z

Young Writers Society



Metro

by Karzkin


Ezra Pound was wrong.

I refuse to sit on the train with my head
bowed; I force
myself to look out the window
from a backwards-facing seat
because hindsight is 20/20.

Piles of basalt line the tracks, piles
of bricks line the streets.

The new engines are quiet
enough that I can hear failed
generals walking to the chopping block
and a soldier-
ant tracking the same path over and over.

The soil is shallow; only thorns
spring up, and even they gasp for air.


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5 Reviews


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Tue Dec 25, 2012 10:17 am
momentsidream wrote a review...



Pound was wrong? What if you force yourself to look out the window from a seat? The new engines fail and the soil is shallow, make it fertile, search for seed, water, nurse the sprouts with tears and smiles, let it grow, let it shine, let it bloom, wait and taste,it will be sweet, as it is new, strive for new, make it new,unheard are new, sweeter, hate the oft repeated as they bear the bitter...




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Mon Dec 17, 2012 1:25 am
Audy wrote a review...



Karz,

I too, began this piece thinking: "oh gawds...please don't do it, please don't do it" because you have to have a lot of balls to find fault with Pound's "In a Station..." But you know something, this actually kind of works.

It's kind of like a generation shift. Here we are, 100 years later. Absolutely, things have changed. It brings to mind just how much and just how much simpler and beautiful things were back in the early 1900s. At least, that's how it seems. Mind, things may have changed physically, but people are people. Particularly like that line:

and a soldier-
ant tracking the same path over and over.


To me, it highlights this thought. That we are so very small, still making the same mistakes, still fighting wars. And the thorns springing up - is the narrator trying to say we've become back-stabbing, rotten, human beings? At least it seems so, when compared to Pound's "petals" -- I like the end. The gasping for air is very apt, I personally like to interpret this as highlighting the uncertainty of our age.

Now technical things - I don't much like the second line. I think my beef with it is that it ties together with your first line. "Pound was wrong...I refuse to sit..." makes me think that the narrator is speaking against idly sitting by/not noticing things. But Pound never says this?

Beginning with "I force..." just makes things a bit clearer, imo. I like the play on words "backwards facing seat -- hindsight is 20/20" and I am torn, because I think this line helps your reader out, it gives them a bone in the right direction - but at the same time, the tone and narration of that line just seems so out of place in the poem. The rest of the poem is eloquently expressed, except for that one line that seems too colloquial for me.

The generals and the chopping block line - I can only think this is a reference to war? I'm not too sure if there's something I didn't catch on.

Anyways, always a pleasure to read one of your pieces! ^-^

~ as always, Audy




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133 Reviews


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Sat Sep 08, 2012 7:17 am
ShakespeareWallah wrote a review...



Hi there,

though I feel that poetry is way beyond me...I thought this was an interesting poem. Honestly, I was drawn in by your reference of the inscrutable editor.

loved it

Puck





Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.
— Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind