Fatherhood (Edit 3)

[Blake]

Fatherhood Revision 3

Yesterday…

I laid on my beanbag watching TV,
Games consumed a great deal of my free time.
I listened to music rather loudly,
I thought I was living my life sublime.

Today…

Each and every day I watch cartoons,
As I become a walking spit-magnet.
Unable to sleep for so many moons,
It may sound awful, but I'm not dead yet.

Tomorrow…

I required my world be turned upside down
Before I could see it was right-side up.
I’d never turn 'round, I’d never go back,
Deep into fatherhood, I move forward.


-------------------------

Fatherhood Revision 2

Yesterday…

I laid on my beanbag watching TV,
Games consumed a great deal of my free time.
I listened to music rather loudly,
I thought I was living my life sublime.

Today…

Each and every day I watch cartoons,
As I become a walking spit-magnet.
Unable to sleep for so many moons,
One would think my life is filled with regret.

Tomorrow…

I required my world be turned upside down
Before I could see it was right-side up.
I’d never turn 'round, I’d never go back,
Deep into fatherhood, I move forward.
-----------------

Fatherhood Revision 1

Yesterday…

I laid on my beanbag watching TV,
Games consumed a great deal of my free time.
I listened to music rather loudly,
I thought I was living my life sublime.

Today…

Each and every day I watch kids’ shows,
As I become a walking spit-magnet.
Sleep, a thing of the past. My sweet repose.
You would think my life is filled with regret.

Tomorrow…

I required my world be turned upside down
Before I could see it was right-side up.
I’d never turn round, I’d never go back,
From here on out I only move forward.
-----------------

Decided to try something a bit different.

Fatherhood

Yesterday…

I laid on my beanbag watching TV,
Games consumed a great deal of my free time.
I listened to music rather loudly,
I thought I was living my life sublime.

Today…

I watch Veggie Tales each and every day,
It’s a good day if I don’t get puked on.
An out of reach treasure, for sleep I pray.
It would seem to most that my life is gone.

Onward…

We require our worlds be turned upside down
Before we can see they are right-side up.
I’d never turn round, I’d never go back,
From here on out I only move forward.

[Blake]

I used the word to refer to people collectively. I tried hard to rhyme but everything on the last stanza seemed to feel forced. So against my better judgement I dropped the rhyme for the last stanza and decided to incorporate contrasting words (down/up, back/forward) as a way to further drive the contrast of life before and after being a parent.

And I thought about using tomorrow but I went with Onward instead. Probably should have gone with my first choice, just thought tomorrow sounded like "just tomorrow" rather than "from now on"

[kingmicahde]

Hey this is a very interesting poem I actually could somewhat relate to. I like the flow of S1 I seen where you was getting at from S2 but it didn't really flow like S1 did to me and S3 the first lines I like "We require our worlds be turned upside down Before we can see they are right-side up" I did not really like the second half of if rewording might work. I would definately go with "Tomorrow in between S2 and S3 These are just my opinion. Hope to help

[Blake]

Thanks for the suggestions, I made some tweaks and edited the original post

[kingmicahde]

I like the second stanza better the 3rd is still a little eh hopefully someone else will have some really good suggestions

[Blake]

Posted my 2nd revision. Made some changes to stanza 2 and 3

[ellajam]

Hi, Blake, thanks for the read.

I've had an issue with L8 in all 3 versions, and its getting worse. You seem to be saying that most people would not understand that a change from gaming and loud music to spending time raising a child is an improvement in your narrator's quality of life. I can't even get on board with most people thinking it's less cool. I think the rest of the poem is about the narrator's point of view, and this line is jarring for me.

[Blake]

Makes sense. I changed line 8 up a bit and reposted

[clemonz]

We require our worlds be turned upside down
Before we can see they are right-side up.
I’d never turn round, I’d never go back,
From here on out I only move forward.

i think i prefer this stanza. e.g.

Yesterday…

I laid on my beanbag watching TV,
Games consumed a great deal of my free time.

in the first line you seem to be talking about just one day, and in the second you seem to be talking about the past in general. is this deliberate? even if it is, i think the switch from literal to figurative language doesn't work here. i quite like the diction in the first line, but you seem to get a bit flatter as you switch to talking more generally.

if you want to keep a specific to general structure / switch, i'd recommend livening up the latter.

Yesterday…

I laid on my beanbag watching TV,
Games consumed a great deal of my free time

one way to do that would be to change "a great deal" to something like an exclamation:
"I laid on my beanbag watching TV / computer games consumed so much free time".

that may not be quite what you want, but you get the idea

that somewhat flat (not really dry) language is less of a problem in the third stanza.