Where would you be
without faith in ground?
When we stand, we trust
our legs to press on firm land
even in the ocean, we can touch down.
The weight of water may
drown us, but we will find the floor
beneath our broken feet.
When we worship the sky we don't fly free,
unless we hand glide, or skydive,
but we see the landscapes as we soar.
How high could we build
if every step might send us into air?
How far could we walk
if we could see the sky below our feet?
The glowing ball of fire, molten
rock crushed together, compressed
rubbed until it melts
and boils: water.
We would see the sun;
the moon would never set.
Noon or Midnight could be a new day
We would have to pick.
Could we be blind,
and all we'd know was touch:
water on our feet, rough rock,
sand, dirt, the smell of heat and rain.
Sight would make us insane
from terror of falling,
like taste touches our brain
to avoid what we purge.
The Seeing would be building
odd pointless things:
walkways, basements…
All we would need is a house and clothes.
Reading would be aloud,
as most was meant to be, remembered,
retold, and changed with time
instead of preserved through it.
'To live, or to commit suicide? I cannot decide
with such a choice like this. Oh be, be, if only
to kill the bastard in revenge.'
If we lost faith tomorrow,
where would you be
if the ground glimmered like glass
and could break like thin ice in spring?
Would you Google the disaster?
Perhaps you would think you were insane
and dare to roll out of bed,
venture through your house blind to land.
What would you see?
Would you be faithless in reality?
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125,011 Literary Works • 672,841 Reviews
Hiya! Space here for a review!
Hm, I would start with the grammar mistakes and such, but there really isn't any. The single mistake I found was that it was just a tiny bit choppy, but honestly I don't think that affected the overall quality of the poem.
The imagery and description was amazing, it all came together really perfectly, not to mention the actual topic of it.
That feeling of being grounded, of having your feet on the ground, of soaking into your surroundings and really interacting and living and breathing in the life, noticing things--it fades away as time grows.
There are many lines that really show the feeling of loosing touch, forgetting to pay attention, and of not paying attention to the beauty and the matter around us. Not keeping our feet in the ground.
(I don't know, I may be completely wrong. XD)
Ex:
"All we need is a house and clothes."
"Would you Google the disaster?"
"Would you be faithless in reality?"
There is a lot of meaning in these words, and I think you put them together really well.
Good job! I liked it!
~Space
Hi Aley,
Let's get started.
here to review this fantasy poem from 2013.
I really enjoyed the phrases where you flipped expectations of what would be next. For instance, the expectation when talking about faith is that it'll be something heavenwards or lofty in the sky -- but you turn that, and ask about faith in the ground we stand in.
I love this second stanza,
"When we stand, we trust
our legs to press on firm land
even in the ocean, we can touch down."
you give the agency to the person "trusting" "legs pressing" -- and each line gets a new turn, a new image.
this is great too, it accomplishes a similar thing to the preceding stanza, while keeping the same imagery going further.
"The weight of water may
drown us, but we will find the floor
beneath our broken feet."
Now as we get to this stanza, the imagery shifts:
"When we worship the sky we don't fly free,
unless we hand glide, or skydive,
but we see the landscapes as we soar." -- I'm not sure whether you're condemning the lofty worship of the sky, or just pointing out that it still goes back to being grounded in the land and the physical. I think the issue is the structure of this sentence: "When we do this we don't do this, unless we do this, but we do this" -- the sentence just winds around a bit much for me to follow.
I had a similar issue with the fire imagery (stanza 6) that didn't quite seem to fit in with the overall tone of the piece of contrasting the physical/tangible/touch/groundedness contrasting with everything else. And the aspect of faith. The fire could work, but it seemed like the themes of water and air and time were just more continual throughout the entirety of the piece.
A few words didn't quite fit with where I thought the tone was going in the piece: "Google" and "insane" and maybe "bastard" being the ones that stood out to me. They seemed a bit too irreverant than the rest of the piece, although that might have been a purposeful tone shift on your part.
The questions you get to about sight and seeing by means of feeling are really interesting, and I'm glad you set the stage with the imagery and contemplation at the beginning, because I think these questions would be difficult to connect to right off the bat, and it's easier for a poem that has more questions than answers to start out with some concrete imagery too - so good structure there.
I like the phrasing here:
"'To live, or to commit suicide? I cannot decide
with such a choice like this. Oh be, be, if only
to kill the bastard in revenge.'" -- I question why it's in quotes though, since it doesn't seem like a new speaker from the narrator.
A few little formatting things I noticed: I wasn't sure why the colon and semi-colons were removed by a space. I think that if Midnight and Noon are capitalized then it'd be consistent to capitalize "spring" as well -- as another time signifier. The ellipses in stanza 10 needed a space before the first dot, and that line was a bit short so it brought more attention to the punctuation than the words of that stanza.
The way you bookended the piece in a slightly changed couplet was also nice at the end and beginning. It gave a sense of continuity and wholeness to the piece, despite the reader being left with all these questions -- I think they're pointed to some of the means for answering them.
Sorry this was sort of disorganized, lovely poem though, beautiful, elegant phrasing and word choice -- some consonance here and there to add some interest, and then the imagery in the first few stanzas was also really well done.
Have a great day,
alliyah
Hey Alli, This is a really old piece so I am mostly going off of what I know.
The quote thing is because it's a paraphrase from Hamlet's famous speech.
I'll take a look at the rest when I'm awake XD
Heyya, I'm EmoChikXoX and I'm going to review your poem!
It's also cleverly written, it really does make the reader think and read the poem carefully and look a little closer. It also encourages the reader to read in between the lines and work out things for themselves (if that makes any sense?)
Well this poem is amazing, I really do like it. It is amazingly written! I can see no punctual or grammatical errors, so on that part well done
I think in general it is a nice poem and you are a rather good writer!
Keep it up!
~EmoChikXoX
Hi there!
Wow, I think this poem is fantastic! First of all, it is beautifully written, but it is really smart too, the poem gets you thinking
The poems flow was good, and I like that all the stanzas have four lines, except the first and last. It makes the beginning and ending connected, and powerful!
Every sentence of this is very interesting, it is very well written!
Good job, I look forward to reading more from you
Hi there! I'm kind of lost as to why this has no reviews. But anyway, I'm here and I have to say, I was pleased with what I read. It was thorough, well written, and innovative. It raised many questions for the reader who could later evaluate these questions. My favorite stanza was, "If we lost faith tomorrow, where would you be, If the ground glimmered like glass and could break like thin ice in Spring".
My only question is pertaining to the punctuation. Was it intentional that the first letter of the first word of some lines was capitalized, while others were not? Other than that, I don't really have anything else to say except good job by the way.
It was intentional.