babylon

[vagabond]

babylon                                                                              (edit 2017)
 
everyone has to believe in progress,
this logic religion, built like a fortress.
we work and we gain for safety and wealth
and try to secure our emotions and health.
 
everything´s there just for gathering more,
riches increasing together with fear.
chaining our hearts and dissolving our bones,
so we drink the calf´s milk to stay happily stoned.
 
now that´s our evolution: to grow without moving,
and this is our knowledge: repeat and then store it,
no need for truth or even decent confusion
when we can believe in the perfect delusion
 




old version:

babylon

believe in fortune, believe in progress
this blinding religion, impressive fortress
we work and we build for safety and wealth
and try to secure our emotions and health

we are gathering more, more and more
riches increasing together with fear
chaining our hearts and dissolving our bones
but there are methods to be happily stoned

that´s our evolution: to grow without moving
this is our knowledge: repeat and then store it
that´s how we love: no need to follow desire,
when we can create the perfect chimaera

[tectak]

believe in fortune, believe in progress
this blinding religion, impressive fortress
we work and we build for safety and wealth
and try to secure our emotions and health

we are gathering more, more and more
riches increasing together with fear
chaining our hearts and dissolving our bones
but there are methods to be happily stoned

that´s our evolution: to grow without moving
this is our knowledge: repeat and then store it
that´s how we love: no need to follow desire,
when we can create the perfect chimaera

Sometimes punctuation is unnecessary to the piece; indeed, lack of punctuation or correct capitalising of words following a period can be seen as tiresome in such work.
None of this applies here. You found that rhyming was too much of an effort very quickly; then you turned off meter as it was limiting you too much; finally you gave up on everything and went straight for your raw and preachy inconclusive conclusion.
A lot of work needed.
Your poem and you should work on it.
Best,
tectak

[abu nuwas]

Didactic--- it is rather, admit it! I don't know what meter you really were trying for but at the beginning I started reading it in a sing-song, almost nursery rhyme way, and that turned into Sir Walter Scott's 'Lochinvar', and then my critical powers failed.

Telling people how it is never seems to work in poetry. The reader just responds with ''What? Don't agree'' unless s/he is lured in, with all kinds of trickery.
e


Lochinvar




By Sir Walter Scott


O young Lochinvar is come out of the west,

Through all the wide Border his steed was the best;


And save his good broadsword he weapons had none,

He rode all unarm’d, and he rode all alone.

So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,

There never was knight like the young Lochinvar

[vagabond]

boy, what a punch (thank you) . I was not aware of being preachy and didactic, but You gave me a different view.
so I have a question: do you think the content of this poem is worth working on the shape?

[Erthona]

I must agree with Tom, though it wounds to say he is right

The form, which only applies to the first stanza and the last two lines of stanza two is iambic tetrameter with rhyming couplets. Such a form nearly always comes across as singsong as Ed noted. Only ballad meter is probably easier to write. That this simple form could not be sustained undermines any credence or even charity the writer could hope to receive from the readers.

"I was not aware of being preachy and didactic"

If one passes judgement on the entire history of the human race, or at least the last four thousand years as being a failure, how could one not be seen as preachy and didactic, not to mention condescending. At stanza two the writer rephrases the overused and inadequate phrase, "Money is the root of all evil." By stanzas three the writer has dropped this specific, and levels broad pot shots at humanity's failure or it's sins.

"do you think the content of this poem is worth working on the shape?"

That is ultimately up to the writer to decide, however I will say this was a well traveled road when the Babylonian empire was newly minted and has been done in a much more logically coherent fashion, and certainly with more elegance. If one has the skill, such well traveled paths can be revisited and infused with originality, however, I see nothing of that in this poem.
If one is going to write formal poetry, one should at least be cognizant of the frame (meter and rhyme scheme) one is going to drape ones words over. The writer should not be discouraged to hear this, everyone must learn the fundamentals of any art, be it poetic, musical, or visual. even were a person endowed with the greatest natural poetic talent, he would still need to learn these things, just as a great thinker must learn to talk and express his thoughts in an intelligible way.

Welcome to the site,

Dale