Be Human

Here is a little Poem / Sonnet / Ballard I have written a few weeks ago but haven't put it up on the internet yet so here it is now. Its called “Be Human”.

Death without Life, War without Peace,

I fight on without Hesitation.

Duty without Recognition, Honour without Love,

I fight on without Falter.

I watched my Comrades dies,

Butchered, massacred and shredded,

She lay in my Arms, taking her last Breath.

All she says is two words:

their meaning clear,

Life without Death, to have peace without War,

to get recognition for Duty and to Love with honour,

All these in two words…

… Be Human….

By Lewis Stockton

Reviews

[Hopeful Llama]

In my opinion, there is strong use of oxymorons within this piece of poetry. Although, they are in the technical sense not actually oxymorons, (without life there can be only death, and without peace there can be only war) however the juxtaposition of the words alone are enough to convey some sort of sentience.

I also like how you have created ambiguity between the genre types of poems, sonnets and ballards by creating a single piece of poetry which covers all three genres at once. I think you are a lyrical genius.

Also, your use of random capitalisations are a metaphorical s**t on grammar. This is good as it expresses freeform and non-conformity. Fuq da police.

In my mind, as I was reading this, I imagined that I was an Imperial Guard with my Lasgun in hand. But it's okay because then I equipped myself with grenade launcher and mass CC'd the orkz until they died.

In regards to a previous review, the woman may not have died as this was a personal recount of an imaginary happening, there is likely to be a large amount of hyperbole as the event was likely traumatising to the witness. Or maybe he's like that kid at school where he doesn't really have much of a life so nothing exciting happens so he has to make up cool stories to make him seem really cool in front of his new friends.

Finally the poem finishes with the two words "Be Human." I think this is purposefully ambiguous as to leave the reader and audience to their own interpretation, or perhaps that the writer had run out of ideas, or had not fully developed it in the first place. That too, is for the reader to decide.

All in all, despite the fact it is not perfect, I have given this poem a rating of 100/100. Please use a red font colour in your next poem, as red is my favourite colour.

[Lewis Stockton]

(I did not censor it, there was a mistake in the system / My browser that brought a double posting. I have sent you a mail about that and I am sorry if this has offended you. So please dont jump to conclusions about my actions,

[The Devourer]

I feel the need to repost my original review, as it appears our budding poet also has an attitude to censorship on par with that of Soviet Russia. In response to his defence of his lack of grammar, remember that literature without grammar is nothing but incomprehensible. I put it to you good sir, that if you feel the need to pour the inner working of your mind onto the internet, you cannot be surprised when someone from the infinite world of the internet takes a view of your work that is less than the stellar response you would of course prefer. As a review list where only positive reviews are displayed is an affront to the very concept of reviewing, I feel, nay, I am compelled, to repost my original review in its entirety:

First off, this does not meet any known definition of a sonnet, with its utter lack of any metres or rhyming structure. I do not know what a ballard is supposed to be, aside from the surname of recently deceased British writer J.G. Ballard; assuming you meant ballad, then that would make more sense, whilst still being intrinsically incorrect, as this barely has a narrative, and, I must reiterate, less structure than a sandcastle.
I am not some poet purist that feels all poetry should have stanzas, a rhyming scheme and iambic pentameter. But structural aspects are what MAKES something a sonnet or a ballad; But enough of me arguing poetry semantics. As I will, for arguments sake, agree that what you have written is a poem.
I would start by arguing that death and war are the absence of life and peace respectively, but as you are building the poems “without” theme I will let the redundancy of your opening line slide.
Fighting on without hesitation and falter is ultimately the same thing, still, I appreciate the attempt to add some structure with you double “without”’s then the fighting on. Then somewhat ruined by the change of pace to the grammatically confusing line “I watched my Comrades dies”, its just “die”. The now wearying repetition of the personal pronoun “I” makes it look less like a poem and more of a mildly depressing diary of a literary uninspired soldier listing his day.
Then follows a rather heavy handed emphasis on the death of the “comrades”, simply listing 3 rather uninspired euphemisms to show just how dead they are.
Suddenly one of the comrades is a woman, and she is dying in his arms. The fact she isn’t just flat dead is impressive as she has been “butchered, massacred and shredded”, possibly in that order, maybe not; though even if its just one of the free her continued life is quite remarkable. I certainly hope our narrative voice has taken cover from the shredding guns, or her deathbed wisdom will shortly be squandered.
We then have a reversal of the opening state of affairs, with the implication being (after an unseemly amount of ellipses) that to “Be Human” is to live in some form of deathless utopia, in everlasting peace, with recognition and love. Well, history seems to differ on that one. Grisly death, pointless war and ignoring the worthy seem far more humanities forte (ok I have no pithy retort to the honour. But is honouring someone without love a bad thing? I mean honour and love is great, but only getting one of the two doesn’t seem on par with the rest of the qualities in their implicit badness).
Essentially, I don’t see how saying “Be Human” implies the above in any way. It could just as easily be read to mean “kill the bugger that shot me”, “run and hide in a hole somewhere” or just be the pre mortem ramblings of a person shot in the guts.
I’m sure I could go on, but I think I’ve given a pretty good impression of my opinion. Essentially, when my above critique has a higher literary merit than your poem, you should probably review it a few times before uploading it on the internet.
Addendum:
Also, I must point out the fact that you put a full stop after your affront to the ellipses, which I find confusing on a number of levels.

[Lewis Stockton]

(this isnt a review just a comment I am making on the reviews.)

Thank you for all the reviews, and I would like to just say this, The grammer is horrible because I didnt care about grammer, I just write what I write and its just a release of my mind onto paper, no matter how messy it gets :D

The defining as a Poem / Ballad / Sonnet thing, Is because I dont know what to really describe this as So I just put that, I might just call it a "Thing" from now on.

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Such a powerful read, Well done!