Free verse № 127979
WHAT KIND OF FOOL ARE YOU?
How many fools have been found by love,
Empty, desolate, and longing,
Surrendered to their low estate
Finding that for which they had dared not hope?
How many have been made fools by love,
Certain of their lives and dreams,
Crushed upon the rocks of anguish,
Stripped of all they thought to be?
How many fools have forsaken love,
Hardened lonely and bitter,
Surrounded by walls of their own making,
Protected from all but their own selfishness?
How many fools have been revealed by love,
Bold, brash or embittered,
Squeezed until their heart pours forth,
The secrets they had hoped to retain.
12 comments
Verse 1, line 4 lost its time indicator in an edit that I should have reverted. There are plenty of empty words in that line that can be bumped for the needed clarity.
Your comments are considered and insightful. Such feedback is the reason that I tolerate certain others.
All snarky comments will be deleted. This is my "B" material. If I receive some constructive criticism that helps me turn it into good poetry then I'm happy with it. I'll not cast any pearls before rockmage.
I maintain some delusions or pretensions of being published during my lifetime, so I hold back on posting anything until I have some measure of objectivity. Book and magazine publishers want rights of first publication if they are going to pay for a piece. Those rights aren't available if you've published the material in any manner, including self-publishing or posting on the Internet.
Some people are prolific or polished enough that they could spew forth professional verse on a continuous basis. I'm not like that. I rely heavily on a system of constant revision to get the layers of flavor that I want into a poem. Like an accomplished chef, I might invite the opinions of others when working on an appetizer or a soup, but a new desert or entree will not see the light of day until it meets my demanding specifications.
My B material is "vestigial, workable." When it comes to my A material, I'm rather intransigent.
Nobody's said that. Probably everybody here knows, deep down, that they'll end up simply throwing away 99% of everything they've written and afterward they'll feel bad about defending it so long to internet critics.
I don't. And nobody should. Keep an open eye for sensible advices but don't ever forget who those critics are.
If I understand correctly:
rockmage = kaolin fire
This may not be "American Idol," but we have our own Simon. I think it would be easier to tolerate the abuses to which this kind of site is prone, if it was not the system admin who was the most obvious perpetrator.
I quit because I'm not making progress. I couldn't, not with a language not mine.
I wrote a couple poems in French while I was in highschool. Two of them were memorable enough to survive the religious purges that decimated my notebooks between 18 and 21. One is a bilingual poem inspired by the opera Carmen. The other became a passionate series of poems in an enjammed dimeter that leaves the reader as breathless as befits the subject matter.
It was worth doing. If it was the only thing that I had to do with my life, I would do it well. As it stands, I am fortunate to be able to write as much as I do.
...and the site, well, you're right. Largely because the posters *ARE* the critics. My point, ill-made as it was, is that we can scarce expect to attract better when we have a rabid dog in our 'midst. It's a shame to lose a talented individual who has already found the site and endured for as long as you have.
Me - We'd love to have our best work come out everytime we put pen to paper, but that is unfortunately not so.
zodiac - Nobody's said that. Probably everybody here knows... that they'll end up simply throwing away 99%...
We're probably like 3 blind people describing an elephant. We should be doing our best to write 'A' material. We don't always do as well as we'd like to do. Most of our efforts will end up in the can. That would be the trunk, leg and (umm) tail of the matter.
I threw out almost all of what I wrote in highschool, but I regreted it so much that I've kept everything since then. Editing what I've already written is how I prepare my mind to write more - like priming a pump. A small amount of it probably should be thrown away, but almost everything I write becomes pretty good eventually. By 'eventually' I mean 3 to 10 years. After that amount of time, I know how much I like spending time with the poem, which gives me some idea of how others might respond.
If I was writing full time then things would obviously go faster. The poems would mature much more quickly. I would have more in the "pipeline." I would probably also learn how to write directly into the computer rather than writing on paper and typing it in afterward. I think that I'll turn on "revision tracking" in Word and see how much it messes me up. I certainly write enough prose and essay-like material in worse text editors.
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