Resemble

[adder]

Not a stroke of smoke, from the cottage in the village
not a minute, for the shepard to play his soothing flute
not a flower did blossom, nor a bumblebee born
nor the grave of a child, did the mourners adorn.

The houses are silent, the arches are stolen,
the streets are violent, the windows are broken. .

The town has lost its rythm and beat
the dead are being carried, from street to street.

Look! These people do not look dead
they resemble a blown out candle,
which could have gave light instead.

They are not old, they are too young to be dead
they resemble a lantern, though it is not alight,
if it wasn't for oil, it still has enough oil to ignite.

People! I can't be bothered anymore
For the good, the bad and the hopeful, i don't care anymore
though i do not distance myself from people, anymore
I don't care about their agenda anymore.

The houses are silent, the arches are stolen,
the streets are violent, the windows are broken........... .

[Nicola]

Hi adder

Welcome to the forum. Please read the rules - viewtopic.php?f=25&t=3497

If you do some crits on other poems you will get some response to your own.

Thanks
Nicola

[kozmikdave]

Gidday & welcome Adder (reference to maths or herpetology???)

I was just about to react to your poem and then noticed you haven't done your crits yet. Tut tut. Shouldn't take you long.

[rye]

The first verse and stanzas (to the words "street") are very good..imagery, rhyme, and meter
These I would bring to your attention:
In the line.."which could have gave light instead." I wondered if the verb shouldn't be "given" not "gave."
The stanzas from the words "Look" to "ignite" are fairly good
But the ending address "People, I don't care" That is a cliche, the entire verse ending in "anymore" is a cliche.
Just saying.."I don't care" fizzles the impact..It might be best to do a rhymed, metered stanza like the first stating why and what there isn't to care about and repeat the refrain..
I like how the poem goes..but I am not certain about where it goes..
Just my honest opinion..not an expert..As a reader, I found much to like in this poem..

[azathoth]

so
as to stanza 1: very arresting story unfolding immediately, succinctly intriguing. What use is the punctuation though? I'm not sure that you mean to say that the mourners neglected to adorn the smoke, the absent fluting interval, the unblossoming flowers etc.? it doesn't logical or grammatical sense to have the stanza as a whole sentence. Why not remove the commas and period? or else change the "nor" in line 5 to "not" because it doesn't make sense to make the mourner's inaction with the grave linked to rest with "nor", you could remove the period at the end to remove the idea that it is all one sentence, and preserve the commas for line breaks if you want. anyway I think returning to not after the nor in the previous line could emphsize the lines significance.
Also, in line 3 "not a flower did blossom, nor a bumblebee born" the "did" seems unncesary, it could just be "not a flower blossomed" which would be less awkward and would further the parellelism of the two ideas.

and stanza 5 just plain confuses me. What is this comparison to lantern? line 3 doesn't make sense, "if it wasn't for oil", do you mean they would resemble an unlit lantern "if it wasn't for oil"? frankly, "though it is not alight/ if it wasn't for oil" seems nonsensical.

all the "anymore"s in stanza 6 read sort of awkward, no suggestions there though.

in general I'd say lose the punctuation throughout the whole poem, it confused me trying to figure out how lines that stood alone connected grammatically to other lines.

a smooth meditative poem, with a resolution that holds together with the tone, i think
I liked it anyway

[keekee107]

I adored the first few stanzas but I thought it kind of lost it's way at stanza 5. This seemed to be a lot of repetition and labouring/elaboration of the previous stanza. If it was me I think I would cut this stanza out. It doesn't seem necessary to the poem and makes the poem seem too long and as if it is going nowhere.

Like others have mentioned I had big problems with stanza 6. The repetition of 'anymore' - although I'm sure was deliberate ruins the rhythm of the poem and jars with the rest of it. I also was not keen on: 'People! I can't be bothered anymore' this line very much either. It's highly colloquial and because of this almost meaningless - which jars with the rest of the poem and almost makes it lose it's meaning and the effect of the meaning. I also agree with the fact that 'gave' should be 'given'.

Overall I did like this though and parts of it were excellent. I loved some of the imagery, the flow and the sounds. Nice.