The War-Machine
The whirling of the war-machine
is deafening as it
thunders over burning* fields
on an endless road to oblivion.
Not so sure whether I should have posted it. I find it rather second-rate; I had hastily scribbled it down while helping a friend with his English homework way back when in November (the third of 2006 if you must know, yes I remembered the date! It's a day that shall remain burned in my mind forevermore...).
*blasted?
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125,029 Literary Works • 672,775 Reviews
I'll be reviewing this for RevMo - you probably won't end up seeing it.
So I can tell that this is meant to be a shorter poem because you asked about whether it should be expanded on or not, and honestly, I think it would be nice to expand on it just for the sake of it. Usually I say that people should always give it a try before completely shutting the idea down, and that revolves around anything. This is pretty solid as is right now, but I wonder what kind of potential might come out of it some other time.
I see your comment about how the message related to war's outcomes being negative and such, which is creative. I don't think I've seen that used before in poetry if I'm being totally honestly, which is great! I think the shortness doesn't really embrace that aspect of it though, but if you were to show this to someone, they could figure it out. That means whatever you take out of it, but like I said above, always good to try.
Now personally, not a fan of the usage of the alliteration here. I can tell that you probably didn't intend for it to even happy probably, which is understandable. I just don't think it works in such a short poem like this where it doesn't come into play anywhere else - if there were to be more alliteration, maybe it would've worked better. This is just subjective to what I think, so even if it stayed, it would still remain solid I think.
I think there's an asterisk beside that word because you're wondering if it would sound better as blasted? Not quite sure about that, but it's the only reasonable thing I could think of as to why it's there. I think that burning is a pretty standard description to use, and it's proven itself to work nicely every time. I think that blasted is also a pretty standard description in more action-pact things, but it ties in the war theme.
That's all I have to comment on. Happy RevMo!
-- chi
I see no reason to expand this, I feel it gives the message quite clearly - there shall always be war, in one form or another. And its outcome is always negative (yea, for both sides).
I would really like to see this expanded--just when you get the tiniest glimpse of what is really at the core of the poem, it ends, and the reader is left hanging.
I would keep "burning" and I would continue this--it's an interesting concept and it would be interesting to really delve into the heart of what you are commenting on.
'Twas good, but a bit too short, expension would be nice. I think "burning" is better than "blasted". Just needs length.