It's a magician without tricks.

It's no male winner since Fred Perry, 1936,
No league championship
at Anfield, two decades hardship;
It's comic book heroes without their sidekicks.
It's Achilles not getting dunked in the River Styx.

At school they were like leaves,
when autumn came they fell from the trees.
Long legs, new breasts,
in class you theorised their nakedness.
Even nerds
got some downwards

eventually. Cold turkey
without enough time to be addicted,
one wrong turn and you're afflicted.
(It always ends badly.)
At least you can buy a pack of cigs
when you want them. The shindigs

begin to stop. The parties
begin to rot. You meet your twin
at uni, kids in your thirties,
office job, get a decent wage in.

Spare a poor thought for the wifeless:
all alone with nothing to undress.

DISCLAIMER: If this is some particular structured form, it was lost on me. I'm no good at spotting rhyming forms other than, you know, sonnets.

Hey Jack,

Interesting. I imagine that this was somewhat of a digression from your usual style -- at least, the last time I checked. I'd be curious to know why you decided to write a poem like this, where meter and rhyme play central roles. A challenge?

Anyway, for better or worse, I read this as a rap. It has the similar rhythms, clipped lines, sort of the post-industrialist aggressivism of a rap song. Of course, more intelligent than one, but I could definitely see some hoodlum laying this down at some underground hip-hop club. Is this at all what you were going for?

But I liked this. On re-reading it a fourth time, I appreciate the meaning. Something like: So, you've graduated. Now what? Is that what you intended? I get that mainly from the last seven or so lines. The opening stanza is somewhat of a mystery to me, though I like the images. Though...I can see it fitting into the "I've-got-an-education-but-no-career-or-much-of-anything-else" blues theme.

Anyway.

Even nerds
got some downwards

eventually.

Kind of threw off the rhythm a tad. It's a little awkward, especially with the line break. I'd consider playing around with it a little.

(It always ends badly.)

Seemed tossed in there. And it sticks out. Its rhyming pair is three lines prior -- which sort of breaks from your general aabb structure -- it's a semi-rhyme, and the fact that you've placed it in parentheses really draws unneeded attention to this fairly meaningless statement. Honestly, if its no skin off the poem's nose, I'd take it out.

Spare a poor thought for the wifeless:
all alone with nothing to undress.

Great line.

Thanks for the read,

-Kylan

Hm. I actually really like this.

Admittedly, I was very much put off by the introduction of a date so early in the poem. When this is read aloud, it meshes fantastically with the rest of the stanza, but it is really visually distracting and a little cumbersome if you are reading the words without thinking them one at a time. I don't think you should change it--just be aware.

It's comic book heroes without their sidekicks.
It's Achilles not getting dunked in the River Styx.

I was going to say something specific about this, but I think I just like it. It's good contrast with the initial relationship that you've introduced--something a little more familiar to pull in the reader.

At school they were like leaves,
when autumn came they fell from the trees.
Long legs, new breasts,
in class you theorised their nakedness.

This transition was a little cumbersome for me, but I may be the only one. The imagery came before the realization, and so I was left floundering for a little while. It was still well-measured, but I had to read it over again.

I really did thoroughly enjoy this though. Very well done.

I thought this poem was really clever, it created a tone of what is to come in life - as you said - a decent wage etc.
Your work is planned out in a unique style and appears to have a rhythm when speaking or reading it. I loved the end stanza too. 'Spare a poor thought for the wifeless: all alone with nothing to undress.'
Well done.

This was a refreshing read for me. Love all the allusions in the first stanza, and as was said before, the flow is great when spoken aloud, very conversational.

At school they were like leaves,
when autumn came they fell from the trees.

I kept trying to this part out, but I just really don't get it. Maybe I'm just dumb or I'm not noticing the obvious. Regardless, I like the image it conjures.

Spare a poor thought for the wifeless:
all alone with nothing to undress.

Great way to end it.

This poem has restored my faith in rhyming! It's so incredibly difficult and in almost every situation nowadays it just seems to restrict the writer's voice, but here you make the rhyme so effortless, and it aids the piece's smoothness. I know this isn't much of a critique but I wanted to commend you for writing a poem that describes the normal life, the seemingly mundane milestones that each of us passes through in our lives, while simultaneously maintaining an incisive poetic lilt to your words. Thanks for the read. Awesome title, by the way.

Hey Jack, I really loved this. It's one of the best poems I've read in ages. I loved it so much because it's not dead simple, and yet- I get it. I mean I really do. It's accessible yet complex, and the imagery and metaphors are just the right balance of frustration and despair.

The magician without tricks equals a man without woman, right? The speaker seems to suggest that if a boy does not find his 'twin' (adored this) at Uni, then he is doomed to a kind of half-life, a staler, emptier one than his other male counterparts who have found wives. That he would openly accept the drabness of 'getting a decent wage' if it meant he had someone to share it with. If only girls were as easily got as buying a pack of cigarettes, no?

Please PM and tell me if I got this meaning right, because I probably haven't and I've just made myself look like a total idiot. Anyway, on to the contested issue in this poem- the meter/rhyme scheme. This is rhyming and rhythm at its best, in my opinion. It rings a reminisce of W.H. Auden, and there's something undeniably English about this. It's a good thing though, I find that the concepts and ideas are devilishly understated, and there in lies the beauty.

Cold turkey
without enough time to be addicted,
one wrong turn and you're afflicted.
(It always ends badly.)

This was the only bit I had to read over a few times- not necessarily a bad thing, I just found it longer to extract meaning from. Going 'cold turkey' without 'enough time to be addicted' confused me. But I think I managed to surmise that getting involved even once with the opposite sex can often leave you heartbroken and it has a likelihood of ending in disaster. And thus, you're back to square one, back in school wondering about them, but now a bit more wary.

It doesn't always end badly (get it) you ended this one perfectly,

Spare a poor thought for the wifeless:
all alone with nothing to undress

Truly, well done. Keep this up this was a joy to review.

Eimear.

I didn't read the other's comments, but the only thing I would change would be "downwards" to "downward".

Other than that, I really didn't know where this was going, but I really, really, really liked it. Especially what the conclusion was.

"...all alone with nothing to undress."

Was my favorite line. I was uncertain, but when I read the last line I felt it really wrapped everything up. I liked it a lot!

I honestly love your writing, I didn't find anything wrong with this much, just punctuation problems I'm sure you can figure out on your own. Keep up the good work (:


-M.