Obsession Over If

[tectak]

Hey tectak,
Thank you for reading and your feedback. You without a doubt have given me a lot to think about. I put this poem in serious because I do like it and I believe that it has potential. I will work on this more and use your feedback to improve it and post this again. I'll keep the idea and my "functioning stanza", as well as some other lines and go from there. In my second stanza you mentioned that it has seismic shifts, what did you mean by that exactly?

I agree with you, I do have that tendency of trying to write it all down but in the end it loses the content and structure and it becomes just a long thought.

I respect your suggestions on this and will work on it.

Hi arbil.
Seismic shifts. Read billy's crit. He points out, like me, that in the first two stanzas, and noting the title, your whole focus shifts from IF to WHEN.
The piece suffers from this kind of literary leaping so indicative of the burgeoning of concept. Mr. Kipling in his beautiful and reflective poem has written a piece of commitment verse in that he runs right through the whole thing in pensive and prevaricative thought, never quite reaching a conclusion, but never loses sight of his target. He commits to a conclusion, an answer, an ending from the very first line.
Many readers will relate to the Kipling poem and you are then in a hard place with this one. IF you persist with it, and you should,THEN you should make the piece your own. A suggestion would be this. Make each stanza an IF/THEN equation, complete and free-standing. You could end, still, with an encapsulating stanza. This may better suit your idea.
Best,
tectak