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Life's Work Undone
This mountain is of my own making,
Each piece was selected with care.
And what a sad hard undertaking
It is, to strip all of it bare.
Some levels seem precious and rare,
But some tiers just count as a burden,
It's more than my mind can quite spare
To balance the lot, and be certain.
How very unfair that exertion
Has brought me no garden to tend.
The goal of my life's introversion
Is spread to the winds at the end.
The moments and coins that I spend
Now darken like dust in the rain,
As the peak of my Babelous trend
Is reduced to a comfortless plain.
Each piece was selected with care.
And what a sad hard undertaking
It is, to strip all of it bare.
Some levels seem precious and rare,
But some tiers just count as a burden,
It's more than my mind can quite spare
To balance the lot, and be certain.
How very unfair that exertion
Has brought me no garden to tend.
The goal of my life's introversion
Is spread to the winds at the end.
The moments and coins that I spend
Now darken like dust in the rain,
As the peak of my Babelous trend
Is reduced to a comfortless plain.
A little vague, maybe? The narrator seems to be upset that there's no permanence to anything he does, and I like the theme of relating that to a garden (I assume that's not meant to be taken literally?). I haven't necessarily found a very relevant meaning for the Babel reference, but it being reduced to a plane along with the garden theme, has me in mind of Babylon, which... if that was intentional, it's clever. Mechanically, I like the way there's an extra unstressed syllable on one line pair per stanza, and that it switches which pair it is, plus it carries the rhyme across stanzas with it. But then the meter breaks in the last stanza.
I like this a lot.
I like this a lot.
The pile just mocks me, receding
In tall pillars into the sky,
Despite all my pruning and weeding,
It visibly grows 'fore my eye.
My vigor is leaving me dry
For it seems that the items are breeding
And my epitaph shall be writ high
In a cluttery pile's proceeding.
In tall pillars into the sky,
Despite all my pruning and weeding,
It visibly grows 'fore my eye.
My vigor is leaving me dry
For it seems that the items are breeding
And my epitaph shall be writ high
In a cluttery pile's proceeding.
>>Pascoite
Life's Work Undone
Thanks for the bronze, 'grats to Baal Bunny and Light Striker! A laurel, and hearty handshake, to all who participated.
I am in the process of decluttering and reducing the stuff I have accumulated before moving. My partner and I are both keepers and we have a prodigious amount of boxes to weed through. This poem reflects my frustration at this effort, the unfairness of discarding things that are still useful, and other whining attendant on transferring ourselves a thousand miles away.
The Babel reference was meant to suggest a pile forming a tower ascending to the heavens, and the accompanying hubris in thinking that you can own an appreciable part of the world and that such ownership can bring you contentment.
Thanks to Pascoite for the lovely review; I always look forward to your critiques! I'm glad you liked it.
Life's Work Undone
Thanks for the bronze, 'grats to Baal Bunny and Light Striker! A laurel, and hearty handshake, to all who participated.
I am in the process of decluttering and reducing the stuff I have accumulated before moving. My partner and I are both keepers and we have a prodigious amount of boxes to weed through. This poem reflects my frustration at this effort, the unfairness of discarding things that are still useful, and other whining attendant on transferring ourselves a thousand miles away.
The Babel reference was meant to suggest a pile forming a tower ascending to the heavens, and the accompanying hubris in thinking that you can own an appreciable part of the world and that such ownership can bring you contentment.
Thanks to Pascoite for the lovely review; I always look forward to your critiques! I'm glad you liked it.