Join the Neopoet online poetry workshop and community to improve as a writer, meet fellow poets, and showcase your work. Sign up, submit your poetry, and get started.
As I Write
As I write a girl is being raped somewhere
and a bomb is falling or a shell whizzing
or a grenade exploding or a gun firing.
Yes, the global village is here to stay:
we can't escape from ghastly earth-facts.
As an antidote to so much pain,
I try to think of people making love
right now, all the world over,
in varying positions, grasping pleasure,
or mothers kissing new-born babes,
or carefree children playing games.
And animals have their ups and downs,
some eating, others being eaten,
dogs running or kept on short chains,
horses rolling on their backs in fields,
or being whipped by heartless men.
This earth, at any time, is just a stream
of good and evil, light and shade.
I'd like to be a Buddhist and accept
this mixture philosophically,
but as a would-be poet it's too hard
to see life logically.
Editing stage:
(c) Neopoet.com. No copyright is claimed by Neopoet to original member content.
User login
Author information
Region & Country
Asturias, Spain
Favorite Poets
Chaucer, Shakespeare, Du Bellay, Metaphysicals, Petrarch, Dante, Baudelaire, Lorca, Becquer, Coleridge
Other recent work
Active Workshops & Contests
Contest
Workshop
- Splash Pool: How to use imagery in poetry..
- Wading Pool: Neopoet How To Video Resources
- Olympic Pool: Earn A Poem Workshop 2
- Olympic Pool: Earn A Poem Workshop 1
- Plunge Pool: Stream Workshop
Comments
lovedly
Tue, 2014-07-15 14:37
As I write a girl is being raped somewhere
enough
the rest we can imagine
a girl is being raped
somewhere
everywhere
in the universe
what men do you traverse
from bad to worse
they still can think of only by the lower head
they daily converse
and orphanly rehearse
Robert Melliard
Tue, 2014-07-15 14:51
Not sure I fully understand
this comment, especially what you mean by "orphanly", but thanks anyway.
Best wishes,
Robert.
author commentraj
Tue, 2014-07-15 16:34
Robert
I liked the way you have expressed your anguish about the goings on around us and wondering if there is an antidote to reverse the mayhem at least to an extent...good wishful thinking....your empathy about animals is pretty profound...I feel the two liner in S2 could work better if you club it with S1...just a suggestion...
Regards,
raj (sublime_ocean)
Robert Melliard
Tue, 2014-07-15 18:23
I like
your suggestion about joining the second stanza with the first, so I will follow it up. Also glad you seem to 'get' the poem in general, and the way you especially like the animal bit. Animals are so helpless against man's cunning, aren't they? Because of that I sometimes find myself feeling sorrier for them than I do for people, although I know that's wrong. Thanks for your comment.
Best wishes,
Robert.
author commentweirdelf
Fri, 2014-08-22 10:12
It's not wrong
humans are in conflict with at least some choice.
Animals are purely victims in dealing with us.
cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry
Geezer
Wed, 2014-07-16 17:22
I see your point...
when you say that sometimes you pity the animals more than humans. You feel much as the rest of us do; that we should know better than to inflict such pain upon others. I'm not sure that we have evolved much more than those animals! Besides, I have seen some pretty amazing acts of compassion from animals. Witness the ape that watched over a young boy that fell into an enclosure with it. or the many dog stories of them staying with sick and injured people until they were rescued. Or how about that dog that grieved for a man by staying at the train station all the rest of its' life when the man died and didn't return at his usual time. Yes, the world is full of good and evil, shadow and light. Without the darkness, there can be no light, without Ying there is no Yang. I suspect that this is the way that nature will always be. We are just animals all, under the skin. Flesh and blood, skin and bone. To put it simply, we are just a part of this world we live in. The only difference between us and the animals, is that we can speak and write. This is a good write! ~ Gee
There is value to commenting and critique, tell us how you feel about our work.
This must be the place, 'cause there ain't no place like this place anywhere near this place.
Robert Melliard
Wed, 2014-07-16 22:09
Animals
Having grown up practically as an only child (my brother was much older than me) with a dog as my best friend, I find all mistreatment of animals painful to watch. I believe they know a lot more than we realize, usually thanks to their being more in touch with their instincts than we are. I love the examples you mention of animal compassion or faithfulness. As to the idea of the world as a mixture of darkness and light, this perception helped me a lot in gradually recovering from the effect of my brother's suicide. Some events are unacceptable unless one can learn to see the world in this way. I'm glad you you tuned in to this poem.
Best wishes,
Robert.
author commentweirdelf
Fri, 2014-08-22 10:14
I am starting to appreciate that much of your work
has been underestimated, I include myself, by mistaking your straight-forward, honest approach for a lack of poetic qualities.
My sincere apologies.
You are a fine poet.
cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry