Published December 13, 2004
take great care with the landscaping,
the cement steps and the oil-linked fences
a careful leveling is occurring,
a self-sustaining puppet,
a billboard satellite state,
one more paved-street america—
toxic floods of half word riddles made to inspire
fear in the common man drip drop from any orifice
television show, boob tube junkies watch with drooling lips
media drunk on supposed truths of supposed leaders
relates directly to day-to-day atrophy,
to a michael moore america
or a paid-our-bills-‘round-the-world paradigm
we are eagerly expecting the same thing every morning,
bureaucratic posts and outer-ring suburbs
we expect nothing in our
compliant complacent conformist american apathy
nothing because god knows no news
is the best news there is
spread thin
white-skinned and ratty uniforms form a frontier,
sisters mothers fathers cousins husbands brothers and wives
await a return from a fight picked by bigger bullies
in blazers and cowboy hats
see self-conscious buildings blubbering down,
see cities divorced from countryside,
see the free hate their freedom
teaching ourselves militant ignorance from public college pulpits
enforcing intentional incognizance upon silent screaming masses
one more dark continent heavy with ourselves
and this is post-modernism narcissism
and we’ve danced to this sad silly tune
once before
broken waltz in jungle pavement
but it never gets easier
* * *
I wrote this while my big brother was in Iraq. Hence the...uhm...anger.
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141,251 Literary Works • 674,330 Reviews
Hey there Galatea.
I've been reviewing old poetry on yws all day and it didn't really bother me until I got to this poem. Where I know the writer will never be able to answer me. It didn't bother me for the standard romance poems but this one is actually heartfelt.
I wasn't sure about actually reviewing this because it was so sweet, even with the criticisms of the world. When I hit the author's note for the inspiration, the whole point unraveled further. It's very rare for me to find a poem that I absolutely love and want to physically hit the like button.
I have a few criticisms for this piece, mainly the lack of separation between ideas. It seems that when people write powerful poems, they get too wrapped up in the subject and forget about presentation. I've learned on yws (and slightly in the real world), that half of the success of the piece depends on the presentation to the audience.
I can appreciate some parts of the style, the mass grouping and wanting to keep the thoughts all together. but then by default, it also jumbles together in a mess of ideas and can no longer reach the audience.
There's so many ways to split this poem up but there's very few that would do the emotional part justice. In cases like this, I usually recommend looking for power lines and splitting them off from the pack. Not using them to just create new stanzas but completely separate them from the rest of the lines, make it a one line stanza, for lack of better words. I can see this process working out very well in this poem.
The imagery is pretty good.
usually I have to critique on lacking imagery but I'm really digging what you've got going on here. War imagery is so hard to tackle, especially with how it needs to be designed for a certain emotion, that certain sadness. Be very careful with your phrasings though because the emotional side can just as easily be interpreted in an alternate way.
I like the force behind the poem.
The wording is pretty strong, just needs a few tweaks here and there.
And then it's just lacking a bit in presentation, but that's a minor cosmetic thing.
Good job.
-lizz
What, exactly, in my poem purtains to nature? The title? Its in reference to the jungles of Vietnam. If you notice, I compare the war there with the war currently in Iraq at the end of the poem. And why on earth would you hate nature?? Thanks for commenting, though!
i personally am not interested in anything related to nature because i hate nature but the rhthym and flow--i was pretty impressed with...cant complain about that.