Sealed In Steel

Calling card in the gutter,
free samples used as fuel.
Evermore this engine sputters
feeling heavy, a paperweight jewel.

The spiraling phone cord
relays messages, lost in thought
like wine stains on keyboards
we blot away at all we're taught.

The silicon of tragedies
heating up 'stead of cooling down.
sipping from the leaking batteries
bed of nails upon the lawn.

wrapped up in denial
of our own selfish doubt
wisdom; hope, away we file
Now we have to do without.

only semblance of progress
is pointing fingers, placing blame.
Filibusters in Congress,
supposed "leaders" have you no shame?!

the proverbial coffee
is getting cold
once strong tea,
weak and old.

The water's burning
ice on fire.
butterflies churning
lack of desire

it seems only indifference
perseveres, nay: prevails.
deconstruction lacking hindrance
we ignore history's tales.

we've sealed our fate
in steel and wax
up with the shovel
down with the axe.

I liked the poem, but I can't exactly find something particular to pick at in its content, etc. It was good, but I didn't get anything from it. But then again, it's point was to send a message, wasn't it?

I do have problems with some syntax things.

Rhythm: You rhymed, and in my open, rhythm should also come along with the rhyming. Sometimes no, but in this case reading it without rhythm felt...weird.

Calling card in the gutter, [7]
free samples used as fuel.[6]
Evermore this engine sputters[8]
feeling heavy, a paperweight jewel.[9]

You can see for yourself, none of these lines have the same number of syllables, and at first I thought maybe you were starting small then getting big, but the 7,6,8,9 pattern doesn't really follow that...

It's always been my opinion that making the lines that rhyme the same number of syllables sound really, really good in a poem. It's hard to do if you don't write it with that in mind, but it is completely worth it.

Punctuation: Wow, this was just hectic. Here is just one example, but either way I suggest you go through the whole poem and look for issues.

The silicon of tragedies
heating up 'stead of cooling down.
sipping from the leaking batteries
bed of nails upon the lawn.

the second line ends in a period and yet...the third and forth lines do not make sense on their own?

Capitalization: This is just as hectic as your punctuation, only worse either because of the way you punctuated, or because you didn't pay attention to it. You start some stanzas with a capital letter, and others not. But then, when you start a new sentence, you also don't capitalize. It's like you just did it when every you felt like, or weren't paying attention... I kind of doubt this was on purpose because it made no impact on the poem. Like with the punctuation, read through the poem and figure out whether you want to capitalize, or not, and do it

uhmm like I said, that's really all I have to say. I've never been much for poems that only want to send messages. They aren't for me.

Just a few points to add to that rather thorough critique. I think that, seenas you don't appear to have a rhythm, you might as well use 'instead' rather than 'stead. I don't see that leaving out the syllable had any impact on the message of the poem but it cetainly made me stumble over the word.

Another note. While I can put up with the punctuation being a little disordered, you need to write we're rather than were because they are different words, with different meanings and it doesn't appear to make sense with were so I can only presume you meant to use the other.

On a positive note, I did like the context of this poem and I felt that the rhyme was well used with a large vocabulary and some interesting imagery to back it up. I particularly liked the second to last stanza and the only thing I disliked about the last was the spelling of 'ax'. You seem to have missed the e off and whether that's a typo or genuine spelling mistake, I think you should go back and change it.

Overally, my message to you is to keep up the good work!

I'll only argue one point before humbly editing this, and that's that the dear spell check put up a huge fight on this piece. It was NOT happy. So I just started clicking 'Replace' in hopes to appease it, and it apparently ate up axe and swallowed the 'e'. My apologies :p