Ego

[Hematite12]

I-
Am what I am
The destroyer of worlds
The worlds of minds and the minds of worlds.
If all were to suffer and wither and die,
Many carrion corpses of false chivalry,
It was me-
What I was, or am, or will be:
The Altruist- in finality,
A life of hatred, misanthropy,
Cut with veins of empathy
And misery: categorical duty.
I am not me, but all.
We are what we are.
Let it be.

[milo]

Hello and welcome to the site

I-
Am what I am

For me, single word lines almost never work.  In the rare instance that they do, it is generally in the middle of a poem where the poem can pivot on a single word or that the word is so strong and unexpected that it has to stand alone.  A personal pronoun standing as the first word in a poem on its own line just doesn't work for me at all.

The Popeye the sailor man quote also doesn't work for me here.  i never manage to tie Popye in to the rest of the poem or to connect him to "Ego"

The destroyer of worlds

from popeye to the  Bhagavad Gita, I just can't make the connection.  Also, if a poem opens with 2 quotes, perhaps they should be as an epigraph.

The worlds of minds and the minds of worlds.

This line is just abstraction and it is circuitous abstraction that adds nothing to the poem.  /What? does our narrator want to say about worlds of minds and minds of worlds - whatever they may be.

If all were to suffer and wither and die,

"If" statements require a conditional "then" but none is provided here.  /If/ all were to suffer and wither and die . . . what?

Many carrion corpses of false chivalry,

I can't imagine a situation where you would need both carrion /and/ corpses.  I think i will stop here.

It was me-
What I was, or am, or will be:
The Altruist- in finality,
A life of hatred, misanthropy,
Cut with veins of empathy
And misery: categorical duty.
I am not me, but all.
We are what we are.
Let it be.

the poem continues along in the same vein with generalities, abstractions, vague hints that are never revealed, poor grammar and punctuation.  At no point is any fresh language, imagery or ideas introduced.  i think you may wish to consider exactly what you want to say and then pick an image to represent this thought (whatever it may be) but I don't know.  For me, the poem was a bust.

Hope this helps. Thanks for posting.

[Hematite12]

Hello and welcome to the site

I-
Am what I am

For me, single word lines almost never work.  In the rare instance that they do, it is generally in the middle of a poem where the poem can pivot on a single word or that the word is so strong and unexpected that it has to stand alone.  A personal pronoun standing as the first word in a poem on its own line just doesn't work for me at all.

The Popeye the sailor man quote also doesn't work for me here.  i never manage to tie Popye in to the rest of the poem or to connect him to "Ego"

The destroyer of worlds

from popeye to the  Bhagavad Gita, I just can't make the connection.  Also, if a poem opens with 2 quotes, perhaps they should be as an epigraph.

The worlds of minds and the minds of worlds.

This line is just abstraction and it is circuitous abstraction that adds nothing to the poem.  /What? does our narrator want to say about worlds of minds and minds of worlds - whatever they may be.

If all were to suffer and wither and die,

"If" statements require a conditional "then" but none is provided here.  /If/ all were to suffer and wither and die . . . what?

Many carrion corpses of false chivalry,

I can't imagine a situation where you would need both carrion /and/ corpses.  I think i will stop here.

It was me-
What I was, or am, or will be:
The Altruist- in finality,
A life of hatred, misanthropy,
Cut with veins of empathy
And misery: categorical duty.
I am not me, but all.
We are what we are.
Let it be.

the poem continues along in the same vein with generalities, abstractions, vague hints that are never revealed, poor grammar and punctuation.  At no point is any fresh language, imagery or ideas introduced.  i think you may wish to consider exactly what you want to say and then pick an image to represent this thought (whatever it may be) but I don't know.  For me, the poem was a bust.

Hope this helps. Thanks for posting.

Yeah that does help. I am trying to portray a speaker who is ostensibly an altruist but is ultimately indifferent to the suffering of others, and that the speaker holds that this is a quality of all people.

The "I am what I am" was allusion to Viola's "I am not what I am" in Shakespeare, which is allusion to God's "I am who I am" in Exodus and Christ's imitation of it. The point was that, like Viola, the speaker has conflicting identity, on one hand an altruist and on the other an egoist. Besides that I just like the sound of the line.

But I need to work on making my poetry comprehensible and less abstracted. Apparently "carrion corpse" is redundant, which I failed to realize lol

[Leanne]

It might seem like exploration of philosophy calls for use of abstraction, but in fact exactly the opposite is true. Philosophy is such a complex thing, and often very personal, so that to explain it to someone else you really need to come down to concrete ideas with specific nouns. The flea biting between your shoulder blades is more relatable than an amorphous concern about suffering. I highly recommend Hayakawa's Abstraction Ladder as a means of assisting you in this area.

[Mr. Creosote]

Too many conflicting images/words. In the end I think the transition is from a sole ego to the collection of egos of society. I am just not sure how we are getting there or how the ideas like altruism are being used. I assume by definition that they are being used as the contradiction or the object of a philosophical "attack" of/by the ego. It needs more clarity.