* bubble-gum flavored medicine

don't you say the past
is haunting you.
its haunting us all.
from the blood-thumping lull
of the passing minute, the fleeting year-
decades gone by
but still sitting in melancholy, reminiscing.

and on comes the sickening feeling
of nostalgia and nausea
from the days that pass by
without warning.
death is on our doorstep;
waiting, solemnly, for the day we suddenly break.
and broken we shall be.

living in the past, building homes inside our memories
eating comfort food and picturing the days to come.
because we're all
made of bubble-gum flavored medicine
of brightly-lit classrooms
and the sweet smell of freshly-mown lawn.

and we're all dying inside.
forgetting the sound of her voice
or his sheepish smile.
trying to understand...
why.

melodicatastrophe,


"living in the past, building homes inside our memories
eating comfort food and picturing the days to come.
because we're all
made of bubble-gum flavored medicine
of brightly-lit classrooms
and the sweet smell of freshly-mown lawn."

Death by adjectives. Painful death.


Best,
Brad

This is good, really good. I think it's about pretending you're happy when you're really low. That's my interpretation anyway but it could mean something completely different. Enlighten us! Good use of adjectives, as the person above said

Writing honestly, I've read this five straight times and I still have no clue what you are trying to say. I mean it all sounds great, and some of the lines are kind of intriguing but....

Line by line, it doesn't mean anything!!! It deals in generalities and never sharpens it's focus. The bubble gum line looks great on paper, but feels too contrived, almost as if you came up with that line, and then built a poem around it. I'd be much appriciated if you could post again and tell me what I obviously missed, but I would warn you that if one person can look at this and draw blanks, then so will others.

Wow, for me, the meaning of this poem is quite obvious. But that could be just me (I wrote the poem, didn't I?).
This poem is about living in the past and not in today. I'm talking about all people in general, not being able to move on from their memories and sitting in nostalgia.

I've said this many times - just because a poem or song may not make sense or the reader cannot decipher the meaning doesn't make it a bad poem. Sometimes we need to look deeper.

thethinkerofthoughts wrote:I've said this many times - just because a poem or song may not make sense or the reader cannot decipher the meaning doesn't make it a bad poem. Sometimes we need to look deeper.

I disagree, I think that if the reader ceedes that then you'll wind up with many very contrived manufactured messes.

I think however, that just because the poem doesn't make sense to one reader does not mean it doesn't make sense. I guess what I really want to see is thought behind the poem. Lewis Carrol's "Jabberwocky" means virtually nothing when read at face value but there is a method to it's madness.

Reading this again, I can see melo's point, and while I still rather think that a ton of it is a bit superfluous and unessesary, I'm much happier with this understanding.

don't you say the past
is haunting you.

Is this a question? I think as an accusation, it would serve as a great beginning. Otherwise, it's just not phrased correctly.

its haunting us all.

it's

from the blood-thumping lull
of the passing minute, the fleeting year-
decades gone by

"blood-thumping lull" is a keeper, but "year-decades" just seems repetitive. I understand you're conveying a longer span of time compressed into a smaller segment, but there are more direct ways to say that. Personally, I'd stick to "decades". It's definitely more epic.

but still sitting in melancholy, reminiscing.

It's unusual to say "in" melancholy. You could "be" melancholy. Although this could be poetic license, so it's okay.

waiting, solemnly, for the day we suddenly break.
and broken we shall be.

This is also a bit repetitive. If we break, are we not broken? Well, then, how about you express, broken in what way? broken how? like, as?

living in the past, building homes inside our memories
eating comfort food and picturing the days to come.
because we're all
made of bubble-gum flavored medicine
of brightly-lit classrooms
and the sweet smell of freshly-mown lawn.

Whoa. The poem is full of gloomy and drowsiness, and then you hit us with this? Some words that I don't believe fit the context would be "comfort food", "picturing", and "freshly-mown lawn". This seems to me like a plasticated suburbia, which is, yes, where the setting might be, but I was imagining this in grayscale. I like "brightly-lit classrooms", though, because the lights in my school seem to film things over. Also, "bubble-gum flavored medicine" - childhood favorite, distant, out of reach: a beautiful feeling.

and we're all dying inside.
forgetting the sound of her voice
or his sheepish smile.
trying to understand...
why.

Under my impression, a good part of this poem is about a day-to-day schedule plagued with some sort of loss: loss of better days, aspiration, feeling, or, as you show here, a person. While I like that you defined the loss, I wish you had kept it a broader topic so the reader could apply it to all sections of their lives. Of course, this is your own personal composition, so you may apply it to whatever you wish.

"Why" is a simplistic ending to a poem with such powerful imagery. Perhaps you could incorporate some of that into that final "punchline", if you will.