Road Side Graffiti

[Sean Sweeney]

Road Side Graffiti

Feeling lonely and slightly ill
But I can't complain, they are assembling some new billboards
That’ll take away my blues.
Billboard stories, I must adhere to. Better be quick
They change daily.

I have a choice to grow, anti-consumerist bones
But I'll wait
To finish my swell can of brand name cola.
An enjoyable sticky, syrupy gag
Protects me from being too much
Of a danger.

The country landscape seems to lend ownership
To the signs posted, directing our wants.
Some scoundrel has ripped one down.
I have beliefs, but I've grown accustomed
To brandalism.

Broken buildings
And shiny new posters.
The trees have no leaves
So I should probably buy better ones.
My garden looks like autumn
But my favourite season is spring.

[Cryptic Cadence]

I reckon the last line should be 'But my favourite season is spring'

And...'the trees have no leaves', plural.
'Protects me from being too much'

Re-reading.

[Cryptic Cadence]

A pretty lovely poem.
The way I see it, the narrator's loneliness is diagnosed by all the billboards that he/she sees, everyday a new story. The growth of him/her is by seeing these ads everday, I like how the 'anti-consumerist bones' is linked with growth. However all these modern stuff a far cry from nature has led the narrator to sit down sipping coke, a manufactured diagnosis to the ailment.

Your way of lashing out at the modern day?

[Sean Sweeney]

Yeh, several mistakes. I intended to go to preview then re-read, to spot mistakes. But I pressed submit by accident.

EDIT: Just discovered the edit function. I feel like and old fart.

[Sean Sweeney]

Apathetic dis-approval is more appropriate than "lashing out". Haha.

[Cryptic Cadence]

But of course

I am going to re-read it once I get back from some errands. I am still trying to figure out the scoundrel bit.

[kozmikdave]

Gidday Sean

I found this a little disjointed in the reading of it. The rhythm seems to break up a bit.

I know what you are getting at, and I like many of the ideas, e.g. brandalism, but maybe they could have been worked in more smoothly and as part of a flow of ideas.

I have a choice to grow, anti-consumerist bones
But I'll wait
To finish my swell can of brand name cola.

Still not sure about these lines. Are you sure you want to put a comma after "grow"? Why protect the brandname? "Swell" is a word I have only experienced in American comics. It took me a bit by surprise. Not sure if I like that either. But then again there is a certain naivety about it I enjoy.

The trees have no leaves
So I should probably buy better ones.
My garden looks like autumn
But my favourite season is spring.

Not sure what happened in this final verse. For me it seemed to have no purpose other than to trail the ending off into some random backwater. Hoped for a stronger ending. I thought we were in the country somewhere, maybe a farmhouse by the highway. So that part didn't do it for me.

Maybe, the poem just didn't quite paint the scene all that well and it needs some extra bits of colour to point me in the right direction.

I hope this crit doesn't seem too negative. It is not meant to put you down in any way. Too many good things in the poem to leave it unfinished though.

[Cryptic Cadence]

I thought the ending was great, it shows a kind of annoyance to society, but somehow I didn't get the link to the rest of the poem either. I know there is a link, there is right?

I agree with kozmik to some extent, it is a bit uneven, but the use of clever words like 'brandalism' show great potential to a stronger poem. I can't say how exactly or what though because I'm just a beginner.

Cheers

[Sean Sweeney]

Cheers for the crit. The negative stuff is usually the useful stuff anyways. The last verse, I agree it feels totally detatched. But there's something there that I want to keep. Something about spending money to change the seasonal look in ones garden. As for protecting the brand name, nah. I just thought, Coca Cola and pepsi are really the only useable ones and didn't think they fitted in that well.

"Swell" being a reference to the Americanisation of the world. And I think it does have connotations of naivety.

The comma after grow is an accident. Not sure how or why.

Painting a scene? I'm not sure. I suppose I didn't want it to be tied down like a scene. More a narrative of someone that is increasingly becoming aware, this is not how life is suppose to be. But too set in their ways, to ever try and change it.

I'm knackered. Just back from an interesting poetry reading . So excuse the *generic list of things my excuse covers.