Call me a coward,
And so I am.
Call me naïve,
And that I am too.
But tell me I’m wrong,
And you have wronged yourself,
You’ve hidden in self-deceit,
You’ve propagated delusion.
I am no genius,
But a fool, I am not.
I am no warrior,
But a deserter, I am not.
Wake up, smell the blood,
See that it is spilt in vain.
Search the cheeks of the broken
For shrapnel left from tinny tears.
Tell me again, how they are warranted.
Enlighten me of your twisted sense of justice.
Stake your novel claim upon the pillaged
Territory we call Humanity.
Washed up on its fruitless shores,
Convince the marooned of your superiority.
By all means, ignore the lone traveler who knows
That flagpoles now stand where life once took root.
I liked how the poem is structured. it begins introspectively and ends extrospectively, describing the scene. Indeed, it reminded me of one of the scenes from Mulan where after singing we see the wasteland.
ReplyDeleteI think the final stanza is good, and I quite enjoyed it. The structure of the first twelve lines is too forced, and after the first time it is used, it is entirely expected. I suggest tearing up the structure and coming up with an entirely novel way to express the first stanzas, and that would make a phenomenal difference.
ReplyDeleteLast four lines of the second stanza are quite good, as is the final couplet. I would try to build the poem around these parts, and you have the basis for a very strong poem moving forward.
Chris is wrong.
ReplyDelete