So, just about everyone I know has their own thread in AMW, and I decided it was high time I started one of my own. I'm no artist, but I fancy myself to be a bit of a poet. Here's a few by myself:
The Five Seasons
In the cool of these days I lie in the grass and contemplate In a fresh and gentle haze These beautiful breezes of late I long for times to go on forever But alas, they always stay never
Through the days of heat I long for the autumn Through this swelting waves to beat A cold, wet column Like a fresh breath of life To end this heated strife
In these months so gold When fresh joy enchants The colours grow bold With gusts of cool windy rants I fear my life is gone When these perfect days move on
Like a renewal of heart These ages are bathed in white When gone are the times of hurt Here the young are fresh with delight Sweet peace, joy, and love Soon flies away like a dove
Ah, this fifth season It is how I am alive It ends without reason It all too soon doesn't arrive When this season is gone To the afterlife, I move on -------------------
You Live To Die
Men live, men die A pat on the back Beats a poke in the eye This pendulum is out of wack
As life marches on, love might find you If it does, it might stay Or it might sail on with a ship's crew If it's still there, hooray
Soon, tragedy strikes you down Life starts to end, fall to pieces around your ears Those bright lights of love may turn brown If you're lucky, come true will all your fears
Soon pain will come 'round Like a swimmer drown'd You have no will to be alive You impatiently wait for death to arrive
When you see him come over the hill You run to greet him, as a friend Suddenly, to life you have the will But it's too late; come, has the end ----------------------------------
The Long Road As I walk along this road I see many dead on the road I see bodies on the road I see limbs on the road I see heds on the road But never on this road Have I seen love on this road Never once happiness on this road Everything is dead on the Long Road Walk life traversing the Long Road ----------------------------------
I'll add more as the days go on Even though time leaves I'll not be long gone For he that in me truly believes
You're jealous of my boyfriend because you are no longer the "capeman" u were before? Is that why you call me black hearted? I have not one idea what you are talking about. But whatever
You have friends and you know it It's something that never ends You can't help but show it I'll always be by your side I'm along for the ride When you need someone to buy you another round I'll always be there to be crowned No matter what you do I'm always there for you
Your neglect to use central elements of poetic form such as punctuation and fitting rhyme is a huge inspiration to my work. I wrote a haiku about your style that I feel I must share.
Experimental Immune to criticisms duck duck duck gentle
The first, punctuation. Poetry has grammar. Punctuation tells us if a thought has finished or if it's going on. Five Seasons needs this bad. It would make it much more readable. As such, it took me three tries.
Now, your ideas aren't half bad. You can think poetic thoughts, and you're getting there in expressing them. Five Seasons has a key weakness: it just doesn't flow right. The rhyme and meter don't work together to call forth the content in the readers mind. This is Alt's second legitimate criticism. Rhyme does not equal poetry.
Any ol' fool can put rhyming lines down. A poet understands poetic form. Now, you might be thinking "It's my free expression! I can do what I want!" Well, you're wrong, in short. Good poetry uses literary devices to create meaning. The most common device is form, the combination of rhyme and rhythm. Yes, you can make up your own to fit the piece, but that doesn't mean you don't have to study forms like sonnets and haikus and limericks. You have to know the rules to break them. Otherwise, you aren't a rule-breaker, you just don't know **** from Shinola.
Read the poetry of Robert Frost. I think you'd like him, and he exemplifies what I mean by form allowing you to feel the poem. A good poem an feel almost interactive -- the thoughts on the page are flowing both in and out of you. You make it your own just by reading it.
So yeah. Every word, your rhyme scheme, your meter -- these are all conscious choices. You are free, but to be good, you must choose them, not just write whatever and say it's a choice to do whatever. So yeah. Form in harmony with content. Good job, though. You aren't bad.
