Poetry / Timeless People
The Thesis:
The birth-cradle, between survival and progress
Sumerian sands, eroding well formed gilded statues
Of priests, reverently clasped and regular
A king, eye-level with the Sun-God,
In point and line etched the corpus of our state,
Laws of priests and men that echo and contemplate
The root of all things equal
Ancient people, timeless people, breathed deeply
When the sands were quiet
And repay when the blade came close
The Antithesis:
Black oil in the veins of self-made Gods
Hawks with lazy eyes make an idol of Mars
And call it Justice and Progress,
White men exporting democracy in swift muzzle flashes
Brown men returning theocracy in roadside mine thunder
Quoting long-dead necessities
But blood and sand makes houses and people sink
The Synthesis:
The transgressions of modern man, not wise, not primitive
Stealing the lives of white and brown men,
Stealing the homes of paupers,
Stealing their moral superiority from people trying to live
Our Way in an ancient crossroads
Where they wrote the Law in stonehearts and left room for revenge
A Timeless People will repay with God-terror
When the sun and sons of sons descend
And the sands between the Styx and the Lethe burn like gasoline
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Political poetry is chancy. When it works, it is wondrous to behold. When it doesn’t it grates like an ugly metaphor.
This, my friend, is a wonder to behold. It’s by-god poetry, and I enjoyed reading it!
One technical quibble:
“Ancient people, timeless people, breathed deeply
When the sands were quiet
And repay when the blade came close”
The tenses in “breathed” and “repay” do not match, and pulled me out of the rhythm for a moment. And for contrasts sake, “breathed..and…repay” works better as “breathed…but…repay (repaid)”
Beautiful work overall, though.
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Of priests, reverently clasped <- by what?
of priests and men <- I’d cut the “of priests” here unless you are going for the repetition.
And repay when <-whom for what?
make an idol of Mars <- the hawks are men and Mars is the god of war? I like it, but it is a little obscure.
Is wise really the antonym for primitive?
How do they steal moral superiority? Seems they already have that.
Our Way is an…???
Was revenge part of the law (rather than leaving room for it)?
I like sun and son of sons alot.
I would think that the sands between Styx and Lethe would always burn, being in Hades and all.
Despite my loads of criticism on your works, I see genius here. I think that part of the problem for me, though, is that your poems have a pedantic quality. They have deep religious themes, which are usually highly emotional topics, but there is no passion from the author. I would like to see you inject your poetry with your feelings about the topics of which you write.
All of that said, very nicely done. As you described, polemic theme, abstracted by metaphor and at times cryptic. You deliver on your goals with grace, and that is reflected in my goal rating. Keep writing!
First, please put in some periods. It puts a lot of strain on the reader to interpret line breaks and sentence ends – which isn’t what you want. You want to encourage the reader to keep reading. Also, it’ll help the flow.
I like the thesis/antithesis/synthesis bit. Ponit, opposite, combining… Clever.
When the sun and sons of sons descend—♥ Nice.
State/contemplate rhyme? Neat.
I like the mythology refrences, esp. Lethe, surprised me. Not well known. Nice.
All in all, I like this piece. i would just work on flow. Its a bit stumbley, I think you could smooth it over. But seriously? I’m impressed. Go Team You!
Love, love.
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