The End (or Scenes from Armageddon)

The End
or
Scenes from Armageddon

the evening sky is littered with the husks of broken ships
forever lost to the rough and windy seas of the night.
and as i look up at our beautiful heavenly abyss,
i see the the weeping land below illuminated clearly,
and a dark wind blows.

there will be none of the promised light at the end, the prophet says,
none of the golden seraphim harps awaiting beyond the walls of eternity,
only the fiends of this world, hollow-eyed and haggard and restless,
a seething mass of humanity awaiting even the best of us.
nothing but blood and fear.

every man drunk on the wine and the virtuous false praise,
every soul clawing anxiously at the feet of the martyred wanderer, passing
through the immortal realms of the past,
they are coming closer, he sees, quivering and passionately mad,
spirits of the earth, rising from their shallow graves with a fury unmatched.

it happened quickly.
a sudden snap, a flare of light, and our sun was gone forever,
leaving only night; roaring spirits rose up, untouchable, deadly, mindless.
the earth shook with a supreme wrath, the gods of old born again.
humanity collapsed under the weight of its sins.

soft epiphanies of piano melodies drift outwards into the cold,
glorious silver clouds floating gently towards the weary traveler,
and with the frenzy of a thousand lonely suicides,
he saw dreams and starry-eyed beauties with open arms,
as his mind gasped it's last.

radiant and ever-present lady of the sky, reigning eternally
in the kingdom of twilight, stretches her glowing fingers down to earth,
enlightening the lone, feverish child walking along the shoreline.
with trembling knees, the child turns her eyes to heaven,
and stretches out her hand, visions of pagan gods reflected in her eyes.

fishing out my last cigarette,
walking silently down a long forgotten road,
i see a dying beast dragging itself alongside me,
flesh sagging on the bone, no more prey to feed upon.
the last of its kind, proud and triumphant even now.

now, only ghosts live here, reflections on memories of no one,
slowly decaying under the hot, rising sun of a new dawn,
an empty and god-forsaken land, none left but you and i,
you grab my hand, and we fall into that unattainable light,
that blissful pool of times past, eternal and absolute.

I'll be quick...
-"Repair" your punctuation.
-correct the cAPS in the beginning of the sentence after that
-stretch some of your verses and skew the others...
-make sure the rhythm stays the same...
Then I'll review more...

hmm, well sir, i do not think you are in a position to be making demands of me. in fact, i consider that quite arrogant. by refusing to review until i follow your demands, you are saying that i am somehow beholden to you. this, of course, is the furthest thing from the truth. if you want to review it, review it, if you don't, or somehow feel that it's not worthy of a review, then don't. but first, let's get down to brass tacks here.

-everything i did, including the lack of capitalization, was intentional. i consider it part of my style, and i am far from the first to do this. i think that e.e. cummings is a good example of someone who intentionally does not capitalize. i could get into an artsy explanation of why i don't do it, but i'll spare you. really, i just find it aesthetically pleasing, and i don't really see a need to "fix" my caps.

- "repair" my punctuation? i really don't think it needs repairing, other than a few minor instances. honestly, i think that grammar, spelling, punctuation and even syntax are not worth shit in poetry. it's art. it doesn't need to adhere to any rules, or conform to the standards of people like you. it just needs to be artful and meaningful, and even those things are very subjective.

- "stretch some of your verses and skew the others". i'm not entirely sure of what you mean by that (i'm not entirely familiar with the terminology of poetry, other than a few smatterings), but i am sure that you are wrong. again, i must stress that i did not come here for "technical" reviews. i came for interpretive reviews, meaning that i want people to interpret and discuss the themes and techniques used in the poem. the technical aspects of poetry do not interest me, nor do they concern me. i refuse to bow my head to the tyrant called Conformist Poetry.

- "make sure the rhythm stays the same" well, sir. i read my poem a couple times, and i'll be damned if i can find a single part of the poem that does not flow the way i wish it to. it is meant to be read at a slow pace, in an almost monotone, yet still grandiose, voice. for a proper example, listen to a recording of Allen Ginsberg reading Howl. that's really how i try to make all my poems flow, and i believe i succeeded here.

bah, anyway, if you don't want to give legitimate criticism, then keep your mouth shut. and i guess while i'm posting here, i'll give a link to what i consider to be the proper formatting of this poem. i really dislike the way the posts are automatically spaced here. here it is:

http://thecompendium.tumblr.com/post/80 ... armageddon

i think it looks better on my blog, but whatever floats your collective boats.

pax,
zalarus

It's times like these when I struggle with my recent vow not to be overtly harsh. Don't listen to this darkodemark character, he's clearly basing his judgment on middle-school characterizations of "proper" Dr. Seuss rhyming poetry and nothing beyond that.

zalarus wrote:the evening sky is littered with the husks of broken ships
forever lost to the rough and windy seas of the night.
and as i look up at our beautiful heavenly abyss,
i see the the weeping land below illuminated clearly,
and a dark wind blows.

Interesting opening - a scene away from a scene, an outsider looking through a glass wall at the embodiment of death - is what my mind built after reading the stanza. You seem to be trying too hard, and simplifying the description of events and places would give you the "realist", gritty and detached edge that this stanza seems to be aiming for (at least in the first few lines). Take out the "forever" and "rough and windy" in the second line, as that would embellish the main point and like I said above, would dry your style. After all, these ships are certainly behemoths after their own time, dried out in the desert sand, as I see it in my imagination - your flow should be the same.

Take out "clearly" in the fourth line, for it adds nothing and instead spoon-feeds the reader what he should already be formulating without having to hold any hands to stand up. The ending of this stanza is pure perfection. That is the only way I can describe it; n invader coming in like a storm cloud, through the one dimension that man cannot control and therefore is the most afraid of - the sky.

there will be none of the promised light at the end, the prophet says,
none of the golden seraphim harps awaiting beyond the walls of eternity,
only the fiends of this world, hollow-eyed and haggard and restless,
a seething mass of humanity awaiting even the best of us.
nothing but blood and fear.

every man drunk on the wine and the virtuous false praise,
every soul clawing anxiously at the feet of the martyred wanderer, passing
through the immortal realms of the past,
they are coming closer, he sees, quivering and passionately mad,
spirits of the earth, rising from their shallow graves with a fury unmatched.

I sense an AntiChrist in the prophet, or at least a realist not bound by religion but only what the salt of the earth can feed him. Is that what you were trying to portray? An irreligious religion? If so, it worked well. Your punctuation in that stanza stings, however. The commas at the end of each line are so repeated and conforming to one another that it takes away from the effect the poem tries to create. I suggest taking out some and replacing others with...anything else, really. Don't fall into a rut, any rut, in this poem or it will lose it's meaning.

The stanza after that is done well but disappointed me near the end. Why must we be told about the spirits? Save the suspense for later and have your Christ-like figure either respond to this overwhelmingly negative energy somehow or make it abundantly clear that he is an outside observer, not impacted directly by their seething emotions. Right now, you are straddling the line between the two.

it happened quickly.
a sudden snap, a flare of light, and our sun was gone forever,
leaving only night; roaring spirits rose up, untouchable, deadly, mindless.
the earth shook with a supreme wrath, the gods of old born again.
humanity collapsed under the weight of its sins.

soft epiphanies of piano melodies drift outwards into the cold,
glorious silver clouds floating gently towards the weary traveler,
and with the frenzy of a thousand lonely suicides,
he saw dreams and starry-eyed beauties with open arms,
as his mind gasped it's last.

radiant and ever-present lady of the sky, reigning eternally
in the kingdom of twilight, stretches her glowing fingers down to earth,
enlightening the lone, feverish child walking along the shoreline.
with trembling knees, the child turns her eyes to heaven,
and stretches out her hand, visions of pagan gods reflected in her eyes.

I wish I could give a line-by-line critique for this section, I really do. I confess, though, that it flows so well and seamlessly that it seems like one line, an endless road off to the poem's core and centerpiece without having to pause for any unnecessary break. After a read-through of the rest of the poem, I appreciate this part even more. Like the sudden war or annihilation you describe, the tone of your poem rapidly descends (or ascends, as you may see it) from a lyrical Romanticism to - as shown in the stanzas that come after these ones - Realism and a bittersweet despair. It works, and well.

fishing out my last cigarette,
walking silently down a long forgotten road,
i see a dying beast dragging itself alongside me,
flesh sagging on the bone, no more prey to feed upon.
the last of its kind, proud and triumphant even now.

now, only ghosts live here, reflections on memories of no one,
slowly decaying under the hot, rising sun of a new dawn,
an empty and god-forsaken land, none left but you and i,
you grab my hand, and we fall into that unattainable light,
that blissful pool of times past, eternal and absolute.

I am taking a guess here but I think that the dying beast is the "you" mentioned in the "you and i". It's an interesting way to describe a companion, and I believe it is for the best, as morality and human emotions appear to have been twisted many times over during the cataclysm. The cigarette and god-forsaken land imagery also works because it stands as a contrast to the idealism of the earlier stanzas and shows that reality is not what we wish it to be. The ending of your poem is good, linking back to that Romanticism and hope of a better self and future.

In general, a poem that started off weak by elevated itself to what I consider a very solid piece. Work on the first few stanzas, but beyond that, I applaud you.

Hope that helped.

now that's what i call criticism! much thanks. i am implementing many, probably all of your suggestions, as you speak the undeniable truth. again, thankee.