What drives a man,
to work and bleed?
To give this life his all
To walk across the barren lands
to walk nowhere at all?
We cannot think there's a promised land,
no golden city shining fair.
Each time the horizons crossed,
never was it there
Then why do we keep rending flesh
and working till we bleed?
To build a city where we stand
and make it gold indeed?
No.
For we know Gold as, sin it is
and justice as unfair
To build a golden city here's
to build a thieves lair
Why not end it then,
never take another step
never lift another brick,
nor use hand or head
To lie down, across barren sand
and watch all fade away
To look upon ye building mighty works
just to shrug and say:
"When the wiles of time have passed
nothing here will stand
Not you, nor bricks, nor empires
not even dunes of sand."
Yet somewhere there is yearning,
to be more than this.
Our curse is not our engine,
our unending human drive
Our curse is blasted reason,
the ability to see
To see the road ahead of us,
to know it's all in vain
We know where our journeys end,
and our beginnings are the same
Nothing is the word for it,
and nothing it describes
Nothing
will be the final state of life
We know the start and know the end,
The rest is to be seen
But Nothing haunts these pictures,
Next to it they are but dreams
Fireworks in deep dark night,
Astounding us with flashing light.
But the flash soon fades away, and the light goes too
and so dear reader, so are you.
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141,249 Literary Works • 674,329 Reviews
Beautifully written! The way you've portrayed "the reason to live?" in an interrogative flow is truly admirable. It's realistic how there's everyone going with the flow. And none of 'em knows, to where, and why. That's something you've captured almost perfectly.
This little piece, is truly worthwhile.
Thank you for the kind words and also welcome to YWS!
This is great in my mind, even if a part of it may be a small bit of bias since I love to contemplate reality and why humans do anything. Either way, the structuring is really easy for me to follow, and the ending where it describes that everything will eventually fade away is absolutely great. The line "When the wiles of time have passed nothing here will stand" as well fits so amazingly in the poem (it also reminded me of the sonnet Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley as soon as I read it). I especially like the first stanza with the question of why someone would work, walk anywhere, and more simply because it is an honest question that when worded like in the stanza, allows millions of different answers depending on the person asked. Great job and keep up the good work!
Thank you for the review! The allusion to Ozymandias was planned, I am happy someone caught it. I adore that poem so much
Oh, this is a beautiful work of art 🥹 keep writing, you have a spark!
Thank you for the encouragement!
Hello! Your poem was at the top of the Green Room, so I decided to read it, and I'm glad I did! You tackle this deep and complicated topic with powerful imagery, smooth rhythm, and an open ending. You bring up the question of working toward something when it's unattainable. And then when we do build a "golden city", it's shallow and unjust. The ending doesn't have a neat resolution, yet it's satisfying just the same. I love the choice to capitalize "Gold" and "Nothing". It really shows the significance and power behind the poem. This work was a blast to read; I enjoyed it very much!
Thank you for the Review! I was actually quite unsure about the rhythm, as it switches quite frequently throughout the poem. I am glad it doesn't read as disjointed