Odd Poem, didn't think much when writing it

9 posts
User avatar
Gender Male
Points 740
Reviews 32
Revised Version:

My Fate (rough title, will likely change it later)

Floating through the space of life;
Follow the yellow brick road.
Holding hands with fate,
Her touch becomes cold.
My right in her left,
My eyes slant that way,
From east to west,
The beginning of a new day.

Where fate once stood
No longer she stands.
She has vanished with the road;
Empty space fills my hand.
Lost in a world that
I don’t comprehend,
It’s illogical, lacks meaning,
Impossible to mend.

What once was as clear
as a deep blue lake -
the road and my Fate,
no decisions to make -
it now has grown murky,
full of questions unanswered,
the sun continues its ascent
as I lie in a pasture.

The grass is so tender
and cool to the skin,
I could stay here forever
and never think again.
But I reconsider abruptly
as I glance at the sky;
I must be going now
for the sun is quite high.

I have lost all sense
of orientation and space,
yet in a daring move
I pick a direction and pace.
Steady and straight
my feet carry me away,
although an atheist at heart
I begin to silently pray.

One night, after what
seems like many years,
as I stare at the night sky
my beloved Fate reappears.
We lay in the tender grass
together, enjoying the breeze,
and watch the stars in the sky
form shapes with the trees.

The reason she left
I may never know,
and will never dare ask,
fearing she will once again go.


Old Version (for reference and new viewers who want to understand what the responses were referring to):

*No Title Yet*

Floating through the space of life;
Follow the yellow brick road.
Holding hands with fate,
Her touch becomes cold.
My right in her left,
My eyes slant that way,
From east to west,
The beginning of a new day.

Where fate once stood
No longer she stands.
She has vanished with the road;
Empty space fills my hand.
Lost in a world that
I don’t comprehend,
It’s illogical, lacks meaning,
Impossible to mend.

Where shall I go?
I’ve nobody to guide me.
Where shall I go?
I’ve nobody beside me.

Silence closes in around me
Take your time
All the while the sun rises higher
Burning my will and my desire.

Looking around the scorched earth,
I have nobody.
I have nothing.
I have no worth.

The shrapnel comes out of nowhere,
Striking my mind an incapacitating blow.
Searching for meaning in a meaningless world,
In the river of life I swam against the flow.
Last edited by IceCreamMan on Thu Mar 20, 2008 12:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
Clementine: This is it, Joel. It’s going to be gone soon.
Joel: I know.
Clementine: What do we do?
Joel: Enjoy it.”
-Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind-




User avatar
Gender Female
Points 890
Reviews 161
I really liked it and thought that it flowed really well until the last three stanzas...I'm not sure what happened. I think the ryhme scheme changed, and then in the last stanza you picked the original one back up again. That was kind of awkward. But I was really impressed with how well the rest of it flowed.

The first stanza is my favorite. I thought it was very pretty.

Nice job overall. :thumb:
"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring."
-Chuck Palahniuk




User avatar
Gender Female
Points 890
Reviews 688
Where shall I go?
I’ve nobody to guide me.
Where shall I go?
I’ve nobody beside me.

Silence closes in around me
Take your time
All the while the sun rises higher
Burning my will and my desire.

Looking around the scorched earth,
I have nobody.
I have nothing.
I have no worth.


What happened? The rhythm is off, the rhyme forced and the meaning deluded - you seem to force the rest of the poem.

I believe the beginning stanzas deserve a fairer ending.
Carpe Diem.




User avatar
Gender Male
Points 740
Reviews 32
xanthan:

I'm not sure what happened. I just reread this poem right now and you are correct, that part sounds terrrible. I wrote the poem while doing homework and didn't really put much thought or concentration into it, I'll try to work on writing some new stanzas to replace the ones you quoted. And thanks for pointing that out.
Clementine: This is it, Joel. It’s going to be gone soon.
Joel: I know.
Clementine: What do we do?
Joel: Enjoy it.”
-Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind-




User avatar
Gender Female
Points 990
Reviews 122
I liked it. The first two lines flowed really well:

Floating through the space of life;
Follow the yellow brick road.


The rhythm here is good, but

Holding hands with fate,
Her touch becomes cold.


here it went weird with 'her touch becomes cold'

Maybe you should have it be

Her touch suddenly becomes cold.

Just a thought.
My Karma Ran Over My Dogma
^------^
( 0 . 0 )
---------
Meow




User avatar
Gender Male
Points 740
Reviews 32
Karma wrote:The rhythm here is good, but

Holding hands with fate,
Her touch becomes cold.


here it went weird with 'her touch becomes cold'

Maybe you should have it be

Her touch suddenly becomes cold.

Just a thought.


Well, adding in "suddenly" seems like too much of a mouthful the way I am reading it. I generally think that if you have close to the same number of syllables per line, it works out well, and without "suddenly" those two lines both have 5 syllables. I think.... I need to go back to elementary school to learn how to clap syllables :( because I am quite bad at it.

The way you are reading it (pace, emphasis, tone, whatever) must be different than the way I am because it just doesn't seem to fit when I read the two lines with "suddenly" in.

Anyone else have an opinion on this?
Clementine: This is it, Joel. It’s going to be gone soon.
Joel: I know.
Clementine: What do we do?
Joel: Enjoy it.”
-Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind-




User avatar
Gender Female
Points 890
Reviews 7
i'm personally not so hot on rhyming poems (got away from those long ago) but i think you did a pretty good job with this. i agree with xanthan gum. i think you don't need the "suddenly" part either. it sounds fine to me the way it is. towards the end this really just meandered off topic, i'd like it more if it talked more about fate or the girl, but the last stanza was pretty good, very diffrent. so good job in all.
"Maybe I wanted to hear it so badly that my ears betrayed my mind in order to secure my heart."
- Margaret Cho




User avatar
Gender Male
Points 740
Reviews 32
Okay, I added some stanzas and took out the bad ones. It is not complete yet, but its getting there. Please critique the new version:

Floating through the space of life;
Follow the yellow brick road.
Holding hands with fate,
Her touch becomes cold.
My right in her left,
My eyes slant that way,
From east to west,
The beginning of a new day.

Where fate once stood
No longer she stands.
She has vanished with the road;
Empty space fills my hand.
Lost in a world that
I don’t comprehend,
It’s illogical, lacks meaning,
Impossible to mend.

What once was as clear
as a deep blue lake -
the road and my Fate,
no decisions to make -
it now has grown murky,
full of questions unanswered,
the sun continues its ascent
as I lie in a pasture.

The grass is so tender
and cool to the skin,
I could stay here forever
and never think again.
But I reconsider abruptly
as I glance at the sky;
I must be going now
for the sun is quite high.
Clementine: This is it, Joel. It’s going to be gone soon.
Joel: I know.
Clementine: What do we do?
Joel: Enjoy it.”
-Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind-




User avatar
Gender Male
Points 740
Reviews 32
Even more now. I have an ending kind of, but I don't really like it and will probably change it later. And, by the way, my reference to being an atheist in here is not true at all. I am a christian, although not a very good one.

I have lost all sense
of orientation and space,
yet in a daring move
I pick a direction and pace.
Steady and straight
my feet carry me away,
although an atheist at heart
I begin to silently pray.

One night, after what
seems like many years,
as I stare at the night sky
my beloved Fate reappears.
We lay in the tender grass
together, enjoying the breeze,
and watch the stars in the sky
form shapes with the trees.

The reason she left
I may never know,
and will never dare ask,
fearing she will once again go.
Clementine: This is it, Joel. It’s going to be gone soon.
Joel: I know.
Clementine: What do we do?
Joel: Enjoy it.”
-Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind-



Beware of advice—even this.
— Carl Sandburg