07-15-2014, 02:49 PM
OK - it's not there yet but here's the latest.
I've actually reworked the first quatrain to get a nice progressing structure of "each day", "slow month" and "wasted years" which I now like.
I've made a couple cosmetic substitutions, and I've added an anapest to open line 8. It gives me 11 syllables for the line of course but now is more readable and still flows nicely I think.
I've added a question mark to the end of line 4 - which I feel works.
Last line fixed.
Last biggee, I hope, is to somehow rework line 2 to include running anapests or dactyls at the end to give the line the speed that is spoken of. I'm 100% open to suggestions. Otherwise, as it sits, it's *ironic* I suppose, a line speaking of speed but moving slowly with a fifth foot spondee, but I'd rather something approximating the rapidly ratcheting of first version.
All comments have been really appreciated and considered, without exception.
Here is Edit #3
Mechanized Man
Mechanized Man, who dreads each day’s lead legs,
we grieve to see you scheme to move time fast.
But worse, as slow months crawl you sadly beg
to know these wasted years won’t be your last?
Your body’s spent and tight-wound mind refutes
clear choice: define your time or be defined
too soon. You sleep, a fool, denying truth
with a lie: your life’s a race, you fell behind.
Instead, the wiser man will cherish how
this breath delights, that death’s a new life won.
He’ll split a second gently then, and now
divide – divided moments shine, undone.
Mechanized Man, who strains to count his lot,
must watch the man who lives: his clock ticks not.
I've actually reworked the first quatrain to get a nice progressing structure of "each day", "slow month" and "wasted years" which I now like.
I've made a couple cosmetic substitutions, and I've added an anapest to open line 8. It gives me 11 syllables for the line of course but now is more readable and still flows nicely I think.
I've added a question mark to the end of line 4 - which I feel works.
Last line fixed.
Last biggee, I hope, is to somehow rework line 2 to include running anapests or dactyls at the end to give the line the speed that is spoken of. I'm 100% open to suggestions. Otherwise, as it sits, it's *ironic* I suppose, a line speaking of speed but moving slowly with a fifth foot spondee, but I'd rather something approximating the rapidly ratcheting of first version.
All comments have been really appreciated and considered, without exception.
Here is Edit #3
Mechanized Man
Mechanized Man, who dreads each day’s lead legs,
we grieve to see you scheme to move time fast.
But worse, as slow months crawl you sadly beg
to know these wasted years won’t be your last?
Your body’s spent and tight-wound mind refutes
clear choice: define your time or be defined
too soon. You sleep, a fool, denying truth
with a lie: your life’s a race, you fell behind.
Instead, the wiser man will cherish how
this breath delights, that death’s a new life won.
He’ll split a second gently then, and now
divide – divided moments shine, undone.
Mechanized Man, who strains to count his lot,
must watch the man who lives: his clock ticks not.