Your nine-foot roots are terrifying pains,
Conniving, selfish, wicked little brutes.
You blatantly ignore my crude disdain!
(Perhaps I’d love you more if you had fruit.)
But no, you cursed weed of legends old!
With floating seeds, persistent, vile still -
Your children multiply like bread’s blue mould.
Not mortals nor immortals bend your will.
But still what are you but a harmless plant?
We slay you all in vain all day and thus
we make our lives so difficult and rant
whilst you’re so easy to maintain – no fuss!
Just what we need – more hardship in our lives…
but Life’s a dandelion, so – survive!
Hi, Mike. I'd meant to come by sooner and offer encouragement, but you know how they say life gets in the way of things you'd rather be doing...
ReplyDeleteThis poem went a different direction than I thought it would--I've been mowing lately, and see the dandelion as an enemy, which is how it starts out here--but then you turn and give them their due. Nice.
There are a couple of lines here I didn't quite get--the second line in the third quatrain doesn't make sense to me grammatically, though I suppose it's meant to mean "Their flowers are like a burning, they are jaundiced plants." But the -ing ending before a comma makes it seem that "burning" goes with the end phrase--"burning, jaundiced plants."
And "jaundiced" makes them sound sickly, when I think the point is that they're persistent and strong in their way.
Finally, the penultimate line seems metrically short--is that an intentional variation?
Anyway, sorry to pop in with loads of criticism--it's a great project, and I guarantee that by the end of it you'll be writing sonnets in your sleep. :) Take it from one who knows...
Best,
SS
Thanks Scott! I'm grateful for the corrections and glad you dropped by :)
ReplyDeleteYou're right...the second line in the third quatrain doesn't seem right, but I'm meaning "flower" as a verb, and the "burning, jaundiced" plants underlines their hopeless plight (I had hoped) but I might reword it to make the message clearer. The last line! Haha! I meant to type "Despite the odds we need the guts to try."
Thanks for dropping by and offering help! This is just what I wanted. I need quite a bit of help with spelling/grammar/punctuation/clarity...often when I'm writing I tend to...let's say...muddle my grammar and skip some words [lines].
M.F.
Thanks again!
Wow...after reading this one I realize how screwed up it is. Please read some of the other ones...this one certainly needs quite a bit of tweaking.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see you've got a thick skin...as a poet you'll need it! :)
ReplyDeleteBTW--when I said "penultimate" I meant "the NEXT-to-last line." Sorry, it's a favorite word of mine, and I overuse it.
SS
...I think it's good...
ReplyDeletethen again, I'm not much of a poet, lol!
I reworked this into another similar sonnet with a similar message. And I used an "ABAB CDCD EFEF GG" rhyme scheme to see how it worked...I like the sing-songy effect. Then again, sonnets are supposed to be that way.
ReplyDeleteI may use it more often. Thanks Scott :)