Late Night Wanderings

A short poem, kinda off the top of my head and just for fun.

I lay last night, scared, distraught.

Pondering man's plight, his lot.

Our enemy, through my own eyes,

Had now inspired our demise.

Education, botched, secured.

Man's creation, just one word.

Our being, humanity, absurd.

The enemy stretching, purred.

Our master, kicked and scoffed,

Sat in the sky, far, aloft.

I lay one night, comforted,

it would come soon-- 

We would be dead.

Reviews

[William Liston]

Yay. I'm glad to see a poet who wants to improve on his skills in meter. I applaud you, sir, on your endeavors. Before I critique this, let me first comment on your author's note. I noticed that you said "I have a problem with stressed unstressed, so it anyone notices I did it wrong at one point please point it out." I just want you to know that there are many ways to use stressed and unstressed syllables in a poem; it all depends on what you are going for. Sometimes, the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a poem can change with each line; so unless I know specifically what you were trying to do with this poem's meter, it's kind of hard to say if you "did it wrong." Nevertheless, I'm going to try my best to critique this.

First of all, I assume that in this poem, you wanted a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable, and you did that for the most part. Assuming that is the case, in the first line of this poem, there needs to be an unstressed syllable between "night" and "scared." In line ten of this poem, there needs to be an unstressed syllable between "sky" and "far." There are other mistakes regarding meter in this poem, but I think they'll improve as you better your understanding of poetic rhythm. I hope this was helpful. Please respond if you have any questions.

[Gideon Thomas]

Thank you very much! This was very helpful!

[William Liston]

I'm glad I could help. Many of today's poets completely abandon meter and it kinda disappoints me. I'm glad to see that you're trying to improve your poetic skill. Just a tip, poetic rhythm is like learning to ride a bike; it may take some work, but once you learn it, you'll always know how to do it.