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.

Uneducated guests

Submitted by vandiemenspeak on Thu, 2017-10-26 07:21

They teach them to think in corners
Away from you and I
The rabble in the middle ground
Their secret hope: we slowly die

While light drips earned, accumulate
Around their growing spot
For greatness is their predicate
Our liveliness is not

They teach, they learn, and yet we burned
Our books, a long long time has passed
And while we dream of greater things
Their secret wish: that we were gassed

Style / type: 
Structured: Western
Review Request (Intensity): 
I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back
Last few words: 
Just getting back into the swing still, a political piece, maybe, a tad. On our place, in our "classless society", in the education system, and the notion of entitlement. There is a thing called irony at play here too.
Editing stage: 
Editing - draft

Comments

Geezer

Thu, 2017-10-26 16:19

Geezer's picture
Volunteer badge

I am not convinced that I see an entitlement part, but I'm sure that there will be someone out there that will. It may be that I am so close to the bottom that I see the top only as something out of focus and too far for me to reach. The last stanza, the first two lines don't seem to match the rest of the flow. I get what you want to express, but it needs work to bring it into the rhythm. ~ Geezer.
.

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.

Eumolpus

Fri, 2017-10-27 13:52

Eumolpus's picture

as one of your fans I totally understand the very skittish muse we have to deal with. When I lose mine (Seem my poem - Midnight Collapse) it's a drag. I get it back by re-reading the the poets/poems that got me to where I was, doing exercises like writing sonnets, or those I mentioned recently- 20 poetry projects by Jim Simmerman .
I have recently seen 3 films at the Australian film festival here about this subject (DC has like 50 film festivals a year...at the embassy). For a political poem you need to find the place that is neither too polemic or too abstract. In this case, I'm lost. The secret wish of "them" whose wish is slowly die or be gassed. I would be very cautious about the second reference, 6 million Jews were gassed recently (65 years ago) and the image to me is unsettling. Otherwise, I need more information about them, about we...perhaps put yourself more in the poem.
I think I understand what you are suggesting in this poem- that the teachers are disingenuous and would really much preferred genocide of the "undesirables" rather than incorporating them into society via education. (??)
,

Eumolpus
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance
ee cummings

vandiemenspeak

Sat, 2017-10-28 07:35

vandiemenspeak's picture
Volunteer badge

And gathering my muse up off the floor. I will return. Eumo is correct, i need to do more reading, commenting before I get back into it. There may be just one more.."waffer thin" poem..though. Thanks for getting the general gist geezer.

Chris Hall - Tasmania

Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince's stores and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince's stores.

author comment
(c) Neopoet.com. No copyright is claimed by Neopoet to original member content.