Race_9togo

Nov 07, 2010 ⭐ View statistics (Premium feature)

Window Of Despair

In flickers of a TV screen
a thousand tales speed by,
bereft of all imagination,
without the briefest hesitation,
except where sponsors scream
about the useless filth they ply.

Through this window of despair,
a thousand souls all live and die,
each second of each life flayed open,
butterflied between each slogan
so carefully designed to snare
the careless sweep of each mind's eye.

Within dry skulls of talking heads,
no single thought of care resides,
except sly drive to increase ratings
with ghoulish unrelenting matings
Of sex and war and dignity's shreds
left behind when all truth dies.

So choose now, choose well:
a life filled with experience and thought,
or bleak existence pared to nothing
by corporate greed and network cunning,
touted as the antidote to hell
Where watchers in reality are caught
in joyless voids of other's making.

About This Poem

Style/Type: Structured: Western

Review Request Direction: What did you think of my title?
How was my language use?
What did you think of the rhythm or pattern or pacing?
How does this theme appeal to you?
How was the beginning/ending of the poem?
Is the internal logic consistent?

About the Author

Region, Country: Earth Vicinity (within a five light-year radius), ZZC

Favorite Poets: John Donne, T.S. Eliot, Serendipity, Emily Dickenson, Kailashana, Charles Bukowski, Kabir, Rett, Dalton, W. B. Yeats, William Blake, Rainer Maria Rilke, and many other Neopoet poets; Neopoet has heavily influenced my poetry and my ability to write it well.

Comments

anonymous1

14 years 8 months ago

Nice

I like your poem, Jim. It's a very good commentary.

The second and third stanzas stand out to me with precise images set up with good lines such as window of despair and within dry skulls of talking heads.

I don't think the title suits the tone of the poem. I think the tone deserves a more serious introduction. Boob Tube is too informal.

The internal logic is consistent for me but the first line in the final stanza is jarring to me because it seems preachy. I think it's better to lead readers to their own conclusions about what to do or how to feel.

The rhythm is well defined in your line endings. I like the partial rhyming.

I hope you find this critique useful and I'd be happy to hear from you on that account.

Thank you,
Lisa

Race_9togo

14 years 8 months ago

Hey thanks Lisa

Glad that you enjoyed it.
Yes, I agree, the title sucks. I think I'll use Judyanne's suggestion, it's much more appropriate.
I don't think I'll change the last verse thoug, I like it, it is supposed to jar, it puts the reader on the spot, makes the reader think about it, and reinforces the choice that I have already made.
Thanks again,

Nordic cloud

14 years 8 months ago

the flow of this and the language is very enjoyable.

Just when I reached the last verse I was put slightly out by the rhythm having changed from the rest of the poem, perhaps this is meant, or perhaps I didn't get it so well myself, otherwise the flow of this and the language is very enjoyable.

Maybe feeling that the contents of the last verse also break from the character of the piece like Lisa.

Swinging Race_9togo, with love from Nordic cloud.

Race_9togo

14 years 8 months ago

Thanks Ann,

The last verse is deliberately different, to grab and unsettle.
I'll have to think about the first line now, since both you and Lisa seem to feel the same about it.
Glad you liked it.

judyanne

14 years 8 months ago