They are the ones for whom the world stills
and darkens.
The ones who are shells of bodies, caught in this life,
a world to which they have no allegiances,
nor reason to be more.
They are the hunched figures, slumped behind pews,
fingers that graze the mossy walls of back alleys,
an endless searching for something.
Moonlit pilgrimages through the worried cemeteries
all to avoid the abyss of loneliness that is home,
a fear to face that echoing emptiness.
Still, they are unseen.
Somewhere along the vague lines of their lives
abandonment is scrawled,
harsh and inky black.
These shadows of their lives are already forgotten.
They're only lonely people, ashes of people
putting up face, faces only seen by the outside.
But, behind them comes a slowly dawning realization;
they cannot even remember when last they spoke,
they are that alone.
Translucent beings suspended
trudging sidewalks to a hollow house.
The hoplessness with which they drown between sheets
embodies the lonliness. They are loneliness,
company kept by the somnambulistic words which,
lost, wander into their ears and their hearts.
There, they spawn inspired thoughts to go unspoken,
to die at the tip of their tongue,
Those words, just like those people, will die.
Lonely people, forgotten people.
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139,285 Literary Works • 672,524 Reviews
Hey there! Purple here to give you a review! HAPPY REVIEW DAY!!! Let's get down to business.
I think this is absolutely lovely. It's not just an ode to eleanor, it's like a speech to all the people that feel forgotten. It's a little dark but only in the best way because I personally like dark. I like the shells of people idea and actually find that relatable. I noticed the first review asked about third world countries and I found that interesting. This piece could fit being about that or the average forgotten kid in high school that blends into the lockers. This is flexible, which I love. That's something pretty difficult to do when you live on only one side of the issue. Just one nitpick
"The hoplesness with which they drown between sheets"
It's spelled "hopelessness"
Have a nice rest of the day!
~Purple
Thanks for catching that, hate missing typos like that. I'm glad you liked it, thanks for your always sweet and helpful reviews!
Hi there!
So, I really like this--definitely got a sense of Eleanor Rigby (which I love), so good job on that.
I don't care that there isn't an even number of syllables per line, since this is free verse, but I think it would be a good idea to break it up into stanzas. This is more of a stylistic preference, but for a lot of people it makes a poem easier to read than having it all run together like this. Plus, if you separate it into stanzas, you can give more emphasis to more important lines and separate stanzas more or less by idea. This gives the poem a feel of organization that complements the chaos that is free verse.
Now, I love most of your imagery, but I think the beginning (after the first sentence, which is good) is a little weak. This part:
I like the "shells of bodies"--the idea of it, but it reads a little awkwardly. (My thought was something more along the lines of "the ones whose shells of bodies are caught in this life" or something like that, but you can do what you want.) The rest of it is just kind of blah--"allegiances," "nor reason to be more," it's just dull compared to the rest of the poem. Because you go from that to people "slumped behind pews" and "mossy walls of back alleys" and stuff, which is much better.
Overall I liked it, so those are my only two suggestions. Good luck in the competition!
Blue
As an improvement... I'd say use an even amount of syllables in each line? And through the first person may have been now emotional? But it really does convey a praiseworthy sense of emotion and sincere questioning. Are the people in this poem about people suffering in third world countries? Or people in hopeless institutions? Or people in general poverty? Perhaps a first person point of view of their feelings could have been useful