Two poems

Here is a poem and what might have been the lyrics to a grunge song (if I had written it ten years ago). When I attempt poetry at least half of it comes out as song lyrics, predictable rhyme scheme and all. So, my apologies in advance for those of you who hate that sort of thing.

Plugged in

The sound floats over the green
To you
Drives over the green
Through you
Electric rhythm
Like a D-cell on your tongue
And the things around you come alive
As if it was their state of being
That changed
When you entered this world
And not yours


The mirror

don’t put your trust in me
won’t you just let me be
it makes me self-conscious to be praised
and all i want to do is hide
or just be erased

all of my life
hunger and strife
and it’s my own fault
locked in my own vault
by shame’s assault

it’s not alright to say
can’t make my tongue relay
how all the lies you told me now come true
and yet you set fire to my mind
and the flames burned blue

electric touch
feeling too much
choking to tell you
heart beats a tattoo
it is a clue

why can’t i be
the man i see
in the mirror of your eyes

Well I'm not good at describing poetry, I always sound very technical and removed. I liked the first one abunch, it has this neat drum-beat syncopation to it. As well there is this delicious jolt of sorts between the 6th and 7nth lines where the rhythm undergoes a sudden change.

For the second one. There is an oddly uncomfortable familiarity to it, especially the first stanza. Now don't get me wrong I use "uncomfortable" here to describe a feeling inspiried, not my opinion of your poetry. It [The Mirror] inspiresthis feeling of uncomfortable openness, it [the poem] is also vaguely familiar for some reason.

By the way, do you live in the British isles or Ireland?

I'm glad you liked the first poem. I think I know where you are getting the idea that I've comr from the UK or Ireland, but no, I'm from the U.S. midwest. I just read a lot and I liked the color reference "the green" gives me. I don't play golf - LOL.

When you say the other poem seems uncomfortably familiar... I'm not sure I understand your meaning. Does it seem derivative of something else you may have read? Some of the phrases in it describe things I've written about in posts to the previous incarnation of the forums, but those were more along the lines of prose essays, and I don't think you had any replies on those threads, so I don't know if you read them.

This worries me in some way. I know some of the lines (like "all of my life, hunger and strife") seem sort of over used phrases - well, they do to me, anyway. But I don't think I am copying any other poetry or song lyrics I have read/heard. Just to be sure, I just did line by line searches on the google engine, some individual lines come up alot (like I said, they felt overused) but nothing which would lead me to believe that I might have plagerized or stolen them from anywhere. Certainly no set of two lines have come up on the same page of any of my results, and very little poetry at all.

Still, this worries me. Perhaps I should edit the post and withdraw the poem.

Plugged in

The sound floats over the green
To you
---Nice concrete image to open with
---I wonder if you should capitalise by 'sentence' or some simlar unit rather than every line, to make it easier to parse/understand?

Drives over the green
Through you
Electric rhythm
Like a D-cell on your tongue
--- I love this simile

And the things around you come alive
---Another good line

As if it was their state of being
That changed
When you entered this world
And not yours
---I think there is something really good in this line which ties the poem together and gives it a message, but I am groping around it a bit. I am not sure what you could me by 'yours'. The person is in your/shared world making it more electric/alive. But I have trouble seeing how they could be in a world that was only theirs?


Overall, pithy, technically clean and thought-provoking.

Originally Posted by know1nozme

I think I know where you are getting the idea that I've comr from the UK or Ireland, but no, I'm from the U.S. midwest. I just read a lot and I liked the color reference "the green" gives me. I don't play golf - LOL.

Actually, It was your use of the word "tattoo" as a kind of beat or rhythm. A tattoo is a kind of pipe and drum number often played in Scotland, Ireland, and England, yet in the U.S. it is used almost exclusively to mean skin art.

Originally Posted by know1nozme

When you say the other poem seems uncomfortably familiar... I'm not sure I understand your meaning. Does it seem derivative of something else you may have read? Some of the phrases in it describe things I've written about in posts to the previous incarnation of the forums.

This worries me in some way. I know some of the lines (like "all of my life, hunger and strife") seem sort of over used phrases - well, they do to me, anyway. But I don't think I am copying any other poetry or song lyrics I have read/heard.

Oh no, not "familiar" in the sense of having read it before, or that yours is not original work. I mean familiar in the sense that the feelings that you are describing seem oddly familiar to me, in a way that is non-specifically uncomfortable. This kind of thing though is a mark of effective writting. Please do not withdraw it

Thanks for the clarification. I won't withdraw the work. I'm glad it produced an effect, however unsettling that may have been.