Friday, April 15, 2011

Blind Review Friday


The author shall remain anonymous (unless they chose to divulge themselves in the comments.)

Those commenting are also welcome to remain anonymous if they wish.

Incendiary comments will be removed.

If you would like your piece thrown to the wolves send it to salinger@ameritech.net with "Workshop the hell out of this poem" as the subject line.

This week's offering is from a Clevelandpoetics the Blog contributor.


Do you remember the angry poets
and how they rose to speak until
nothing could silence them
in the quest for justice
even for the homeless and vagrants
living under bridges
Taking
heat from driftwood
on fires burning in old rusting steel drums?
most gone now, as
power drained from their flesh.
still, some take the old words
over as if they had first voiced them,
now, just picking at the bones.


5 comments:

Geoffrey A. Landis said...

I really like this one-- poignant. (I know these poets!)
I'm finding it hard to find something to criticize here-- I'm sure there is probably a way to make it better, but I like already.
OK, one thing, you might capitalize the lines that begin sentences.

Spirit Poems said...

Last line...Why just picking at the bones...seems too easy of an ending...casting off...may be missing something.

Rob said...

I thought it was a tribute to the prophetic poets who pay the price for their radical ideas. The next generation usually picks them up as causes without actually paying the price. That's just sociology.

The capitalization bothered me too, then I realized it was an acrostic.

Geoffrey A. Landis said...

The capitalization bothered me too, then I realized it was an acrostic.

!!

OK, I missed that.

Anonymous said...

This is a sad Lament. I like it, poetically, but disagree with the observations. Obviously, this author believes in what the poets of the past attempted to accomplish and that "nothing could silence them", yet something apparently did. There seems to be some aspersions being cast upon those who "take the old words over", and yet, how else are these bygone poets to have any legacy? This is a sad lament.

Cited...

The poet doesn't invent. He listens. ~Jean Cocteau