Was to eat and excrete, and then die.
If Mick Jagger can't get any girl
reaction,
Then how in the hell can I
Expect to find meaning, do something
worthwhile,
Or even know pleasure and joy?
Stand me next to my idols; take a
gander, a glance.
I'm a puppet who looks up to boys.
Yet I saw more in five years than some
see in whole lives.
I've done things that some folks never
do.
Perhaps this impression I've carved of
myself
Is too based on a setback or two,
But I'm still on my feet and I'm back
on two wheels,
Back with vengeance and vigor and vim,
Writing poems and notes for a novel or
two,
Bending volumes and words to my whim.
Yes, I'm beating my odds with a cricket
bat's flat,
and I'm hitting all sixes and fours.
If an unpublished poet hits some of his
marks,
What's to stop you from hitting all
yours?
I really like the 2nd half of the poem (starting with the line "Perhaps this impression"). It shows an ability to reevaluate oneself and discover a more optimistic (and I would say realistic) outlook for oneself and for others.
ReplyDeleteI think the first half of the poem has potential, and certainly deserves to be there to give context and foundation for the 2nd half. But I would probably reword most of it (although not the line about "eat, excrete, and then die", that was great).
Thanks for the feedback!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations! You are the first reader who as found one of the "seams" in my poems and then told me about it. I have often complained to some of my writer friends that poems I write in multiple sittings or out of order have "seams." That is, even months after I finish them, I can still tell where I went back to fill in lines.
I find that extremely interesting because I typically find my "seams" a lot more obvious in poems written in multiple sittings. This one was written over a period of an hour or 90 minutes, just out of order. The original inspiration was the first couplet (which I was completely smitten with, at the time expecting it to lead to a completely different poem than the one I ended up writing). Then I wrote the second half of the poem--backwards, before writing the rest of the first half as a bridge between the beginning and the turn. As is almost always the case, the work went very fast at the beginning, and then the filling-in went much more slowly and took more time to accomplish.
Apparently, you can detect workshopped, workaday bridge lines as distinct from my manic-inspired writing--and you prefer the latter.
Also, I was thinking of you when I rhymed "whim" and "vim."