zodiac9 Dec 2005

1. Well, it's good that you're writing sentences. Where it falls apart is that it's essentially "Glaring at drops of steel. Striking out. Whipping up. Venting to peace" instead of "He glared at drops of steel. He struck out. He whipped up, venting to peace" and so on. Some good poetry pulls off all -ing nonsentences, but not a lot. And a whole lot of bad poetry tries it and doesn't pull it off. Anyway, it's become a pet peeve of mine lately. Practically speaking, I would try to make sure each sentence in those first two stanzas has an explicit subject, something like:

He glared at the glowing drops of steel
As they dripped from the scarred anvil
Like beads of tempered rain running
Into crevice and crack like red lightning.
Forks streaked cross charcoal sky
From whence rain came as cool ash
Damping breathing, calming the very soul.


2. You've edited this? Or I've slept some finally? Anyway, now it's obvious the rain is like cool ash.

3. Yes, I understand that. But it's (unfortunately) as much the non-downtrodden's responsibility to solve the problems as it is the downtrodden's. The downtrodden can't by themselves. That's why we call them downtrodden, because someone is (we are) crushing them down. At any rate, you can't hold them to our more-priveleged standard. That's what being priveleged means, by the way: that we have the privelege to control and change our lives. And how many priveleged people do you know that have managed to improve THEIR situations?