A Poem I wrote

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I finished writing this poem recently, after dabbling for a while. I think it sums up how I view other people quite well. I'd like to know what other people think of it, if you can spare the time.

Truth

Knowledge, wisdom, understanding,
Deeds of men all notwithstanding,

Above all else I value these,
To them I get down on my knees,

I seek them days, I seek them nights,
Among the stars, those dancing lights,

All their worth in truth residing,
Not with ignorance abiding,

Show me these and gain my favor,
Or contempt of mine you’ll savor,

Deeds of man so great and good,
Of them, in awe, I never stood,

But teach me you of something grand,
And stand I would at your right hand,

Till all my hair had turned to grey,
And all my days had passed away,

Here I sit, unsure, uncertain,
Waiting for some silken curtain,

To slide aright and show at last,
That truth resides not in the past,

It laps upon that future shore,
The truth that I do so adore,

It waits for me, it calls my name,
I seek it out, I feel no shame,

For if you ask me something wise,
I do not laugh or roll my eyes,

I do not know, I say to thee,
But soon I will, just wait and see.

I think you may have some minor mechanical flow issues. For example, i think you missed 2 syllables on line 10. I would make it something like "Or future contempt..."

Otherwise, I like the message very much. What other poetry have you done? Have you submitted this to anything?

I don't see what you mean about line ten. I count eight syllables.
In answer to your question, this is the only poem I have ever written, and I have never submitted it anywhere but here.

Th'archaic grammar and terms they pain me,
Ease off and then I will not blame thee!

Don't bend the words far out of shape,
Don't batter grammar so it breaks,
If you want your message heard,
Just stick to clear and simple words!

Seriously, your creativity is good*, but your delivery is too stilted and tortured - grammar and vocabulary should not be totally binding upon you but you should try not to use odd grammar just to make the words fit, and you shouldn't use a word like "thee" if you can't make "you" work.

*mine is nonexistent, so please don't take this hard. I can't write.

Pish-posh!

I like it. Just the way it is!

Grammar isn't everything, and bending grammatical rules, or even breaking them, sometimes works. I think it does here.

And I am one who is normally pained by the language you've chosen. But I find it works here, and doesn't pain me at all.

"Thee" WORKS with what you've done here. Don't use "you," because then you would have to change the entire feel of the poem.

Keep in mind though, that I'm primarily a lyricist, and not a poet, so I tend to hear poems spoken the way singers often interpret lyrics, creating syllables where none actually exist. Therefore, lines that don't seem to work syllabic-ally when read, work for me if I can manipulate them audibly in my imagination.

You've got some incredible imagery too.

"It laps upon that future shore," as well as many of your other metaphorical lines, works very well, and shows great imagination.

Now, for the constructive criticism:

The ONLY thing that bothers me about the piece is your strict adherence to AA, BB rhymes throughout the entire piece. That alone lends to a bit of boredom while reading it. The pattern is too repetitive.

You should try to break up the pattern. Try interweaving some of the lines into ABAB patterns, or maybe ABBA, in groups of four lines. I don't mean do the whole thing that way though. I mean do one in one place, and another in another place, balancing them over the flow of the entire piece.

It can be a bit hard to change line orders with a poem like this without scrambling the logical order of thoughts, but with some work it can be done:

For example,

Knowledge, wisdom, understanding,
Above all else I value these,
Deeds of men all notwithstanding,
To them I get down on my knees,

Works!

But this,

I seek them days, I seek them nights,
All their worth in truth residing,
Among the stars, those dancing lights,
Not with ignorance abiding,

kind of works

And this:


I seek them days, I seek them nights,
All their worth in truth residing,
Not with ignorance abiding,
Among the stars, those dancing lights,

Doesn't work at all.

You've got access to a computer man! Save a copy, or multiple copies of this, and mess with copying and pasting the lines in varied patterns, until you find what works. Look for balance, not symmetry so much. The best poetry mimics nature, and though there is symmetry in nature, it's usually only found when viewed with a narrow lens, like looking only at one stanza of your poem. When you back away and look at the larger picture though, that symmetry is contained in what looks like utter chaos, but also is very balanced. Think of a poem the same way.

In the case of this line pair:

It laps upon that future shore,
The truth that I do so adore,

I think would work better reversed:

The truth that I do so adore,
It laps upon that future shore,

And, that's one line pair I wouldn't break up, else it'll lose its meaning.

Just my opinion(s).

Thanks for your input MrXxx. I thought about changing the pattern a bit, but since this is my first poem, I wanted to keep it simple. I focused on writing what I felt, and I adhered to the AA BB pattern because it was easy and didn't distract from what I was doing. I also have a thing for consistency. The other patterns I thought of trying just didn't seem to belong.