There Upon a Dismal Day

There Upon a Dismal Day

I looked into a well of souls
And all I saw was silt;
A permafrost of tedium
And shite encrusted guilt.

There happiness lay festering
And clotted with disease
While hopes and dreams were withering
By inches and degrees.

Where once the future, bright and dear,
Was laved at our command,
All that remained was apathy
To blight the naked land.

Resolve stood neither tall nor firm,
And thus gave no reward,
Shattering in obscurity
With dank and dark discord.

Whose hand has stilled the radiance?
Whose hand has slain the souls?
Whose hand has reaped vitality
And kindles it like coals?

And why do we just stand and watch
This orgy of despair?
Like cattle in a winding chute;
Dull, lowing, unaware.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Motivation and Focus

This is only for folks interested in an actual workshop.  If this is not you, ignore this as I am certain someone, somehow, will be offended and I will have to respond to abject stupidity when all I want is commentary on how to make this poem better.

This started as an example for a contest entry with the following constraints:

Freeform/ Free verse
100 characters or less, including title
Spaces are not considered as characters
Subject = Dirt

The first stanza was of this piece, re-arranged as free verse, was my entry because I was making a point about free verse having more rules than much of structured verse.

But I always knew the poem was not finished, hell, it was barely started and finally, after several months of looking at it I spent a couple of weeks playing around and came out with this depressing piece.  This is not angst as the subject is not "poor me, I am so mistreated, be in awe of me!"  Rather it is a lament at how we as people, as family, as communities, as nations, as society, as the world just stand by and watch disaster play out without doing anything to arrest, modify, or correct it.

What would have turned this into angst would have been a question as to why those who do stand and attempt to change the course are attacked by those who do nothing more than watch even as they pretend a posture of superiority.  Because, to be honest, the answer to the question is easy.  These types of people are parasites and as parasites you can expect nothing more of them nor concern yourself with their praise or disdain.

This was written in alternating tetrameter/trimeter with an X/A rhyme scheme.  In many cases a declining meter with rhyme becomes sing-song but in this case, as the whole, I felt the tone of the piece needed a bit of lightening that this structure provided.  As an aside, this is another example of how structure adds to poetry.  This structure for this subject makes it readable rather than just being completely and utterly depressing. 

To be sure, it is depressing enough but without the structure it would dissolve into little more than angsty whining.