we were buried at the back of our church graveyard.

we were buried at the back of our church graveyard.
a lot of us died in those fast summer cars.

there were no billboards to remind us to slow down.
just a short, loud, sarcastic laugh coming from the passenger's seat.

roaring V8 engines were always much louder, though.
they were always faster than our "sudden" instincts.

but weeks later, they would all turn silent when
we would figure out that we were only human, and
not immortal.

we were not superheroes
of our pointless little town
with its oil on the roads and sun lit swamps.

we never seemed to make the map, or the
connection that it didn't get much better than that.

we thought we could fly
high above these smalltown skies before

we were buried at the back of our church graveyard.
but I guess its too late to think that far.

Comments & reviews · 3
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User avatar
Fabien
Review
Fabien wrote a review · Thu Mar 29, 2007 4:32 am

I enjoyed it. I thought it was a good projection of the day & age where youth think they are invincible & immune to death, cause they are so young and they think only old people die and not them because they're just starting their life.

It reminds of a quote by James Dean, "Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." James Dean died in a car crash young, looks like the youth of today haven't caught on yet.

Good piece, your work looks promising.

User avatar
Cade
Review
Cade wrote a review · Thu Mar 22, 2007 4:08 pm

I think perhaps the "we're not immortal" lesson was a little too obvious. Here I've crossed out lines you could take out:

we were buried at the back of our church graveyard.
a lot of us died in those fast summer cars.

there were no billboards to remind us to slow down.
just a short, loud, sarcastic laugh coming from the passenger's seat.

roaring V8 engines were always much louder, though.
[s]they were always faster than our "sudden" instincts. [/s]

[s]but weeks later, they would all turn silent when
we would figure out that we were only human, and
not immortal.[/s]

we were not superheroes
of our pointless little town
with its oil on the roads and sun lit swamps.

we never seemed to make the map, [s]or the
connection that it didn't get much better than that.[/s]

[s]we thought we could fly
high above these smalltown skies before [/s]

we were buried at the back of our church graveyard.
but I guess its too late to think that far.


Now, what can you replace those lines with? I'd say some more detail; the "oil on the roads" and "sunlit swamps" are good examples of detail in this poem. It could use some more. What else was in the town? Why did the speakers think they could fly? Did they all die at the same time? Or at separate times?


Colleen

User avatar
Chandni
Review
Chandni wrote a review · Thu Mar 22, 2007 2:24 am

It was a nice read, no doubt about that. One thing, the title was rather "unattractive" long and dull. Too much explanation for a title.

Off to the poem itself, just some minor adjustments

we were not the superheroes
of our pointless little town
with its oil on the roads and sun lit swamps.


I just had to add the "the" here, to my ears it sounded slightly "better" this is just a suggestion though. I believe there is nothing wrong leaving the "the" out.

we were buried at the back of our church graveyard.
but I guess its too late to think that far.


This is awesome, and it would be even better if you haven't shown half this stanza in your title allready.

Well that's all :)

Once again, nice read ;)

Cheerios, Chandni



huh. didn't realize santa was a batman fan-
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