Grains of Despair

In the alley their sits the shadow of a broken man,

With his hands in his head, tears streaming down his face,

He holds a pocket watch in his heart, watching the grains of time slip by.

Waiting for the world of despair to see his pain, but the people have ribbons over their eyes.

We have lost sight of the hungry stricken faces, become blind to the presence of the moon.

Covering our ears to block out the wailing of the desperate voices, the world is screaming but we keep going.

In the sand box the children draw pictures of vacant faces and bloody streets.

But no one can see through their innocent eyes, no one can see that even the children are crying.

Time will stop, the world will break in half,

But we will wake up each morning and go to bed at night,

Ignoring the fact that we are no longer alive, our soul abandoned us the day it learned we couldn't fly.

 

 

Author's Note

SO...this is part of my american artist presentation on Bob Dylan. This poem was inspired by Dylan's song blowin in the wind. Hopefully i'll get an A on the whole project...please review.

Reviews

[Aarontastic]

When I read this poem for the first time (and I hadn't seen the author's note), I thought that it was all about the plight of the homeless. The first two lines, describing a broken man's shadow sitting in an alleyway and crying, first gave me that impression, and the rest of the poem seemed to back it up by painting a portrait of his situation "waiting for the world of despair to see his pain, but people have ribbons in their eyes" called to mind an image of homeless people sitting idle, wasting away while everyday people simply pretend they aren't there; "we have lost sight of the hungry stricken faces, become blind to the presence of the moon" is a very pretty line that seemed to suggest that we are ignoring something very important and obvious because it's convenient for us to. After the "covering our eyes line", the poem started getting more abstract and metaphorical, but I still felt at the end that it was a condemnation of society's attitude towards homelessness and poverty.

Then I saw in your note that it was inspired by Bob Dylan =p I've actually never listened to any of his stuff, so I looked up 'blowin' in the wind' on youtube to get a feel for it, and now I feel I understand the poem better. Honestly, it seems like it could be a Bob Dylan song, or an extension of the one you mentioned. So I think you did a really good job channeling your inner Dylan, because I can imagine him singing this.

On the first reading I didn't really like the line: "Time will stop, the world will break in half", but afterward I felt like it was trying to explain that no matter what happens, we will still go about our normal lives and routines and ignore the suffering in the world, so it fits. I don't like it quite as much as some of the other things you've written, because I you can make more powerful poems, but it's still pretty good especially considering it's like an homage to BD.

[☯]

This is such a nice, emotional poem, I especially loved the last lines.
"But we will wake up each morning and go to bed at night,
Ignoring the fact that we are no longer alive, our soul abandoned us the day it learned we couldn't fly."
Magnificent. :)

[Chris Smith Welshpoetcs]

I would give it an A+. You have captured the sadness within the world my friend.

[Joey Irwin]

This is really really good, you will definitely get an A for it :D
"...our soul abandoned us the day it learned we couldn't fly." Love that line :D

[Murtuza]

This is really nice. I could put a tune to this and turn it into a song. A really thought-provoking write. A+