truth in small portions

they whisper, “ignore what you see, your inner eye is blind”
and of course you believe them.
they are the masters of deceit, those wielders of power
a few bucks here, a few bucks there, and soon we’re talking real money
behind closed shades and within darkened rooms--
the rules of the world are made.

why do you not question when they tell you
“see what we want you to see”?
their infatuation with control is not evidence enough.
we must all have something tactile, something we can point the finger at—
Aha! we’ve caught the man; he won’t get away this time!
But who’s counting?

with half-hearted assurance
pretending to be cognizant, full of disintegrating hope
hope’s overrated anyways
so is intelligence, I see.

sighing with a weary expectance
we get use to this life of wear and tear
we get almost fond of the little white lies that break under inspection
all for the greater cause
but what cause is greater than truth, really?

I don't really know what I thought of this... on some general notes, I think I'd like to see it with punctuation, and that you should either use quotes or italics, not both.

Ack, I can't think of much else to say, I'll have to come back and read over it, let it sit in my mind for a while.

Aww Clau. I'm sorry.

I, like Clau, am having trouble with this. I think I know why...

Meaning. In order to get your point across, you've first got to give the reader something to hold on to. What you have here are a bunch of loosely connected images that flirt with being concrete, but don't quite get there, and don't quite hold on to each other. It seems more like a stream of consciousness than a put-together thought.

Tone. On the other hand, the tone and feel of this poem is very good. I get a rebellious, cynical feeling from this. This would benefit greatly if you could apply that skill for creating such a mood to a poem that's a little more polished and thoughtful.

Diction. This poem also suffers from being too wordy, and perhaps having the wrong words in the wrong places. Think about your words; are you using the absolute best ones? Are all your descriptions necessary? Can you cut some stuff out? Of the things you're leaving in, what can you add or subtract to inspire the perfect tone, the right meaning?

Keep at it!
-Colleen

Your capitalization seems inconsistent; similarly, seeming lack of punctuation made it confusing at times. I think consistency would help. Another comment on format; it becomes a bit confusing when italicized lines are sometimes in quotes and sometimes not. Because when they're not in quotes, I wonder if you just forgot to quote them, or if they're purely italicized. Hence, I would suggest lines of dialogue be un-italicized and left in quotes, or dialogue be italicized without the quotes, and other instances of italics be left in normal font. I was also waiting for you to comment somewhere on the "they" that say these things.

their infatuation with control is not evidence enough.
we must all have something tactile, something we can point the finger at—

Lines like these made things in general seem too obvious.

Aha! we’ve caught the man; he won’t get away this time!
But who’s counting?

Why would someone be counting? Here's where I kind of expected a tie in with the mysterious "they"

behind closed shades and within darkened rooms--
the rules of the world are made.

This line seemed a little vague, as if you could have expanded on the rules of the world.

we get use to this life of wear and tear
we get almost fond of the little white lies that break under inspection
all for the greater cause
but what cause is greater than truth, really?

"almost fond" sounds weak, as if you don't know what you mean. I'd get rid of "almost" or reword entirely. The little white lies, etc. seems too prosaic and not very poetic to me. The whole part about truth is interesting. Apparently you're not one who thinks all things are relative ^_^ To me, this seems a contradiction, especially when going back to the first line: "ignore what you see, your inner eye is blind". Or did you intend for this to happen? Are you trying to say that people in general have a distorted perception of truth and therefore can't trust what they see? That the world is truly different than how we look at it? eh, a few random thoughts to mull over.

Thanks so much guys! I'll definetly work on it!

evangelina,


The problem lies in that fact that you use sweeping judgments of whole classes of people and in the end it's just a pile of banal rubbish. That you are seeking for universal truths in a poem (or rather, advocating the universal truth that it is good to search for universal truth) is indicative of an amateurish approach to the poem, which is clearly the exception to the universal, the "not-all."


Take care,
Brad