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Crime & Conscience

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crime & Conscience

 

 

Ah, regret.
Yes, I remember -
the discomfort that came
with those moving last words.
Such morality is priceless.
What if all of it were mine?
A wave of eloquence came on,
and I murdered him on paper.


By men of pious will and gentle hand,
With vigor was damnation's highway laid.
Remorse is mine, as av'rice doth demand.
I too have broken ground with pick and spade.


Dressed in tailored silk pathos,
he was put on display
for a room full of strangers,
who all thought he looked natural.
They bowed their heads.
I said something respectful.
We buried him in the page.
May his soul rest in peace.


As men employ the same in sowing seed,
I likewise plant reproach in fertile ground,
And to it tend with due redress of deed,
That thus might virtue sprout, and growth abound.


I stole away with his diary,
set sail aboard a metaphor,
bound for sunny island paradise
just off the coast of Hell.
Now I sip coconut-flavored drinks,
dangle toes in the surf,
plagiarize with impunity
in iambic pentameter.
The pundits say my counterfeits
are fresh and original.
For an intellectual, you see,
no effort is necessary.


For he shall reap naught from that earthly womb
Whose canny thought begets no honest toil;
The season'd coax what blossoms from its tomb,
Ere it forever rot in fecund soil.


Work is for the birds.
Hope you enjoy mine without me.
Feel my guilt while you're at it
- do let me know how that goes -
because I'm drowning my crimes
in this bottle of nowhere,
and I will never have to leave
while repentance still sells.


O hie me not to depths where devils loom.
Tonight I sleep, serene as splendor's bloom.


My flaws are magnificent.
Introspection is vandalism.
Beauty is what happens
when I kill time and wisdom.
Come revel in my brilliance;
help me launder my hubris.
The stagnation is breathtaking.
People tell me it's art.

Author notes



Be human. Be wrong sometimes. Make mistakes, and gain insight from the life lessons they teach you. Write poems about those lessons if it suits you. If your work is good enough, people who read it will give you plenty to feel good about.

If you are willing and able, you can look closely at yourself and say insightful things about what you see in ways that make people really think; and if you are also desperate and clever, you can do it without learning anything. Kill your conscience. Fill your ego with the praise you receive until your pride strikes you blind. How ironic: A pretty pearl of wisdom becomes just a pearl, and you miss your own point entirely.
Did you get that? Now ask yourself why I wrote this poem.



This is really sort of like three poems: a sonnet, a free-write, and a conglomeration of both. Both components have distinct meanings, but if you put them together as they are here, they play off of each other.

The left-justified section is written to mimic the language and style Shakespeare used in his sonnets ... which were written in iambic pentameter.

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Comments

1 - 5 of 5

  • Nam
    June 6

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    "Reproach I likewise plant in fertile ground," - the beginning of this line seems a tad shaky in that the "I" is after "Reproach" instead of before.

    "Work is for the birds, anyway." - going with the vocabulary of this poem, I feel "anyway" is a bit out-of-place. Perhaps a variant.

    Other than what I mention above, a really great poem. Nothing more to say than that.

    -Nam


  • rhondasail
    April 30

    Edit | Reply
    Rewording anothers words...clever write here...I don't know that I could write so well as this, but I do appreciate reading such scathing self-expose. There's a haughtiness in your writing that seems almost bitter, as though you've become jaded by your own talent and scoff at it, asking others to either learn or scoff with you...I may be way off base here, but that's my sense of this one. And the idea of plagiarizing seems to really tick you off too..Peace, Rhonda


  • Perception
    April 28

    Edit | Reply
    Omgosh. This is amazing. The words you use -- the metaphor - this is amazing. Really deserving of trophy.
    Wow. Just. Wow.
  • Finalist

    I thought it was really good, kind of like a confession.
  • hilly
    April 7

    Edit | Reply
    lol, you don't have to bribe to get a critique. and anyone that will give a critique solely for having hundreds of points won't give you a good one anyway. i wasn't going to comment, but you are sounding a bit pathetic. although i understand.

    anyways, i love it. i think people haven't commented yet because they don't know how to approach it, and they don't feel like they're at a level where they're allowed to give opinions. i don't really feel like i am either, but i definitely love it. i'm not much for shakespeare type of stuff, but i really loved the stuff on the right. you had to kind of get into every line individually, because ideas were quick. i think thats why i loved it so much.
1 - 5 of 5