"Ballad of A Nihilist"

Wayward youth bloke living on a bad joke
Goes the way the wind pokes, stubborn like a great oak
Cincinatti land worms stirring up a sand storm
Naked as a newborn, moving is the new norm
I don't need you, I don't need your Gods
I don't need a road, I don't need a job
The whole world is saying no
But I am saying yes
I know best, yes I do, I know best

 

Gonna take a quick step, ride the way the waves ebb
Yeah I know what I've left, another space in your web
Are you gonna miss me, tell your friends you kissed me
Say I was a mystery, that I had history
Are you feeling betrayed?
Well don't feel too bad
You'll see harder days
Than the days that you have had
Falling hurts the most
Before you ever land
So learn to stand, silly girl, learn to stand

 

Think I'm heading east now, land of the grand cow
Gonna find a big crowd, crank it up and play loud
Old and happy New Year, hope I sound sincere
Only truth that you'll hear, sin sears my dear
I've got the time
If you've got the money
And I've got the sour
If you've got the honey
Nothing is something too
In case you all forgot
So let let it rot, all you people, let it rot

 

Gosh that sounds so empty, I think I've said plenty
Wish someone had lent me a belief more tempting
Gonna stick to my guns, all play no fun
I am the only one
In the end I won

 

Reviews

[A.A.]

Ha-ha. Ferociously ugly.
It's great to see our generation (I'm nineteen too, across the pond) explore a modern state of mind like this. Are you familiar with the earlier forms of Nihilism? I've been reading some post-romantic Russian work, stuff like 'A hero of our time', or Dostoyevsky's 'Devils', and the roots are all there- it's a frightening study.

Your poetry; the meter's lovely, almost desperate, but a few lines rub me the wrong way;
"Say I was a mystery, that I had history"
I find the missing syllable a little too sharp; I can see the ironic twist of the lips on "history", but the rhythm drops on the next line anyway, so the resolution here may make that change a little easier.

"You'll see harder days
Than the days that you have had"
Is a little thin on the ground. You can do better, judging by the rest of your poem, something with a little more colour and relevance, you know?

"Gosh that sounds so empty, I think I've said plenty
Wish someone had lent me a belief more tempting"
I see this as though it wants to slow down, but doesn't manage it smoothly. Perhaps you could try a recapitulation to the style of the opening line, with the heavy two stresses, using that to suggest a change, and morphing the change into an end; a slow, disillusioned trailing out.

Just suggestions, though, towards a fine poem. Sounds like you too have been through nothing-ism, of a kind. How did you escape?

All the best.

A.A.