Published October 20, 2007
Just an FYI, I know this still needs alot of work. I might just turn this into a story, since it does sound like prose.
Invisibility's Benefits
A fly on the wall watches all,
observes the crowd.
Around they go
smiling painted smiles and quoting rehearsed lines.
Their ostensible self absorbency is overbearing.
These are the ones born into luxury.
“The good life” one might say.
They don’t know what I know.
They don’t know what lies in my memories.
Some say a fly doesn’t know much.
They’re wrong.
I know how these people live.
The luxuries will cause their downfall.
One in particular catches my eye.
She sits there,
pouting and moaning,
making excuses to compensate her behavior.
I see her walk to a door
expecting it to open for her.
God forbid she would have to lift a finger on her overly manicured hands.
Her incompetent behavior causes me to laugh.
She thinks she is so fabulous,
strutting as she walks down the stairway
in her bright red stilettos.
Well no worry.
One day it’ll all come back to her,
like a sharp boomerang.
Life will provide a harsh awakening.
And on that day I’ll be there, smirking.
Watching as fate resets the balance.
I watch the incompetent one for a while.
Then buzz off.
My wings humming in the ears of a passerby.
I pass more clones of the incompetent one.
Same attitude,
same lack of consciousness.
They are the worker ants,
the drones,
that do the queen’s bidding.
Don’t they realize that there is more to the world
than their minute lives?
No, they lack that basic common sense.
The only consolation I have
Is that I am not one of them.
The lives they lead are not like my own.
I stand aside and watch them.
A fly among ants.
I breathe a sigh of relief.
For this is not my reality.
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140,861 Literary Works • 673,695 Reviews
The poem reads like prose, and that isn't good. As it drags on into narrative, your reader just stops caring. No one wants to listen to, "This happens. And then this happens. And this is what I think about it."
And as Brad said, you made it a little obvious what it was about. "Blah blah blah, obsession with material stuff = stupid." Try to be a little more subtle; a good reader will know what you're talking about without you yelling it out.
The title makes me think of the wonderful teen angst book "The Perks of Being a Wallflower." Was that intended?
Better luck next time.
-Colleen
xhalcyonx128,
This is at best poor poetry. I think we've all seen this kind of poem condemning materialist lifestyle a hundred times before and suspect we'll see it hundreds of times more.
The execution seems to me as though you wrote a story and arbitrarily hit the 'Enter' key as you went along.
There isn't a line here worth keeping.
Best,
Brad
i agree that rhythem is good, ill check through and see if i can get a rhythem flowing.
my thanks to your gut
No rhyme needed, but rhythm couldn't hurt.
But aside from that, I think this is a very good poem.
There are some lines that stick with me; "smiling painted smiles and quoting rehearsed lines"...
and some that don't: "Their ostensible self absorbency is overbearing"...
...which is okay with me, I think you need awkward lines sometimes to make the good ones feel even better.
In fact, "feel" is great word here. There are no shortage of things to tweak here, but I have to go with my gut, and my gut loved this poem.
Thank you
Generally I don't like to rhyme my poems, thats why I stick with freeverse.
In totallity I would say it was good.
Though I would have liked some rythm into this poem.
And yes the preface or the real picture is visible,
I liked how you ended it,
hope to see more of your poems.
~Shine~