Land of the Broken
Staring off into the distance
The land of the faded star
Rises like a tombstone
Garnishing the land.
Where once there was life
There is now sand
And the faded echoes of strife
Like the distant playing of a band.
Upon the distant horizon
rises the dome
a monument of a land forgotten
by time and the ages.
The great pillars of eternity remain.
Sentinels guarding the land forever
Until their creator returns
Bearing the gift of destruction.
Yet even with all the dilapidation
Some still call it home.
A fire here.
A cabin there.
Markers of life continuing
Ad infinitum.
Even if forgotten.
Amen.
Broken City
Under the dome of life
lies a place of ruins
where man and beast alike
scrounge for food and shelter.
Visions of life can be seen
Anywhere people live.
A man playing guitar.
A dog laying on a slab of concrete.
The buildings are crumbling.
It is not safe here
but it’s still safer than
wandering the empty land.
Will life go back to normal?
Probably not.
But it will continue
It always has.
Cycles
The legends speak of a time long ago
When gods freely roamed the world.
No longer does this occur.
At least, not after the Great Sealing.
However, the seal holding them will only last so long
then they will come back to destroy.
A hero will have to rise from the ashes of this world
To seal them away again, in an endless cycle.
Haven & Hearth
Among the ruins lies safety and refuge.
A haven for many a lost soul.
The fire in the Hearth flickers through the empty windows.
It’s warm invitation rarely goes ignored.
An old man stokes the fire.
His straw hat balanced neatly on his head
While the glow of the fire reflects off his eyes
Like two suns on a summer day.
The patrons of the fire sit together
Catching the warmth, the fire throws.
Many are dressed in rags.
Unfortunate and lowly they are.
The building is crumbling.
Many a chip and crack are on it’s ancient walls.
It has stood the tests of time
And has now retired as a Haven for the lost.
Lone Wanderer
The wanderer sits on a stone.
If you sit and listen he’ll tell you a story
Of the places he’s seen and things he’s heard
On his eternal travels.
He tells a story of a place far away
Where the rivers run with bile
And a song sang by the earth itself
Drags you under the surface.
Another story he’s prone to telling
Speaks of a land of beauty
With lime green grass and rolling hills.
A Utopia far away.
Yes the wanderer has travelled far
And back again.
For a fee, you see
He’ll take you along
The Dream Weaver
Deep in the mountains
The Dream Weaver lives
Weaving new dreams
For the people of the world
She asks for no payment
Just hope that one day the world may improve.
If you visit her, she’ll bless you with a vision
And then send you on your way.
The Valley of Faces
The traveler speaks of a valley far away.
A valley carved in stone.
A valley that rarely sees the light of day.
A valley he walked alone.
The ground is made of faces
Carved into the stone itself.
The faces have the same calm expression
Staring into the sky above
Their calm expression is fixed forever
Their countenance never swaying
Faces created with unknown purpose
Forever watching the sky
Strange rumors are spread about the valley
Where faces are as far as the eye can see.
Rumors of their speaking have spread far and wide.
What do they say? Who knows except the gods themselves?
Communion
There are rumors
Of a meeting between wise men.
Men with a purpose unknown yet important.
They meet on the top of the great mountain.
What do they meet over?
Not many know and those who do no longer speak.
The communion of entities of ambiguous purpose
Is all too disquieting.
Business
Off beyond the dome of life
Lies an outsider from the great city.
A building of monstrous size
Like a beacon to the gods
But what is the building’s purpose?
Not many are sure
However, the Traveler tells
Of it’s bizarre interior
Offices, mostly.
People walking and talking,
Filing paperwork,
And doing business.
A bizarre place indeed
Especially in the dead land.
Business never ceases one presumes,
Even if everyone is dead.
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140,068 Literary Works • 672,978 Reviews
Hi BlueGlow!
You have a wonderful inclination for storytelling and prose, so I wanted to leave a quick suggestion. Technically the definition of "poetry" these days is very fluid; all of these definitely count as poems, but I think they would be even better as little prose pieces. For instance, "The Valley of Faces" stood out to me because of the idea of travelers moving through and describing this valley using metaphors and similes. I think that if you chose to write this in sentence format with paragraph breaks, your storytelling qualities would shine even more.
Another thing I might suggest is adding meter. Most stories that are put in poem format are ballads or epics, and were generally performed with music. The music could just be a couple of chords played over and over again, but the point was that it kept the story within a meter, and made it even more memorable. I'm blanking on examples right now, but the best I can think of is "American Pie"(by Don McLean), where the story is told in song format and kept to a specific expected meter. It's not the best example of meter, but it does use a lot of strong rhymes that make the 'poetry' of the song more memorable.
I think two important components of poetry are memorability and imagery. If you can paint a picture with words, people will admire you for that, but if you can make the words stick in someone's mind and play over and over again, your poetry will be considered even better. The easiest ways to achieve memorability are meter and rhyme, but I think adding that into some of your poems might ruin them. That's why I suggest writing these out as prose pieces, and then connecting them with a bigger theme. Overall I really enjoyed reading these through, and would love to see more works from you!
Happy Writing!
Alright, thanks for the suggestion! I will take a look at prose writing when I get the chance. Thanks for reading and reviewing!
No problem! I just thought of another example your poems reminded me of, "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley. In my opinion, the line between prose and poetry seems blurred in this poem, but I think it will give you a good idea of how people can tell stories/paint snapshots in a poetic context.
I will have to give it a read! Most of my inspiration comes from a mixture of T.S. Elliot, H.P. Lovecraft, and a dash of Kingdom Death.
'Ello there!
A lot of poetry here, so I won't tackle every one of them. If you wanted reviewers to take a look at every one of them, most people would suggest splitting them across many works to cut down on pressure + readability problems.
Land of the Broken
The title reminds me of poetry that takes hits at corruption in the world ~ like people judging the US because of presidents. Now, that isn't what this poem was about, and that's a nice change from most of the things I've been reading with similar titles. I assume the "broken" is because of all of the run-down descriptions there.
I do feel like there are some things happening that make me believe there's more to the background. I have not read anything else from you, but this poem feels like it has been built off of a world or a story that someone has written. It might be that I am usually not a fan of these stories narrating a more fantasy setting, but I felt like it was important to bring up.
I'm slightly confused about how you chose to use this imagery. Typically, tombstones are placed at graves to signify someone has died and show through engravements their accomplishments and life story. I don't see how one would rise out of the ground, and even if this was more of a metaphor, I don't understand.
This paired with the "great pillars" and "monument of a land forgotten" imagery doesn't exactly work? I don't imagine what I believe you were going for when I think of a band because I think these modern rock stars. I don't honestly get a bard vibe as well, so working with descriptions can help you there.
Business
I like the idea of this description, but I'm slightly confused with how you decided to word it. I can't imagine what a dome of life would appear like, and even as a play of words to describe a place similar to heaven, I just can't see the goal.
I really love this ending. I mean that with so much certainty because I tend to enjoy endings that have some sort of twist to them. I do kind of wish there was more to the ending though, as "dead" doesn't exactly wrap everything up. Sure, they're dead, but are they restless? are they at peace now? Things like that.
Good job with all of these ~
C & F
(Also, just to help you with those line breaks, it works for me if I hold down the space bar until it's past half of the page. To see if it works, hit the "preview" button.)
Yeah some of the lines are slightly nonsensical, I do agree they could use some polishing. I will take these into consideration when I do my next edit of this. Thanks for reading and reviewing!
Fun Fact: These were all written by hand on notecards that I kept in my jacket pockets and would write on whenever the urge struck. Also, for some reason the formatting is off and it won't let me change it. Every four lines it should break to a new stanza. Sorry about that...
If you want to make the lines single spaced you can hold down shift enter when making a new line. A lot of poets also use "~" to break up their stanzas.
Good to know!
This is amazing!!
Hey, Zekcede here.
I love this so much!!
I love how you separate the different parts, and my favourite line is:
"The traveler speaks of a valley far away.
A valley carved in stone.
A valley that rarely sees the light of day.
A valley he walked alone."
even if that one is my favourite, the entire poem is absolutely breathtaking, and so underrated.
A few other parts that I really like are:
"Under the dome of life
lies a place of ruins
where man and beast alike
scrounge for food and shelter."
"Among the ruins lies safety and refuge.
A haven for many a lost soul."
and
"The wanderer sits on a stone.
If you sit and listen he’ll tell you a story
Of the places he’s seen and things he’s heard
On his eternal travels."
All in all this is a wonderful poem and I relly love your writing style. Keep it up
- Z
Thanks! I'm glad that some pieces of this stuck out! Thanks for reading and thanks for reviewing!