The waking nightmare [may trigger some people]

[busker]

Thanks for taking the time to give feedback —
I can see you’re emphasizing clarity, structure, and reader accessibility.

I agree those are crucial elements in poetry.
I also want to clarify that the style I’m exploring pulls some techniques from the Modernists: fragmentation, associative imagery, and interiority. Writers like T.S. Eliot, H.D., Mina Loy, and early surrealist-adjacent poets often used disjunction and emotional abstraction not as ‘randomness’, but as a way to mirror psychological states or fractured perception.

That said, Modernists still grounded their work in an underlying coherence or emotional through-line, and that’s something I’m working to develop more deliberately. Your critique helps highlight where the clarity breaks down for a reader, so I appreciate that part. I’ll keep refining the piece with that in mind.

The poem was a simple poem about: a person overwhelmed by visions, emotions, or imagined lives not their own, trying to claw their way back into their own identity amid the quiet, pervasive suffering of being human.
I don't consider it to be meaningless if were not talking nihilistically, then yes all poetry is inherently meaningless. Salvation would be death. everything would be pointless, yet is for all are destined to be forgotten in the race against the clock. 2 Generations and a name is barely spoken, 3 and they don't even know it. Until all ceases to exist, even the memory of you.

For those unable to translate what's said:
dissociation → inherited suffering → temporal distortion → self-protective fear → redirected self-harm → universalized horror (that's the flow)

I would suggest that you work your way through formal, metrical poetry first to master the craft, and then move on to more difficult things like free verse later

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There’s meaningless, and there’s meaningless.

You are thinking too much of the content of your poem. The reader won’t give a toss about the content of your poem unless it’s presented with a modicum of technique.

Don’t take your philosophy so seriously. No one gives a damn. No one cares a damn about what you’re really trying to say unless you’re able to say it skilfully enough for them to give a damn.

That’s my point.

Read Colin Ward’s tips.