Published January 29, 2014
Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for mature content.
I've never seen color,
Before today.
I saw nothing,
Except for gray.
I made it a mission,
To be like everyone else.
Without color,
My life has been a living hell.
I went on Silk Road,
To find a drug dealer.
They give the best drugs,
To the highest bidder.
I bid 17,000,
For a personal meeting.
I traveled to Compton,
To meet up with him.
When I first saw him,
I started to complain.
"These drugs aren't worth,
More than your fake chain."
I don't do drugs,
That was all a lie.
He proceeded to shank me,
Seventeen times.
I now know true color,
My own blood.
Now I know,
What everyone loves.
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139,783 Literary Works • 672,762 Reviews
I found this poem a bit hard to get into. For me the strongest stanza is the last one and the others are a bit jumbled. Overall the idea is kind of quirky and neat, but I think there are some definite improvements you could make if you wanted.
To start out with reading this poem I was completely willing to go on this journey with our narrator. His world is gray, fine. I can live with that. Everything isn't black and white, but a variation of shades. I don't really see the problem with this. Color just adds another layer. Of course, when you add today, it makes me think of that moment when I opened my eyes to the variety of color within a single color, like the reds in blue.
The next stanza made me recognize I was being too artistic, and the narrator was talking about lifelessness in people as colorless. We're still good.
This next stanza is where I start to have some contention with the poem. Your narrator goes to the Silk Road. Somewhere between China and Europe, alright. I'm following you. Buying drugs there, sure, opiates were very popular coming out of China. This grounding of your narrator is kind of easy to go with, but I'm curious why you went all the way to Compton which is in California after being in some Eurasia area. Why did he have to go to China?
What is with the drugs? Why does he have to buy those in order to get a personal interview? Who is he talking to? These questions all popped up and were destroyed because suddenly the guy who went all the way to China to get a personal interview with someone, which apparently was all a lie [so what really happened? Did the guy go to the Chinese cartel and get his butt thrown in prison?], met with him to insult his chin [which if it was fake, is very expensive so saying the drugs aren't worth more than it is really not that big of an insult] just to get shanked [which establishes another point towards prison] and die.
So when you start to go off course to me is when you start throwing in spectacle instead of being clear about what is going on. Saying that it was all a lie is alright, but you have to give us a quick summary of A, why he was lying, B, what was true, and C, what really happened to get him to meet these people.
Overall nice use of 17 to echo through the poem. It brought haiku and senryu to mind because of their 17 syllable counts, but I also read a short story about haiku recently which could be doing that instead. I also like the last stanza. I finally feel like the narrator is talking to us instead of a group he's trying to gloat to. I also like the open interpretation of the end. Either he knows what people love in life because he no longer has it, or he recognizes the beauty of serenity because he actually is feeling something.
Hey Strange! Here to review this intriguing poem! So, I think I've reviewed for you before, but in case not, I'm going to go through a list of pros and cons, then my favorite part, then overall thoughts! Here we go!
Cons:
1. As usual, I find nearly no flaw in your writing. However, as @sarah7712 mentioned below, the last bit was a bit confusing, but after reading what you told her, it cleared it up.
Pros:
1. Everything? You're rhyme was nicely done. There was a huge sense of imagery in this, and that was nice to read.
2. You took a morbid subject, and made it into a beautiful poem. Well done.
My favorite part was.......
I now know true color,
My own blood.
Now I know,
What everyone loves.
Overall, this is breathtaking. I'm going to read this soooooooo much because I love it so much. Also, great title! You're amazing! Keep writing and as always keep smiling! See ya in the reviews and around the site!
-Sis
I found this piece extremely interesting.
I actually read it over about 10 times just thinking about each stanza haha
If I could ask a question to you it'd be, what do you mean by the last 2 lines? It tied the whole poem together but I can't seem to fully wrap my head around what you exactly mean.
I'd love to hear back from you!
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, and I couldn't help but let it make me think
The narrator says "I never saw any color" meaning that the world is colorless and he doesn't see what everyone loves. When he dies, he realizes that true color is death, and its better than the real word
Thank you, that opened up the whole poem to me. Honestly, this is a great piece