Young Writers Society

This World

Drifting, my mind waivers through reality
It’s cold out here.
In our world, time waits for no man,
and yet, everyone has once wanted time to stand still.

That moment of peace – of clarity and reflection,
Rises and falls like loose clothes in a summer breeze
The moment is shattered, bombarded by reality.
The moment is illusion. I cannot escape.

The world changes us, it strangles us,
It chisels away at our innocent souls
Diamonds of the earth, morph into concrete
We become sculptures, to be corrected.

We scream at our mirrors, at what we’ve become
And yet, we are unable to shatter
Tears stream down our eyes and crash to the ground
They break like glass, in place of the mirror.

We look up at the sky
For answers to an unknown question
I’m left wondering why
Were we given this unanswerable question

I mutter into the darkness for comfort
But find only fear,
The inevitable truth

How many dreams does it take,
Before our hopes fade,
Before the societal walls ensnare us,
Before we are trapped in the circular realm

We wade through the crowds
Hopelessly trying to find a true face,
a real face.
Their duties bind them to remain silent

The stars and space laugh at us
They mock the trap we have set for ourselves
Bears chewing their legs in vain,
Men torturing their souls in pain.

My spirit yearns for freedom.
But what can I do?
I’m just another fake man,
Living in a fake world.


__________________________________________________________________


I wrote this when I was feeling extremely depressed one night and when I came across it again, I thought it might be worth posting. I don't normally try my hand at poetry but this one was a mesh of confused, yet genuine thoughts of the time. Looking forward to comments on it, cheers .

this poem was great!

you have a very talented poet in you. you should really write more poems...

i loved your poem. it was so filled with emotions and feelings...

Hey there!
First off, this poem feels very genuine and heartfelt. I guess that’s 'cause you wrote it when you were feeling down – that gives it some extra oomph!

One thing I would say though is that this poem could come across as one of the typical suicidal teenagers/hating the world/wanting to break free of social confinement/everyone’s fake poems. You get what I mean? They can be pretty annoying because a lot of the time they are filled with clichés and lines that you’ve heard so many times before.

I’m not saying don’t write sad poems, I love sad poems! Just try not to bog yourself down with overused phrases and come up with really original points of view and ways of saying what you want to.

That said, I do think you have some pretty awesome imagery in here.
Tears stream down our eyes and crash to the ground
They break like glass, in place of the mirror.

I love this imagery here, it’s really good! However, you do need a little punctuation here, perhaps a comma, or even a full stop (period).

In our world, time waits for no man,
and yet, everyone has once wanted time to stand still.
This part I like too. It’s very true and sort of reaches out to me, anyway.
However, I don’t think you need the comma between yet and everyone.

I feel like a lot of the poem is a bit cliché, I’ll give you some examples.
How many dreams does it take,
Before our hopes fade,
Before the societal walls ensnare us,
Before we are trapped in the circular realm
The whole “we become trapped in the world, our hopes fade and we stop dreaming etc.” is a much overused sentiment.

We wade through the crowds
Hopelessly trying to find a true face,
As I said before, the idea that everyone is fake is cliché.

I’m really sorry; I’m quite short of time so I’ll just give you a quick overall now.
Basically, I think you should take this poem, remove a lot of it and expand of the bits that are individual and good! For instance, another stanza on trying to make time stand still perhaps? Describing how people try to clutch and grab at the moments, or something?
I think you should definitely work on this, you have talent and I’d love to see what you can do!
PM me if you do decide to edit, I’d like to see!
I hope this helps and if you have any questions then PM me!
Good luck!
~Amy

Hi Tusker93,

This is bad. There are ways to confront metaphysical and philosophical issues in poetry, and this is by no means an acceptable one. Barring the first few lines, which are good and provoking, the bulk of this is a rambling soliloquy that bores the reader and leaves him wondering whether you actually care about poetry or are regurgitating common "deep" questions in poetic form, attempting to stir the pot when there's no soup in it.

Tusker93 wrote:Drifting, my mind waivers through reality
It’s cold out here.

Now this is worth keeping. The second line punches the issue in the gut, forcing a reaction from the reader; it's so common and so plain-spoken that it contrasts well with the lyrical quality of the first line, creating an effective duo.

The rest of the piece, however, is not good for reasons I already mentioned. There are some parts that do not contain any imagery, such as

For answers to an unknown question
I’m left wondering why
Were we given this unanswerable question

Imagery is the key to drawing readers into such a heavy-handed topic as you have presented, and it is the first thing that needs to be fixed. Begin from scratch and inject it with description, devices that readers can relate to.

Hope that helped,
Galerius

I thought this was really good, acutally, but maybe you overdid the depression level a bit? When you came across it you should've rewritten the end to make it end on a little bit of a happier note. Sorry, just seems a bit emo to me.

You just have some grammatical errors here:

Drifting, my mind waivers through reality.
It’s cold out here.
In our world, time waits for no man,
And yet, everyone has once wanted time to stand still.

That moment of peace – of clarity and reflection,
Rises and falls like loose clothes in a summer breeze.
The moment is shattered, bombarded by reality.
The moment is illusion; I cannot escape.

The world changes us, it strangles us,
It chisels away at our innocent souls,
Diamonds of the earth, morph into concrete,
We become sculptures, to be corrected.

We scream at our mirrors, at what we’ve become,
And yet, we are unable to shatter.
Tears stream down our eyes and crash to the ground,
They break like glass, in place of the mirror.

I really liked this verse, byt the way.

We look up at the sky
For answers to an unknown question
I’m left wondering why
We were given this unanswerable question.

I mutter into the darkness for comfort
But find only fear,
The inevitable truth

You only did three lines here, and it looks like so far your poem has ahd a four line verse rythm. It kind of messes up the flow.

How many dreams does it take,
Before our hopes fade,
Before the societal walls ensnare us,
Before we are trapped in the circular realm.

We wade through the crowds
Hopelessly trying to find a true face,
A real face.
Their duties bind them to remain silent.

The stars and space laugh at us;
They mock the trap we have set for ourselves.
Bears chewing their legs in vain,
Men torturing their souls in pain,
My spirit yearns for freedom.
But what can I do?
I’m just another fake man,
Living in a fake world.

Well, a good job, all in all, but just try to be bit happier, okay? There are good things in the world, too.
Signing off.

Hello I'm Vernon and I'll be your reviewer. The way this poem jumps about is a big problem, it all connects, rather loosely, but there is issues, big issues.

Let me explain.

First it's nice to see firstly, you managed to come the poem conclusion rather originally.

Drifting, my mind waivers through reality
It’s cold out here.
In our world, time waits for no man,
and yet, everyone has once wanted time to stand still.

This should be split into two stanza, also the repetition of time doesn't work here, instead it seems rather contrived and forced. I suggest here, try say the last line in a different way.

Okay, next stanza, from a brief look see, nothing jumps out, but lets check it over again.

That moment of peace – of clarity and reflection,
Rises and falls like loose clothes in a summer breeze
The moment is shattered, bombarded by reality.
The moment is illusion. I cannot escape.

To begin, what is that moment of peace, you refer too, you never explain, it's just mentioned, which isn't handy, as you talk about it, but never show us it, except with a flimsy simile.

What I see here, is a good chance to use alliteration to avoid repition so much. See for 'The Moment is shattered' instead try the 'The Second is shattered' and you lose the repetion by gain the alliteration.

The world changes us, it strangles us,
It chisels away at our innocent souls
Diamonds of the earth, morph into concrete
We become sculptures, to be corrected.

But why, you keep saying this, and I agree but why? Why does it change people? There subtle then there is vague. You could really critique human culture, but never explain your opinion.

We scream at our mirrors, at what we’ve become
And yet, we are unable to shatter
Tears stream down our eyes and crash to the ground
They break like glass, in place of the mirror.

What mirrors, where did the mirrors come from it all beautiful imagery but we just jump into it without warning, where did the mirrors come from? The imagery itself is just astounding, but you lose the beauty because you push us in without letting up dip our feet in, it's never fully understood. And here now at this poem is bad, very bad.

We look up at the sky
For answers to an unknown question
I’m left wondering why
Were we given this unanswerable question

Now this connects with poem, please keep this up. Just wish you'd tried connect it all together...

I mutter into the darkness for comfort
But find only fear,
The inevitable truth

Oh god... why couldn't you stay with the connection, wasn't asking much? There is no continunity! It's beautiful, but useless if you lack this.

How many dreams does it take,
Before our hopes fade,
Before the societal walls ensnare us,
Before we are trapped in the circular realm

Rhetoric is fun. This does connect visibly, but overall you've lost me, doesn't matter now if you wrote s stanza with such beauty and radiance. You've lost me.

We wade through the crowds
Hopelessly trying to find a true face,
a real face.
Their duties bind them to remain silent

Can I say, cliche? To quote a song 'The truth is, that's it all a facade' one line and it's said.

The stars and space laugh at us
They mock the trap we have set for ourselves
Bears chewing their legs in vain,
Men torturing their souls in pain.

Where is the continunity?! It doesn't connect to last stanza!

My spirit yearns for freedom.
But what can I do?
I’m just another fake man,
Living in a fake world.

Okay conclusion is true, but because of your lack of continunity, with cliches abundant, and not any trying to make readers understand but sound pretty for pretty sake. You fail, this becomes a contrived, a contrived rhetoric cry to the sky. It doesn't make you feel, it doesn't bring the reader in, it pushes them out and yells 'Get lost.'.

My recommendation is start over, and make sure stanza connect with some sorta thread.

Hope this helps.
VSN