Fallout revision 1

[Jana]

Revision 1

Fallout

v.1
Fallout shelter underground.
Survival gear scattered around.
Drums of grains. Mildew stains.
Cold War relics still remain.

v.2
Rural folks lived to tell
of childhood days they knew too well.
War fears stoked. Paranoia stroked.
Armageddon had been provoked.

v.3
Another generation's passed.
Fallout shelters holding fast.
War fears stoked. Paranoia stroked.
Armageddon's still blowing smoke.

c.1
The fallout is here
We see it clearly
Profiteers and financiers
(hell bent on)
choking off our atmosphere.
Armageddon's growing near.

v.4
Fallout shelter underground,
survival gear hand-me-downs, 
Militia crackbrains. Bulging veins.
Armageddon's drum still sounds.

c.2
The fallout is here.
Our consequence appeared,
a dying global biosphere.
We look to space, the new frontier.
Armageddon perseveres.

Original
Fallout 

v.1
Fallout shelter underground 
Survival gear scattered around 
Drums of grains 
Mildew stains 
Cold war relics still remain 

v.2 
Rural folks lived to tell 
Of days gone by, they knew too well 
Nightly war fears stoked 
Paranoia stroked 
Armageddon's been provoked 

c.1
The fallout is here 
We see it clear 
Racketeering political sphere
Choking off our atmosphere 
Armageddon perseveres 

v.3
Another generation's passed 
Fallout shelters holding fast 
Nightly war fears stoked 
Paranoia stroked 
Armageddon's been provoked 

v.4 
Fallout shelter underground 
Survival gear hand-me-downs 
Drums of grains 
Mildew stains 
Armageddon's drum still sounds

c.2
The fallout is here 
We see it clear
Racketeering political sphere 
choking off our atmosphere
Armageddon perseveres

This lyric is from a poem I wrote and converted into song format. I hope it's okay to post in this forum. Please ignore the font size differences. I'm not sure how that happened with a straight copy/paste. Odd. 

[Richard]

Hey Jana,
I'm not an expert at song critiquing, but I'll do this like it's a poem:

Fallout 

v.1
Fallout shelter underground -I think the fallout shelter could be a potent image. I just don't know if you develop it enough in this piece.
Survival gear scattered around -I would suggest not starting every line with a capital letter. It's considered a bit old-school in terms of poetics.
Drums of grains 
Mildew stains -From my experience, short rhyming lines like line 3 and 4 here, indicate a comedic tone, or come off as being a bit like a nursery rhyme. 
Cold war relics still remain -Again, I feel like the image of Cold War relics has potential. It just needs to be developed more.

v.2 
Rural folks lived to tell -I'm not quite sure why only rural folks live to tell...
Of days gone by, they knew too well -"days gone by" seems a bit cliche to me
Nightly war fears stoked 
Paranoia stroked 
Armageddon's been provoked -I like the last three lines here. I would suggest merging them into two lines, or even one.

c.1
The fallout is here -Where is "here"? I feel like this could be explained more.
We see it clear -I'm a bit confused on who the "we" is here.
Racketeering political sphere -Sphere feels like it's just used here to make a rhyme. I feel like it's the politicians that are guilty of racketeering.
Choking off our atmosphere -This sounds more like its talking about pollution than radiation from an atomic bomb.
Armageddon perseveres -This is a depressing line. I like it! I think should consider expanding the idea in this line.

v.3
Another generation's passed 
Fallout shelters holding fast -I'm sorry, but these two lines here made me think of the Fallout video games. Was that your intention?
Nightly war fears stoked 
Paranoia stroked 
Armageddon's been provoked -Even though I like these three lines, I don't think they need to be repeated.

v.4 
Fallout shelter underground 
Survival gear hand-me-downs -I like this line. Again, this is another idea that needs to be explored more.
Drums of grains 
Mildew stains -What makes the images in these two lines so important that it warrants repetition?
Armageddon's drum still sounds -I would suggest of thinking of another word to use instead of "Armageddon".

c.2
The fallout is here 
We see it clear
Racketeering political sphere 
choking off our atmosphere
Armageddon perseveres -I know this is the chorus, but if this a poem, do you think is important enough to be repeated?

This lyric is from a poem I wrote and converted into song format. I hope it's okay to post in this forum. Please ignore the font size differences. I'm not sure how that happened with a straight copy/paste. Odd. 

I hope I wasn't too harsh here. However, I feel like you have some images here that could be developed more thoroughly. I look forward to seeing where you take this piece from here.

Cheers,
Richard

[Jana]

Hey Jana,
I'm not an expert at song critiquing, but I'll do this like it's a poem:

Fallout 

v.1
Fallout shelter underground -I think the fallout shelter could be a potent image. I just don't know if you develop it enough in this piece.
Survival gear scattered around -I would suggest not starting every line with a capital letter. It's considered a bit old-school in terms of poetics.
Drums of grains 
Mildew stains -From my experience, short rhyming lines like line 3 and 4 here, indicate a comedic tone, or come off as being a bit like a nursery rhyme. 
Cold war relics still remain -Again, I feel like the image of Cold War relics has potential. It just needs to be developed more.

v.2 
Rural folks lived to tell -I'm not quite sure why only rural folks live to tell...
Of days gone by, they knew too well -"days gone by" seems a bit cliche to me
Nightly war fears stoked 
Paranoia stroked 
Armageddon's been provoked -I like the last three lines here. I would suggest merging them into two lines, or even one.

c.1
The fallout is here -Where is "here"? I feel like this could be explained more.
We see it clear -I'm a bit confused on who the "we" is here.
Racketeering political sphere -Sphere feels like it's just used here to make a rhyme. I feel like it's the politicians that are guilty of racketeering.
Choking off our atmosphere -This sounds more like its talking about pollution than radiation from an atomic bomb.
Armageddon perseveres -This is a depressing line. I like it! I think should consider expanding the idea in this line.

v.3
Another generation's passed 
Fallout shelters holding fast -I'm sorry, but these two lines here made me think of the Fallout video games. Was that your intention?
Nightly war fears stoked 
Paranoia stroked 
Armageddon's been provoked -Even though I like these three lines, I don't think they need to be repeated.

v.4 
Fallout shelter underground 
Survival gear hand-me-downs -I like this line. Again, this is another idea that needs to be explored more.
Drums of grains 
Mildew stains -What makes the images in these two lines so important that it warrants repetition?
Armageddon's drum still sounds -I would suggest of thinking of another word to use instead of "Armageddon".

c.2
The fallout is here 
We see it clear
Racketeering political sphere 
choking off our atmosphere
Armageddon perseveres -I know this is the chorus, but if this a poem, do you think is important enough to be repeated?

This lyric is from a poem I wrote and converted into song format. I hope it's okay to post in this forum. Please ignore the font size differences. I'm not sure how that happened with a straight copy/paste. Odd. 

I hope I wasn't too harsh here. However, I feel like you have some images here that could be developed more thoroughly. I look forward to seeing where you take this piece from here.

Cheers,
Richard

Thank you for the feedback, Richard. This must be a good example of one that's not conveying the meaning well. I think to set to some thunderous drumbeats interspersed with a military march, a dissonant chord progression, and flutes, it might pack more of a punch. This one came out of an object writing session on the word fallout, which brought to mind the fallout shelters scattered around the country to prepare for nuclear war.  Having been raised by the generation of parents who had bomb drills in grade school, I was raised to be somewhat of a survival/preparedness type person. This mindset, along with the current perpetual wars in which we're finding ourselves, the chronic repeating theme of Armageddon on the TV news of one sort of another, I was trying to convey that this is a theme that plays out across generations, that it never leaves us, that the politicians feed us the propaganda and fear to keep the war drums beating, many of them benefitting directly from the war profits, and that we watch this while the true fallout of the racketeering upper classes is really environmental destruction. We're just now taking it seriously, and this is the critical Armageddon we face today. That's the gist of it anyway. 

As far as the caps on the first line, that's how my word program formats everything. I was just too lazy to change it. Sorry for slacking. The shorter lines I added for a change of pace. The "here" is meant in a global community sense. We see it clear now, the environmental destruction we've caused through unbridled capitalism. Our generation's Armageddon. The repeat of the chorus was just for the song format. If I'd left it a poem, I'd not have repeated it. Or maybe I would have. The drums of grains are part of the survival stockpile that lasts through a generation or two if stored properly. That and the mildew stains are my development of the fallout shelter, a musty, damp old cement room underground where we hide our paranoia preparing for nuclear fallout. 

Perhaps it's a regional difference? If you're in the UK, you may not have had the same traditions we had in the rural areas of the US. Most city people don't' have access to fallout shelters. Only landowners with acreage have room to install them. Our public facilities did install them, but not enough to save everyone and none that individuals could use for their own stockpiles.

What's funny is that the three lines you liked are the lines that for me are awkward when trying to phrase it with a melody in song. It gave me a chuckle when reading your comments. Also, I didn't realize that I repeated that same phrase twice. I'll have to go back and check what I had originally written there because I'm sure it was a different wording.

Thanks again.

[Todd]

Hi Jana,

I'm not a songwriter so some of what I saw may not functionally be right for a song. I do however hope that there will be some benefit to considering the individual strength of your lyrics. 

Your meter is a bit all over the place throughout. You may want to settle on something more consistent. That said, I would probably ignore meter and rhyme until the content was worked out and then back into it with some readjustment of the phrasing and make substitutions. Depends on how you work though to determine how feasible that is.

Fallout 

v.1
Fallout shelter underground 
Survival gear scattered around--around feels like its just there to make the rhyme work. It isn't totally forced but if I'm truly thinking of a prepper mentality even back in the 50s it's debatable how "scattered around" everything would be. Even if it had been abandoned for decades and current conditions are necessitating a return. 
Drums of grains--In this stanza you have an aa/bbb rhyme scheme with the last b being a slant rhyme rather than a perfect rhyme due to the plural/singular issue. To me drums of grain feels more normal than grains. Most drums are 55-gallon barrels (though I could see some smaller ones) it's debatable how many drums you could fit into a typical underground fallout shelter. I do like the concrete detail of this line and the one below though. It does give a sense of the dankness underground and the preparation put in place to survive.
Mildew stains 
Cold war relics still remain--The way you're using Cold War (specifically and not generically) it should be capitalized.  If you want to keep the rhyme scheme perfect you may want to settle on singular or plural and adjust accordingly.

v.2 
Rural folks lived to tell--rural because the shelters weren't placed in dense urban centers. 
Of days gone by, they knew too well--So they lived to tell and now the fallout shelters are just rusting curiosities. They remembered how they felt. 
Nightly war fears stoked 
Paranoia stroked--This is a missed opportunity. The problem with these shorter lines is they don't give you much space for concrete details. Therefore, this line needs to be adjusted. You already mention nightly war fears above. You can imagine a news report with Walter Cronkite or some PSA spreading fear. Paranoia doesn't give you anything truly new. You need another concrete image ("children under school desks for atomic bomb drills, or some such"). You need to work to build mood and stack imagery with every opportunity. 
Armageddon's been provoked--See this doesn't make sense given that they lived to tell. They thought Armageddon was provoked but it hadn't been. This may work as a subtle shift at the end with the thought of what does the future hold--but it's inappropriate here when they are thinking back to their fears that were unrealized. It's hyperbole at this point in your narrative flow. 

c.1
The fallout is here--You haven't earned this chorus yet. Probably need something that makes this axiomatic. 
We see it clear--This is here for the rhyme. Clearly would be the proper syntax. Also you shift your rhyme scheme here to AAAAA with the last one being a slant rhyme. You probably should look for more consistency.
Racketeering political sphere--This just feels bolted on. What does racketering have to do with this sort of nuclear imagery your presenting.
Choking off our atmosphere--I can accept this imagery as it seems a logical result of fall out. 
Armageddon perseveres 

v.3
Another generation's passed 
Fallout shelters holding fast--But are they the same fallout shelters or do they take different forms? I think your missing an opportunity to make this feel more relevant to modern speakers--they don't go underground anymore but how are they hunkering down. You haven't proved this line. It needs more development to sound believable. 
Nightly war fears stoked 
Paranoia stroked 
Armageddon's been provoked--While I don't mind repetition. You need to have the repetition present this new verse in a different light from the previous one for it to remain fresh. It doesn't expand your meaning in any way so it's wasted space and opportunity. 

v.4 
Fallout shelter underground 
Survival gear hand-me-downs--I don't mind the slant rhyme here becuse this is a good example of what I meant above. The hand-me-downs repurposes the line. Though you may want to think about how to use your fallout shelter metaphor to speak about what's really being handed down the generational fears and prejudices. 
Drums of grains 
Mildew stains--Again for these lines the repetition without reworking something does nothing to advance your narrative. 
Armageddon's drum still sounds--That's a nice change introducing an image--though it is a deviation from your rhyme scheme again--this is not to say that you can have no deviations. It's just that they feel haphazard and not planned.

c.2
The fallout is here 
We see it clear
Racketeering political sphere 
choking off our atmosphere
Armageddon perseveres--Same comments as above for this strophe.

This lyric is from a poem I wrote and converted into song format. I hope it's okay to post in this forum. Please ignore the font size differences. I'm not sure how that happened with a straight copy/paste. Odd. 

I hope the comments help as you consider this piece.

Best,

Todd

[Jana]

Hi Jana,

I'm not a songwriter so some of what I saw may not functionally be right for a song. I do however hope that there will be some benefit to considering the individual strength of your lyrics.  I thoroughly appreciate the in-depth commentary and feel there is a fair bit of advice to make use of in revising. Thank you for reading my lyrics and taking the time to help me improve on them.

Your meter is a bit all over the place throughout. You may want to settle on something more consistent. That said, I would probably ignore meter and rhyme until the content was worked out and then back into it with some readjustment of the phrasing and make substitutions. Depends on how you work though to determine how feasible that is. Definitely, agree on the meter issue. I'm struggling with that myself between the verses. It's okay to have the chorus and bridge vary in meter, but the verses should be consistent. The singer's phrasing can oftentimes compensate and hide it, though, I'm not sure how likely that would be with my verses. I've been toying with it myself and come close, but it's just not there yet. Perhaps a professional vocalist could carry it off. I'd prefer to polish it and not have to dump that onto the singer, though.

Fallout 

v.1
Fallout shelter underground 
Survival gear scattered around--around feels like its just there to make the rhyme work. It isn't totally forced but if I'm truly thinking of a prepper mentality even back in the 50s it's debatable how "scattered around" everything would be. Even if it had been abandoned for decades and current conditions are necessitating a return. Good point. The preps are often very organized down to the finest detail. I was looking for the feel of disarray, as in the abandonment of the possessions for an extended period of time, or possible ransacking. This, to me, adds a feel or image of chaos as we'd often see in emergency situations. I could easily change it to something more organized or regimented - like survival gear stacked around. This would change the image to something more militarized, which might be a better choice.

Drums of grains--In this stanza you have an aa/bbb rhyme scheme with the last b being a slant rhyme rather than a perfect rhyme due to the plural/singular issue. To me drums of grain feels more normal than grains. Most drums are 55-gallon barrels (though I could see some smaller ones) it's debatable how many drums you could fit into a typical underground fallout shelter. I do like the concrete detail of this line and the one below though. It does give a sense of the dankness underground and the preparation put in place to survive. In songwriting, what you're referring to as a slant rhyme we call a near rhyme, and is commonly used when a plural is required. It's also acceptable to use extended rhymes like adding the past tense -ed or present tense -ing when those forms are needed. The best communication in songwriting is to use wording that sounds like you're having a natural conversation with another. It resonates more with the listeners and makes it easier to stir their emotions. Buckets of grain is another option. This is more common today than drums, but for those seeking a longer term storage than can be passed down to their children or for large families like the Mormons, 55-gallon barrel storage is commonplace. I chose drums to communicate a serious survivalist that's investing in a lifetime of preparedness for any future possibility. 
Mildew stains 
Cold war relics still remain--The way you're using Cold War (specifically and not generically) it should be capitalized.  If you want to keep the rhyme scheme perfect you may want to settle on singular or plural and adjust accordingly. I'll keep this in mind when writing future poetry. I didn't realize writing poetry demanded so much precision when compared to songwriting. I'm finding that bit intriguing.


v.2 Rural folks lived to tell--rural because the shelters weren't placed in dense urban centers. 
Of days gone by, they knew too well--So they lived to tell and now the fallout shelters are just rusting curiosities. They remembered how they felt. 
Nightly war fears stoked 
Paranoia stroked--This is a missed opportunity. The problem with these shorter lines is they don't give you much space for concrete details. Therefore, this line needs to be adjusted. You already mention nightly war fears above. You can imagine a news report with Walter Cronkite or some PSA spreading fear. Paranoia doesn't give you anything truly new. You need another concrete image ("children under school desks for atomic bomb drills, or some such"). You need to work to build mood and stack imagery with every opportunity.  Noted. Will take it to heart and see what I can do. Although, paranoia and fear are too different concepts. Some people just become afraid, but the anxiety-prone might become paranoid and take preps to the extreme. 
Armageddon's been provoked--See this doesn't make sense given that they lived to tell. They thought Armageddon was provoked but it hadn't been. This may work as a subtle shift at the end with the thought of what does the future hold--but it's inappropriate here when they are thinking back to their fears that were unrealized. It's hyperbole at this point in your narrative flow. Hmm. Perhaps a rewording? I do want to introduce the idea of Armageddon here after having built up to it with the prepping images. After all, that's the reason for the preps. And you're exactly right that they thought it was Armageddon but turned out to be a false alarm. We'll never know how close we came to Armageddon because it never happened. But at the time, Armageddon truly was provoked. Lucky for us it never materialized. Part of the message I'm trying to convey is that we're always being told we're near Armageddon. People pray for the end of times. They want it to come. For the last couple of decades, we've been saturated with fear of terrorism. Now we're ratcheting up the fear with Russia again when the real danger facing us is global warming. So while we create our delusional Armageddons giving us endless reasons for war, we ignore the concrete Armageddon we create through our use of fossil fuels.

However, I'm not sure I agree on the hyperbole, because I feel it's a necessary introduction early on, so that idea can be repeated over and over, like we have experienced in real life for decades.

c.1
The fallout is here--You haven't earned this chorus yet. Probably need something that makes this axiomatic. Am I being too abstract? In my chorus, I want to develop the story further and finalize my message that the real fallout of endless calls for war is a corrupt government made up of war profiteers that collude with private industry to keep creating the need for their product. Legally, that would be an activity punishable under our racketeering laws. It's a double-meaning. 
We see it clear--This is here for the rhyme. Clearly would be the proper syntax. Also you shift your rhyme scheme here to AAAAA with the last one being a slant rhyme. You probably should look for more consistency. Clearly would be acceptable, too. Easy change. A shift in rhyme scheme is a good thing to introduce for a chorus. It adds variety to the song and keeps the listener from getting bored. Will keep these comments in mind for writing poetry. Thank you.
Racketeering political sphere--This just feels bolted on. What does racketering have to do with this sort of nuclear imagery your presenting.
Choking off our atmosphere--I can accept this imagery as it seems a logical result of fall out. It also speaks to millennials heading into a future of global warming, their generation's Armageddon we've passed down.
Armageddon perseveres 

v.3
Another generation's passed 
Fallout shelters holding fast--But are they the same fallout shelters or do they take different forms? I think your missing an opportunity to make this feel more relevant to modern speakers--they don't go underground anymore but how are they hunkering down. You haven't proved this line. It needs more development to sound believable.  It's not widely known in the mainstream, but among current-day preppers they do still go underground. They don't use concrete as much as was done during the Cold War, but they do bury large structures to create their bunkers, and those range from buses and trailers to culverts. Still, the concrete fallout shelters were made to stand the test of time, and they do still exist in many places. The point of this line is to communicate that we've passed down our Armageddon traditions to the generations that follow us. It's another way of saying the more things change, the more they stay the same. 
Nightly war fears stoked 
Paranoia stroked 
Armageddon's been provoked--While I don't mind repetition. You need to have the repetition present this new verse in a different light from the previous one for it to remain fresh. It doesn't expand your meaning in any way so it's wasted space and opportunity. Agreed. Richard pointed this out above, too, making me aware of it. I'm pretty sure I had another version written for this elsewhere. I just need to find it and copy/paste. 

v.4 
Fallout shelter underground 
Survival gear hand-me-downs--I don't mind the slant rhyme here becuse this is a good example of what I meant above. The hand-me-downs repurposes the line. Though you may want to think about how to use your fallout shelter metaphor to speak about what's really being handed down the generational fears and prejudices.  Yes! I thought I'd already done that, but it looks like I need to make it more concrete. Or should I leave it elusive and make people have to listen again and again until that realization strikes? That is the whole point of this song.
Drums of grains 
Mildew stains--Again for these lines the repetition without reworking something does nothing to advance your narrative. Repetition is good in a lyric, as it makes the song more of a sing-along, and those are the types of songs that become most popular.
Armageddon's drum still sounds--That's a nice change introducing an image--though it is a deviation from your rhyme scheme again--this is not to say that you can have no deviations. It's just that they feel haphazard and not planned. I'm okay with that for the time-being. When the music is added to it, the drumrolls and climax of the song here might make it sound more profound.

c.2
The fallout is here 
We see it clear
Racketeering political sphere 
choking off our atmosphere
Armageddon perseveres--Same comments as above for this strophe.

This lyric is from a poem I wrote and converted into song format. I hope it's okay to post in this forum. Please ignore the font size differences. I'm not sure how that happened with a straight copy/paste. Odd. 

I hope the comments help as you consider this piece.

Best,

Todd

Great comments. Thanks again for helping me see where I can improve things. I've revised this over and over. It was time to put it out there for outside input, and I couldn't be more pleased with what I've learned so far. I'll keep working at it and post the next revision soon. I'm meeting with a composer tomorrow, so this gives me time to tweak it a bit more in advance.

[CRNDLSM]

My phone auto adjusts font size some times it helps to preview post first and send from there.

As far as the words go, there are lots of different ways to write a song, and if it's poetry based, just get the poem edited to where you like it, then sing your song version of it, if you have a recording, there are link options to let people hear it out.

Fallout 


Fallout shelter underground London bridge is falling down, I'm hearing all kinds of things already.
Survival gear scattered around Nice image
Drums of grains bell drums, drums of war good word
Mildew stains 
Cold war relics still remain cold war relics doesn't really do it for me, too specific at this point
Rural folks lived to tell 
Of days gone by, they knew too well 
Nightly war fears stoked 
Paranoia stroked 
Armageddon's been provoked This is awkward, because oked sound and ell sound so far apart from each compared to the pairs above and below (ain ound, ere ere)
The fallout is here 
We see it clear 
Racketeering political sphere racketeering while a fun word also too specific for me
Choking off our atmosphere 
Armageddon perseveres but I like the ending


Another generation's passed 
Fallout shelters holding fast 
Nightly war fears stoked 
Paranoia stroked 
Armageddon's been provoked repeat these three? I do like the oked rhymes though stoke is weird though, maybe choked, I like stroking paranoia
Fallout shelter underground 
Survival gear hand-me-downs scattered round
Drums of grains 
Mildew stains cause it's still the same, maybe new details
Armageddon's drum still sounds
The fallout is here 
We see it clear
Racketeering political sphere 
choking off our atmosphere there's choke, choke is good, cloak, soaked I dunno
Armageddon perseveres

This lyric is from a poem I wrote and converted into song format. I hope it's okay to post in this forum. Please ignore the font size differences. I'm not sure how that happened with a straight copy/paste. Odd. 

Maybe instead of a near repeat of 1st and 2nd half you could make it completely different, another fallout shelter on another side of the world or something.  Anyways, post a recording I look forward to hearing it

[Jana]

Fallout

v.1
Fallout shelter underground.
Survival gear scattered around.
Drums of grains. Mildew stains.
Cold War relics still remain.

v.2
Rural folks lived to tell
of childhood days they knew too well.
War fears stoked. Paranoia stroked.
Armageddon had been provoked.

v.3
Another generation's passed.
Fallout shelters holding fast.
War fears stoked. Paranoia stroked.
Armageddon's still blowing smoke.

c.1
The fallout is here
We see it clearly
Profiteers and financiers
(hell bent on)
choking off our atmosphere.
Armageddon's growing near.

v.4
Fallout shelter underground,
survival gear hand-me-downs, 
Militia crackbrains. Bulging veins.
Armageddon's drum still sounds.

c.2
The fallout is here.
Our consequence appeared,
a dying global biosphere.
We look to space, the new frontier.
Armageddon perseveres.



Original:

Fallout

v.1
Fallout shelter underground 
Survival gear scattered around 
Drums of grains 
Mildew stains 
Cold war relics still remain 

v.2 
Rural folks lived to tell 
Of days gone by, they knew too well 
Nightly war fears stoked 
Paranoia stroked 
Armageddon's been provoked 

c.1
The fallout is here 
We see it clear 
Racketeering political sphere
Choking off our atmosphere 
Armageddon perseveres 

v.3
Another generation's passed 
Fallout shelters holding fast 
Nightly war fears stoked 
Paranoia stroked 
Armageddon's been provoked 

v.4 
Fallout shelter underground 
Survival gear hand-me-downs 
Drums of grains 
Mildew stains 
Armageddon's drum still sounds

c.2
The fallout is here 
We see it clear
Racketeering political sphere 
choking off our atmosphere
Armageddon perseveres

[CRNDLSM]

The edit is way better, I see you changed the structure a bit, for the better, however you're supposed to edit the original thread so all the critiques build on so the same poem isn't being rethreaded over and over, bump it with a comment if you made changes.

[Jana]

The edit is way better, I see you changed the structure a bit, for the better, however you're supposed to edit the original thread so all the critiques build on so the same poem isn't being rethreaded over and over, bump it with a comment if you made changes.

Oops! Sorry about that. The OP has been updated.

I did change the structure. I like it much better, too. Thank you. I'll be working on getting a vocal track down today to help write the music, then post it up on songwriting forums to look for collaborators and producers for a demo. All input is welcome up to the very end.

[nibbed]

Hi, Jana. Welcome here. WOW. You are a newbie and this is what you produce? It is awesome to me. Some of the better, more experienced, smarter poets say that being nice is not helpful in critique, but I can't help it. This is really good. It reminds me of graffiti poetry, not that it is hodgepodge or mixed about in different blasts of color, but because it is artful in that it speaks of many things: social injustice, oppression, suffering, and hope. It even offers a bit of help. It really offered a wonderful facet. Thank you. Thank you for the read:


Fallout

v.1
Fallout shelter underground.                         good reminder
Survival gear scattered around.                     might consider: 'round
Drums of grains. Mildew stains.
Cold War relics still remain.                           brings to mind history, like an old black & white reel

v.2
Rural folks lived to tell
of childhood days they knew too well.            maybe no "of" ?
War fears stoked. Paranoia stroked.
Armageddon had been provoked.                   perhaps just "Armaggedon's been provoked"?

v.3
Another generation's passed.
Fallout shelters holding fast.
War fears stoked. Paranoia stroked.
Armageddon's still blowing smoke.                 interesting alliteration, but I don't get the still and smoke...
                                                                                            
c.1
The fallout is here                                        This sounds kinda "clunky"
We see it clearly                                           just clear
Profiteers and financiers                                I want to switch these
(hell bent on)
choking off our atmosphere.                          
Armageddon's growing near.

v.4
Fallout shelter underground,
survival gear hand-me-downs, 
Militia crackbrains. Bulging veins.
Armageddon's drum still sounds.

c.2
The fallout is here.
Our consequence appeared,
a dying global biosphere.                                great rhythm here, lyrical
We look to space, the new frontier.
Armageddon perseveres.                                 Armegeddon means many thing to this reader.



Thank you kindly for this interesting, lively, read.
You certainly have a gift!
Sorry my critique format went haywire.
Best wishes.

Janine