the world would be a different place,
But wise men don’t speak, they listen.

But as for the rest of it I could quote line after line but will confine myself to just a few of those that stand out even among the power of all the others:

[QUOTE]it is personal experience
That proves our mortal wound.

We are the toil of the earth,
The black tar of highway 101,
The neon traffic lights
With tri-colored eyes,
The dense smog
Smothering the sun.[QUOTE]

We are the information highway,
Reiterating media ideology,
We are the plague of the planet,
We are the wreck of the world.

At 38 I’m already centuries old -
Too old to tell time by precise details
Like digital clocks.

Decaffeinated and disenfranchised, I, on
the dazed drive to work am marked
by moments of clarity -
consider the metal machines staring
back at me from across the lawn,
or barking orders from the car-jacked,
traffic-backed boulevard.

Must everything we contrive look human?

I grew up on marshed farmland on the banks of Gloucester, VA
Resenting my parents for their wherewithal to suggest
A bucolic setting for my early youth.

My first night there was an nightmare’s paradise,
Inside this solar-paneled home with broad, double-decked
Windows I shivered and shrunk beneath the covers,
Watching wide-eyed the gray ghouls that crept and
Surprised, unmoved then metamorphosized,
long-beaked faces lunging and plunging on white walls
Before retreating to laugh. Several moments passed
Before I realized those impish trees had only been
Playing a trick on me.

The second night I spent in detached scrutiny.

The third night I joined them at my window,
A spectator shaman to these spineless porkypines -
These dancing voodoo pagans in psilocybin trance,
zephyr icarous wailing wildly from
The deep, black Chesapeake -
And its psychedelic ecstasy when
the axis mundi descends upon me.

The Northwest howls, a werewolf’s testimony -
Dark, black clouds meet and growl
Like armied phalanx’s for a battle.

This is reminiscent of the final lines of Matthew Arnold's "On Dover Beach."

Overhead ocean, bright with sea stars,
With celestial cities like crystal eyes of Zion,
- the holy children we celebrate -
Retreat, surrender quietly to the onslaught
Army from the west, and I bow
In dereferencedeference to nature’s wrath
Against her enemy - the stark city
Of industry which glows and glowers
Of man fades behind a slate of rain,
And is gone.

I never saw the sea, so rich in resources,
Order tribute or a tempest make,
Or the moon, in murderous madness,
Linger too long, or for the sun lie in wait.

I never saw a tiger tear its prey
With a vicious, mortal rage -

But then I’ve never been a
tiger, a tree or a star…
Still, I do see.

Yes, you do see, you DO see! Thank you!

[ktd222]

Hi Countess!

My first thought would be whether the speaker is unwise, just by he/she expressing an opinion which seems less like an opinion than the fact. What would happen to your scene of earth if the speaker and “we” were taken out? I would think the scene you painted of earth would speak for itself, as to how it has changed from its natural and nurturing state, taking out of the poem any sense of required sentimentality by the reader in response to the speaker, since the cold truth is expressed in the scene. So now we are not listening to men but man-made things.

[Pendragon]

I think I would put these lines at the end of number I:

If wise men spoke the truth,
the world would be a different place,
But wise men don’t speak, they listen.

It is a wonderful poem. Well Done.

[dibyendra]

Very powerful poems for me Countess. Great works.

If wise men spoke the truth,
the world would be a different place,
But wise men don’t speak, they listen.

This small piece is marvelous.

The world is filled with the griminess of people,
Hacked and hewn - each of us strewn
With second-hand sentiment and second-rate rhetoric,
Though it is personal experience
That proves our mortal wound.

We are the toil of the earth,
The black tar of highway 101,
The neon traffic lights
With tri-colored eyes,
The dense smog
Smothering the sun.

We are the chosen ones,
With our screaming sirens,
And base-bangin radios,
- the speakers of which
cover the back seat -
We are the cell phone intrusions,
The trash in our cache,
The senseless mess crashing
Our hard drive memory.

We are the information highway,
Reiterating media ideology,
We are the plague of the planet,
We are the wreck of the world.

I loved this one most. This left me pondering on the things you talked about here. Lovely.

Keep up your good work Countess!

[Countess]

Thanks for all the responses - I'll review everyone's suggestions at length later tonight (after work).

My goal is to speak about the inferiority of man next to nature - that animals do exactly what they were made to do, without malice. All of nature functions as she is intended to - beautiful days give way to rainy nights, etc. Only man - with his supposed "superior" faculty of thought possesses the "higher intellect" required to be malicious, vengeful, greedy, hurtful, prideful, etc. It's never personal with nature.

This may be one of the hardest things I've written because it's essence is different. I'm moving from a Byron-based perspective - capturing powerful emotions - to a Shelley-based perspective - capturing powerful (please don't laugh at me. They are powerful *to me*) ideas. I adore Shelley for what he does so well, but I want to avoid his occasional tendency to pontificate - sometimes, mid-poem, he gets into his utopian pulpit and at that point he reminds me of my mother who manages to say the exact same thing 1000 different ways.

So I want you to help me communicate ideas in an interesting way, without beating mankind about the head with them. (-:

"Put the poem down, Countess, and back away slowly..."

[Countess]

PART IV and V (continuing)

IV
We waste so much time
On hollow words, fake emotions
And futile action.

If our lives were reduced
To what was good use
How long would each of us live?


V
So you say you’re a Jesus freak,
Library complete
With Bibles in Hebrew and Greek,
Bookshelves lined prettily
Like Solomon-laced poetry,
But you’re a phony,
Jabroni,
A regular virtuoso of parsimony,
Conducting a symphony
Of selfish ambition
Behind the mask of a saint.

Your religion is fake
And your take
Will have the swell
Burning in Hell
Eternally.

Love
Peace
Patience
Kindness
Goodness
Faithfulness
Gentleness

Go to God to Get Yours Today!

[PrinceMyshkin]

There's this writer I love, one of the funniest drily funny writers I know - Wilfred Sheed - who would be a much greater writer if he weren't always so much smarter than any of his characters. And V, above, might be a much better poem if it were written with just one drop of empathy for this house-mate of yours. In order to realy show how stupid she is, how slit-eyed fanatical, you gotta show she has the capacity - if she chooses to - to be smarter than she is.

[Countess]

Geesh, Prince. Now that's deep. Wow. I've been praying for over two days - God finally delivered me the much needed "forgiveness, patience and peace" - yes, a drop or two of empathy, indeed. Thank-you. Thank-you.

[jon1jt]

This is screaming for a colossal edit, Countess. I recommend you reduce it by 50%, or up to 75%, while maintaining the spirit of what you have here. It can be done.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Geesh, Prince. Now that's deep. Wow. I've been praying for over two days - God

You gotta be kidding! You gotta be kidding, right? You've been praying to "God"? To THE God? but not the one to whom the alleged Jesus-freak prays to or worships? How, in the name of all that's holy & a whole lot of that which isn't, do you know that He/She or It does not prefer the worship of your benighted house-mate?

finally delivered me the much needed "forgiveness, patience and peace" - yes, a drop or two of empathy, indeed. Thank-you. Thank-you.

You know, chum, you just might be a whole lot nicer a person than you think you are, but remember to Love thy house-mate as thyself!

[ampoule]

Countess,
I like your poem fine. You have some fabulous lines that raise questions I have thought of myself over the years.
I find myself, also, being so danged nosey. I would love to know what this housemate of yours does to play out her hypocrisy....in a PM. You'll probably go pffftt to that but I am so curious. I've known a lot of holier-than-thou people in my lifetime and I've probably even played that part a time or two. I think human-ness is the problem, not just God believers or Jesus freaks. Golly willikers, look at all the intelligenter-than-thous who would like to beat me to a pulp.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Countess,
I like your poem fine. You have some fabulous lines that raise questions I have thought of myself over the years.
I find myself, also, being so danged nosey. I would love to know what this housemate of yours does to play out her hypocrisy....in a PM. You'll probably go pffftt to that but I am so curious. I've known a lot of holier-than-thou people in my lifetime and I've probably even played that part a time or two. I think human-ness is the problem, not just God believers or Jesus freaks. Golly willikers, look at all the intelligenter-than-thous who would like to beat me to a pulp.

Does one have to take number, or just get in the queue?

[ampoule]

Does one have to take number, or just get in the queue?

Maybe I'll have to let you take cuts. Perhaps we can borrow the 'ship's' spanking room.

[DickZ]

I don't understand the part about the wise man who just listens. How could anybody know how wise someone is if that someone just listens?

Obviously, listening is important, but it's certainly not enough. It sounds great to say that, but it doesn't really mean anything. And since it opens the poem, I found it enough to dissuade me from reading the rest.