A puff of smoke and the raising of a glass,
All for a few moments of pleasure...
We know what we do, yet we care not.
Our lungs cry for oxygen
But nicotine fills our blood,
Making our relaxation
Into something we perceive divine.
The bitter taste of liquors
That sting our throats as they slip down
That impair our memory and destroy our minds
Is not so great that we cease to drink,
For our cares run farther away with every sip.
We know that we do, yet we care not,
And, in our weakness, give in
As unto the slithering serpent
Who passed the proverbial fruit of knowledge
To the mother of our ancestors.
If only that fruit had been from the tree of life instead,
For knowledge cannot save us from death.
A puff of smoke and the raising of a glass,
All for a few moments of pleasure...
We know that we destroy our lives,
Yet we care not.
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 5 of 5
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Well, I am very smug because I stopped smoking 12 weeks ago and I haven't had an alcoholic drink for 9 weeks.
It is not easy, but as you say there comes a point when our own stupidity os one thing, but to inflict it on others is something else. It would have been good if the proverbial fruit from the proverbial tree of knowledge had given us also the will to use the knowledge to the best purposes, wouldn't it. Interesting point- I never thought of it that way before.
Tweaking the poem a little,
Line 10 - perhaps omit the 'that'?
The idea that we continue to drink despite that the taste is not always pleasant seems to have got a bit obscured in lines 8-11. I don;t know if just removing the 'that' in line 10 will clarify the thought, but it may help a bit.
Yes- a good take on the issue. -
I can hear Jimmy H in the background
Well, it is interesting. Willingly put on cement shoes and hop into the river. But, it doesn’t have too be that extreme. Everybody cuts loose every once in a while.
But it is interesting why we spend so much time in reality trying to escape reality. Even when we aren’t drunk or high we are escaping reality with music and shopping and whatever. We are masters at avoiding looking at ourselves without preoccupations or distractions.
An interesting poem that causes a lot of reflection
Bill
language: 4, rhythm: 3, subject: 4, tone: 3, form: 3.
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cute!
this is good. I paticularly love what i think should be the last line "for knowledge cannot save us from death".I think that making the last stanza same as the first might have been good for another poem, but it simply detracts from this one. good piece though.
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Good poem for me, PG.
I like its open self-criticism, an element rarely seen in poems these days. It's honest to the max. And tying all the "care not"s into the garden of Eden deepens the poem's meaning. This poem should be read at all AA meetings - it has power.
I especially like the repetition of "We know what we do yet we care not" - it's like those tragic lines of the chorus in a Greek drama.
Just a few minor thoughts:
Would line 5 be tighter without "the"?
And would line 12 be tighter without "seem to"?
Maybe lines 14-15 would flow a bit more freely as:
What we do not know
is our weakness as we give in..."
And in line 19: "Would that that..." is a tad clumsy. Maybe "If only that" could replace it?
But those are just suggestions, PG. I really got into this poem: it's almost like a prophecy.
Lad
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Thank you for the comments and the review, Lad. You give great reviews and make good suggestions. I went ahead and revised it some according to the things you said, because I agree that there were a few lines that were too long and an awkward place here and there.
I actually wrote the poem just yesterday after a long spell of not being able to write anything good.
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