Those Not Left Behind (Bygone Days)

by DRdante

Published April 5, 2010

In Condemned Poems (Please Don\'t Read)

Between the white mansions and the little shacks
walks a man of olden ways
Some say he holds the spirit of Guthrie
No, he’s just a remnant of bygone days

A thousand years and some more
His hands turn to dust as he reaches for the door
His feet turn to clay and he falls to the floor
All the screams are drowned out by that highway roar

Brown now white tinged with grey
Time took his youth with his world too
And as the replica turns he yearns
To go back to those bygone days

Ask him if it was better back then-he’ll say no
But the sunlight was rich and life was slow
Now he’s lined up in a desolation row
Just another dot on a broken domino

You can plead for his name but he’ll just say
You can help me remember if you stay
It’s another thing I’ve let slip away
Oh, I’m just a remnant of bygone days

Comments & reviews · 2
User avatar
antimelrose
Review
antimelrose wrote a review Review · Apr 5, 2010

Hello, DRdante! I like how most of the meter felt unforced, and often musical (after reading it I was wondering why this wasn't in the Lyrics section!). True, the rhyme was inconsistent; sometimes it rhymed and sometimes it didn't. Frankly, if it was that easy to rhyme the other lines, why not make it complete?

I liked the theme and it had a nice, casual, out–in–the country feel. Well done.

I'll "like" it, but do change the rhyme scheme. It'll really make it so much smoother to read.

–antimelrose

User avatar
perdido
Review
perdido wrote a review Review · Apr 5, 2010

you got a little carried away with the rhyming. This is your scheme:

ABAC
AAAA
ABCA
AAAA
AAAA

its not even consistently inconsistent.

Condensation will be your most effective tool while attempting to revise this, (there are a lot of words you don't even need) and I think you should dismantle the rhyme so it doesn't rhyme at all. Other then that, your content is pretty interesting in most of it save the ending... which seems pointless and weak. You need to find a better place to end.



To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it.
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