Win A Peg!

blueinthefaceblueintheface Posts: 153
edited February 2006 in Poetry, Prose, Music & Art
NEED CRITICISM!!

Winnipeg sits trapped
in dirty snow
and dirty politics.

Salt spills from trucks
in the night, those
yellow lights flashing, dilating
our drunken pupils
and driving the broken streets
that the City Council still hasnt fixed.

The city sits in silences,
no one stirs,
no one understands the faces they see
everyone is hiding
so no one knows where to look.
So we try and look at the stars
the beautiful icons of light
spawned out over the dying Canada sky.
Oh how blinded we have come
for the lights of capitalism
block out those dead celestial creatures.

No one is afraid of the dark.
We're just scared that the starlight shows
that which the sun never did.
"be a philosopher but, amid all your philosophy, be first a man" - david hume

Mitch Hedberg- RIP 1968-2005. your jokes have laughed me through a lot. I thank you.
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • NEED CRITICISM!!

    Winnipeg sits trapped
    in dirty snow
    and dirty politics.

    Salt spills from trucks
    in the night, those
    yellow lights flashing, dilating
    our drunken pupils
    and driving the broken streets
    that the City Council still hasnt fixed.

    The city sits in silences,
    no one stirs,
    no one understands the faces they see
    everyone is hiding
    so no one knows where to look.
    So we try and look at the stars
    the beautiful icons of light
    spawned out over the dying Canada sky.
    Oh how blinded we have come
    for the lights of capitalism
    block out those dead celestial creatures.

    No one is afraid of the dark.
    We're just scared that the starlight shows
    that which the sun never did.

    If you're trying to address something as broad as corruption and capitalism, don't even mention them by name, just give us the examples and the images that make them so stark as to necessitate a poem. "How blinded we have come by the lights of a Wal-Mart parking lot" or something like that.

    Otherwise I'd say the poem needs to be simplified, because you are trying to take on too much in the short space of the poem, or it needs to be lengthened to really ellicit the background and environment that makes such a depressing tone to the poem.

    I like the ending though and the second stanza, I think the first could be a lot stronger.
  • Ms. HaikuMs. Haiku Washington DC Posts: 7,265
    Try the poem without the first section. It weakens the poem because of the "dirty politics" cliche. The rest is much stronger without it.
    There is no such thing as leftover pizza. There is now pizza and later pizza. - anonymous
    The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
  • I actually like your first stanza, but i read it like an action comic link... ie something that bruce willis might say in sin city.... your writing is very lucid and unadorned...

    Oh how blinded we have come
    for the lights of capitalism
    block out those dead celestial creatures.

    thats very trad shakespear to me... but modern all the same.

    pm me and I will let you have the forwarding address for the peg. if im the winner.
    Salut baloo
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