poemranker ::Epitaph by philn

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Free verse № 100839

Epitaph

by philn

Member since 2004 · Posted 7 May 2004 · 7 comments

If all the world's a stage I made my entrance long ago Into the middle class, downtrodden caste That I have called my home. Reared to love convention And to hate all that is free I have traded self-reliance And embraced conformity I sought six figure jobs And I wed the richest wife For without dollars, there's no sense In living out this life I hid well these bloodstained hands Bitter as an unshed tear And I have built myself a tower Of ambition through the years But Babel and my fortunes fell One dark and dreary day So I sought to sneak through heaven's gates Stolen wings and evil ways Now I black out this brief candle My monologue is done The curtain call, the exit The breath of God is gone.

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mean 6.43 weighted 5.38 rank 3231 views 237 View voting details →

7 votes so far. Yours would make 8.7 votes so far

7 comments

[n/a] zodiac 7-May-04/5:23 AM Reply
If ever a poem was in need of a good smacking, it's this one.
[10] Stephen Robins 7-May-04/6:13 AM Reply
This poem is as entertaining as shopping with pants full of follow through, in a large out of town shopping centre, knowing that you have to get the bus home and someone has taken an overdose in the toilet affording you no possibility of discarding your soiled under garments.

-10_
[8] Nicholas Jones 7-May-04/6:56 AM Reply
Needs work, but I like it. It is the lot of the middle class to be ashamed of who they are - something not true of the poor or the rich. It is the bourgeois burden.
[n/a] zodiac › Nicholas Jones 7-May-04/7:08 AM Reply
What a load of crap. And anyway, he doesn't say the middle class is ashamed, he says it's downtrodden. This is also crap.
[10] Stephen Robins › Nicholas Jones 7-May-04/7:55 AM Reply
Of course being Welsh you are in your own seperate catergory which has no idea of how ashamed you should be of everyting they have ever done.
[8] Shuushin 7-May-04/7:53 AM Reply
Mechanically it's not to shabbily done, I'd say. The endrhymes weave without any noticeably intrusion.

The meter chugs right along, slightly bumpy toward the end there - but serves to let the reader know the station approaches. I'd try to hack out some of the conjunctions, in particular but carefully since it would affect the good flow.

Philosphically, I'm willing to accept it as a character perspective, one that although I personally don't quite relate to it, I can understand.

Have an Eight. A few more poetic techniques would notch it up pretty easily, given the success of the mechanics used.

[5] edpeterson 7-May-04/8:53 AM Reply
bunk