It's True, The Earth Is Flat edit 1 (Tiger, Tom, Achebe)

[ellajam]

It's True, The Earth Is Flat (a response to Dale's Fresh and Young)


I hear your pleas to start again,
your longing to reclaim youth's yang,
to wear again the supple skin
as if life were a boomerang.

Am I the only one who feels
one lifetime has been quite enough,
whose fractured soul still quakes and reels -- I can't say why exactly, but "whose" was jarring to me.  People do sometimes address themselves as "who", but I rarely see people use the possessive "whose" when referring to themselves.  It isn't ungrammatical, just not very common.  "Whose" is a word usually used for others, in my experience.
at images so sharp, so tough
to comprehend as human cries -- The language is lovely, but this strophe (from here to the bottom) has a run-on quality which muddies the message.  I think it would be much clearer if you could hammer this strophe into two sentences.
ring out to heavens born of dreams,
who's had their fill of truth, of lies
and soured on unending schemes?

I wonder if I'll feel the same
the day I'm stepping off this plane. -- Very nice ending.

Since I recently rejoined the forum, I've been looking back over recent poems.  This one is a gem.  The voice is a mature one; there's none of the moody, fragmented language I see in most poems.  The poem is mostly clear, but the language in the second strophe needs some clarifying, in my opinion.  I love the images and/or word choices (youth's yang, boomerangs, unending schemes, plane).

Thank you, Caleb, for your time and comments. I like the whose/who's so that will stay for now. I love a long almost breathless sentence but most readers don't, from the comments I can see where a change would do the most good, I'll try some things out.

I appreciate the reminder to edit, I've been given some great suggestions that I'd like to use.

@achebe: Youthful yang is much easier to say than the awkward youth's yang, thanks again.

@71: I think there's a difference between wanting to start again and the reason why, which could vary. So L2 is necessary, I'll think on L1. Thanks again.