Digging into the minds of dead geniuses
Praising, criticizing, studying past actions
The decision of men in desperate situations
pushing the brink of devastating destruction
The eternal potentiality of perpetuating crisis
The rise and fall of men good and evil
The perplexing elaboration in their minds
The loss of individuals, injustice of millions
Segregation, genocide, carnage
Ingesting knowledge in inconsiderable amounts
Overflowing with betrayal and hatred
Yet we rejoice with patriotic pride
Praising the abilities of the dominant
We cheer ignorantly for the murderous triumphs of our nation
Embellishing the advantages of the killers
Hysterical, synthetic tears of Red, White, and Blue
Blinding basic, innate, intuition
Feeding off our conditioned minds
Allow yourself to absorb every vile lie,
and you are selling your soul to
The Tyrants
The Rulers
Your beloved government
The ones that have incapacitated your voice
The ones that have littered your ears with trash
Feeding off your pride and vulnerability
Rebel against that of which has captured your spirit
Stand up and declare the reclamation of your individualism
Comments
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Thoughts...
Lines 1-5 - The incensed verbosity of this opening is utterly compelling. There's an energy and a viciousness behind the language that just propells you forward.
1 - Geniuses? Genii? "minds of dead genius" is just a bit awkwar gramamtically.
3 - Don't want to be a grammar fascist here, but, again, *decisions rather than decision.
5 - SOmetimes, I think, you see poets who just string words together which sound good and verbose, but you have the knack to actually make sense too. "The eternal potentiality of perpetuating crisis" sums up a lot of the approach of human nature, I think.
6-13 - Hmm, the thing is, the first stanza sounded like an introduction. An impassioned spouting of feeling before you go into the "narrative" of the poem as it were, but this feels like more of the same, as does the third stanza. It's only in the fourth stanza that you actually start to *say* something. So, whilst I think any pof these three stanzas would make an excellent introduction, i think having all three one after another is a tad redundant, because one doesn't really say that much more than the other.
8-9 - These two lines feels very angry, but, in a way, a bit dull. I mean, we know there was genocide and there was segregation. A poem about the holocaust is never interest because it's saying "There was a holocaust!". We all know that. The interesting thing is what people say *about* it. And I think here you're starying into the realm of going "People suck!", which i think is perhaps more inclined to provoke the reaction "Yes. We know. And?"
13 - Feels very Nietzschean.
14 - Emotive and well expressed.
15 - How exactly does one embellish an advantage?
16 - really fantastic line. Do you want the comma after hysterical? I feel it would work better without.
17 - Could you re-write this so it reflects the previous line? So:
"Hysterical, synthetic tears of Red, White, and Blue
Blinding intuition basic, innate, and true"
Just an idea.
18-19 - Any reason for a two line gap here?
19 - *absorb
21-3 - This sounds a dad trite. A bit like railing against "the man". Government is bad! They're tyrabnts! Boo! Because it's so simplistic and melodramatic it's somewhat unconvincing.
24 - See, I'd say the previous stanza was quite medicore, but this is really great again. "The ones that have incapacitated your voice". Love it.
27 - SHould this line perhaps be couple with the final line, rather than the rest of this stanza? Seems a little confusing to put it here.
28 - I wouldn't repeat "your" like this. "The reclamation of your individualism" would work better.
Verbose and vituperative. I alwasy feel that there are never enough people in the world getting angry about a lot of what is going on. People are so politically apathetic it's horrific. To read something both well written and indendiary is very refreshing, and you write terribly well. My only problem, really, is that I think this needs to be much more focussed. the danger with ranting poetry is that you end up going "AAAAAAARGH!!!! Everything is shit!!!!!!!!" but you don't end up making a point. You want to make sure that the reader gets your point fo view and is thinking about things that they hadn't before. What you've written will be very comforting to people who already agree with you. but in a way they're not that important. Incendiary writing should inflame the apssions of those who don't already agree, or who hadn't even considered the problem. And I don't think that you're too far away from achieving that as you are.
All the best,
iorelanguage: 4, rhythm: 3, subject: 2, tone: 4, form: 4.
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WOW. Thank you so much for your comment. It is a rarity for me to get a comment that really focuses in on the poem and in turn, immensely helps me as a writer. I agree with you completely. I'm going to fix most of the things in which you have pointed out. I agree that the message in this poem isn't very pronounced. I also agree that the lack of attention and even remote care for some of these issues involving politics, society, government is appalling. People assume it doesn't matter to them I guess. I wrote another poem, in which my message towards society is more accurately portrayed it's called "scream for your children", if you are interested. I can't express to you how much I appreciate you taking your time to leave such a detailed comment. Thank you, thank you again.
-Kitten
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This is so full of frustration,anger and utter disgust at the American peoples ignorance at glorifying their men of power,the same men who brainwash and control your every action and debilitate your individualism...i could picture this being read out at a peace rally or something similar by a very strong speaker and the people would sure as shit listen to every word,thats what you need to find,a public speaker to really stress these words on your and other Americans behalf..this is my interpretation,tell me if i`m totally wrong
this is more you,kitten
loved it
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You are exactly right. American's history, and how niavely we repeat it, disgusts me. This poem was a result of that complete frustration. Thank you for the comment. I wish I could tell the people of this nation something like this. Remind them their voice can be recaptured and utilized. Let them know they aren't as weak as they are conditioned to believe.
Thanks for the read.
-Kitten
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