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Brake Failure

I thought
I saw his eyes
in the headlights

staring,
numb,

blind to change,
open to adaptation;

tight-twisted with colored sugars
to sweeten past paths
and make the hard roads
seem

softer.

Myopia helped him forget
about human beings;

free and equal,
with dignity
and rights.

It helped him define mankind by its color
and strength of mind by its sex

and he forgot

that humanity is endowed with reason,
conscience,
and an inner spirit of brotherhood.

***

It didn't matter
whether I turned left

or right

because
when the brakes failed
he was still dead on impact.

Style / type: 
Free verse
Review Request (Intensity): 
I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back
Editing stage: 

Comments

Damn, woman, this is good. All the elements of a poem that make poetry poetry.

You gots skills.

I have no favourite lines, to take any would be like coitus interruptus. ;-)

~A

I am pleased you enjoyed this. ~Pamela

.. .

~"It's ALL about the Poetry~

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author comment

but as many of your recent poems, lacking in prosodic quality. It is a statement in fact more than a poem. Prose.

I wouldn't necessarily suggest changes, it feels like a cathartic poem, but it could be better poetry.

You know the drill, assonance, alliteration, references, meter and as a last resort, rhyme.

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

Hmm.
It is hard lined.

so

more of this:

tight-twisted with colored sugars
to sweeten past paths
and make the hard roads
seem

softer

Yes?

.. .

~"It's ALL about the Poetry~

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author comment

Hmmmm. It was *just enough* for my tastes, Pamela.

I overdose on too much sweetness, it's my poetic metabolism that needs balance.

~A

your comments could give much more

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

I find it hard to have my poems show rather than tell. I think that is what the Weirdelf is getting at.

vexations

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

I believe this is exactly where Jess is going. Less tell - more show.
I will be working on this one.

Thank you. ~Pamela

.. .

~"It's ALL about the Poetry~

Please join us in The Shark Pool

author comment

Okay, first I must defend my territory. Jess suggested that you go to rhyme as a last resort. I say we start with it and discuss meter right after, but that's me. I think you know by now I find little to love in free verse. I should now go on a rampage about "the loss of music that is the heart of poetry" or "where is the lyricism?", but I won't. Like Byron, I just like my rhymes. Now, I don't care if this is poetry or prose. It's freaping jarring is what it is. Like the business card guys were handing around a couple of decades ago to girls that had written on it an introduction. A quick bit about being too shy to talk to girls, so he resorts to this card. It offers an evening before a fire with wine talking about poetry and philosophy, great literature, perhaps the stage....and then we can F...
Like I said. Jarring.
I think I just described a successful poem. You managed to rattle my cage.
wesley

W. H. Snow

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds. Percy Bysshe Shelley

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It is meant to jar.
Left and Right referring to left wing/right wing.
It is free verse -
Does it sing? Not like a standard poetic jingle but the hum that creates the din before the explosion makes reading this one aloud worth the energy.

Thank you again. As I am learning; you hear my words. ~Pamela

.. .

~"It's ALL about the Poetry~

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author comment

The only thing I would suggest changing is to swap places with 1st and 2nd lines............stan

I am not sure that swapping those lines does what I want that first stanza to do. I want readers to wonder why it matters. Clarity in that line is essential. Thank you though. ~Pamela

.. .

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author comment

I think the thing some forget is that free verse is very contemporary and modern compared to rhyme, this to me has enough metaphor that shows the poem and the right amount to tell the story, I know you've been working hard on your free verse and it shows. Liking what I see.

Chez
"The perfect woman perpetrates literature as she does a small sin: as an experiment, in passing, to see if anybody notices it - and to makes sure that somebody does." - Nietzsche

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