The Bureau.

Heyo AJ,

Shady here with a quick review for your little poem. I saw the word "Politics" and just couldn't stay away.

When men are not great anymore, and tired and lazy,

~ This line doesn't seem to read quite right, in my opinion. My Inner Grammar Nazi is saying that something is off, though I'm having issues identifying exactly what or why... anyway, I think I'd suggest an edit to "When men are not great anymore, but tired and lazy," since it seems that there's a contrast, no?

Here is the best thing; I got handpicked by the right people.

~ Okay, so, punctuation is really weird poems, and not my forte in the least. I'm not even going to pretend to be knowledgeable about poetic punctuation-- but if this were a prose work,then the semi-colon should be a colon. Semi-colons connect two phrases that aren't quite enough to be full sentences, but are complete thoughts. I'm having trouble coming up with an example... "I like to write; AJ does too." I think would be an appropriate use of a semi-colon (again, I had trouble thinking of something-- semi-colons tend to come rather naturally in my writing, so I don't really analyze where or why I use them), because "I like to write" is a complete sentence, but "AJ does too" is just a phrase (AJ does what too?) so it needs a connector.

In your poem, you don't have that situation. You're not trying to connect two ideas-- you only have one idea going. "Here is the best thing" and then you tell us that best thing, that you got handpicked by the right people, not something semi-related... so, yeah. I think it should be "Here is the best thing: I got handpicked by the right people."

Other than that, I really love your poem. It's short, sweet, and to the point. My kind of poem, haha

Seriously, though, I like how you just sort of summarized bureaucracy in four short little lines-- from the "contrived glory" that the common working man feels, to the handpicked official. It's beautiful... and... yeah. You've got my reviews before, so you know I'm completely terrible at summarizing/giving a general critique-- so I'm just going to end this here.

Keep writing!

~Shady

Hello!
I am here to review your lovely work and it's shorty short short! YAY. Coolio.

When men are not great anymore, and tired and lazy,

They assemble under memories of sweat, under banners of contrived glory.

I, myself, am a leading official, for a most illustrious committee.

Here is the best thing; I got handpicked by the right people.

So this work seems to have a very political message behind it.
Like most of your writing it is serious and meaningful.
The first line suggests that greatness is being lost: and hope along with it.
The memories and banners thing sounds like a metaphor for war, but I'm not sure which war? eg.. what they are fighting against XD
The whole illustrious suggestion it is something bigged up and not really as good as it seems. Hee hee.
The handpicked by the right people thing is also very true to real life. In essence, it is all a game of luck.

Very well written and very honest.

Kudos.

I love you ♥