zutroy
05-02-2007, 01:07 PM
Hello everyone,
First time poster here, so please be kind. I'm continually trying to improve imagery within my poetry, and I think this is one of my best endeavors yet. I'm a fan of structured poetry, either in rhyme scheme or syllables, so this one is a simple a-b-a-b-c-d-c-d rhyme scheme with 10 stanzas of 8 lines each. Any and all criticism is truly welcome.
A Nuclear Winter Dream
All Survivors obtaining this script,
Take care to observe cautiously.
Misfortunes have so blatantly stripped
Earth of all life. Thus, Pay heed to me.
For if in your time, you be better off,
Then this shall be a warning.
Yet if your throat still burn a horrid cough,
I hope to provide closure for mourning.
I write this year 3003,
Sitting among mountains of rubble,
Whose sight is as much a poison to me
As this pain that persistently redoubles.
I peer forth into a grayed sky,
Filled with statical electrons and dust,
And resolve, as a tear released from an eye,
To scrawl down apocalypse, I certainly must.
Once was I called Josef,
But like a masterless dog,
I too now am completely deaf
To my name taken by the nuclear fog.
Fog arose from violent war,
War fiercely waged by naive men.
None were safe, not rich or poor,
From Lucifer's blistering, Hellish Den.
The war I speak of is not what you think,
No, its destruction carried on so swift
That even as your eyes now blink,
Bombs and missiles would bring forth a rift
Beneath your feet so vast and wide
That immediately you would perish,
And weapons deadlier just alongside
Would rend the bodies of those whom you cherish.
Twenty-four hours: devastation laid
And now, this, my current condition.
For dulled reaction, an arm I paid -
so began my earthly perdition.
I shall sincerely strive to remember
The most important events that passed
The whole of yesterday, the 24th of December,
Precisely from first explosion to last.
Instinct, oh how you failed me,
Oh how your absence caused such torment.
Present, secure they would now be -
Instead, all twelve early lives were spent.
In that first of many sickening blasts,
holding one single precious child,
Shrapnel tore his body from me much too fast.
And my limb went with a pain more mild.
From then on the barrage never ceased -
A hail of fire instead of ice.
Hastily hunting, not lagging in the least,
for any shelter that would suffice.
At last I discovered an abandoned storefront
and thought it must have a sublevel station,
The entrance to which I did urgently confront,
And in the embrace of safety, pondered my situation.
Then, like a stone hurled by David,
Debris pelted my unwary skull.
Mishap brought a vision, much awaited:
Blue sky, blue water, and a white seagull -
I beheld my daughter, Ava, the ocean’s mist falling upon her.
Then suddenly, with a shadowy smile and a size dwarfing her shape,
An Orca tore her to shreds, and the lurid image reoccurred –
The now crimson spray I could not escape!
Covered in a gory blend of blood, salt, and water,
I trudged through the darkened waves -
Raptly, I discerned the spirit of my daughter,
But to me acknowledgment she never gave.
She seemed otherworldly and indifferent to time,
As she floated away down a saline abyss.
Her manner of ignorance, I regarded a crime,
Yet, still she journeyed toward an unseen bliss.
And ad interim, a scent of burnt, decaying flesh stirred.
It finally awoke me to a new world
Where all past edifices had been interred.
Still I lay here, my body unfurled
beneath the ruins of man's hatred for man.
With this I pray that you who read may cope
In rebuilding where we once began.
My story survive as ample explanation, in dying I may only hope.
First time poster here, so please be kind. I'm continually trying to improve imagery within my poetry, and I think this is one of my best endeavors yet. I'm a fan of structured poetry, either in rhyme scheme or syllables, so this one is a simple a-b-a-b-c-d-c-d rhyme scheme with 10 stanzas of 8 lines each. Any and all criticism is truly welcome.
A Nuclear Winter Dream
All Survivors obtaining this script,
Take care to observe cautiously.
Misfortunes have so blatantly stripped
Earth of all life. Thus, Pay heed to me.
For if in your time, you be better off,
Then this shall be a warning.
Yet if your throat still burn a horrid cough,
I hope to provide closure for mourning.
I write this year 3003,
Sitting among mountains of rubble,
Whose sight is as much a poison to me
As this pain that persistently redoubles.
I peer forth into a grayed sky,
Filled with statical electrons and dust,
And resolve, as a tear released from an eye,
To scrawl down apocalypse, I certainly must.
Once was I called Josef,
But like a masterless dog,
I too now am completely deaf
To my name taken by the nuclear fog.
Fog arose from violent war,
War fiercely waged by naive men.
None were safe, not rich or poor,
From Lucifer's blistering, Hellish Den.
The war I speak of is not what you think,
No, its destruction carried on so swift
That even as your eyes now blink,
Bombs and missiles would bring forth a rift
Beneath your feet so vast and wide
That immediately you would perish,
And weapons deadlier just alongside
Would rend the bodies of those whom you cherish.
Twenty-four hours: devastation laid
And now, this, my current condition.
For dulled reaction, an arm I paid -
so began my earthly perdition.
I shall sincerely strive to remember
The most important events that passed
The whole of yesterday, the 24th of December,
Precisely from first explosion to last.
Instinct, oh how you failed me,
Oh how your absence caused such torment.
Present, secure they would now be -
Instead, all twelve early lives were spent.
In that first of many sickening blasts,
holding one single precious child,
Shrapnel tore his body from me much too fast.
And my limb went with a pain more mild.
From then on the barrage never ceased -
A hail of fire instead of ice.
Hastily hunting, not lagging in the least,
for any shelter that would suffice.
At last I discovered an abandoned storefront
and thought it must have a sublevel station,
The entrance to which I did urgently confront,
And in the embrace of safety, pondered my situation.
Then, like a stone hurled by David,
Debris pelted my unwary skull.
Mishap brought a vision, much awaited:
Blue sky, blue water, and a white seagull -
I beheld my daughter, Ava, the ocean’s mist falling upon her.
Then suddenly, with a shadowy smile and a size dwarfing her shape,
An Orca tore her to shreds, and the lurid image reoccurred –
The now crimson spray I could not escape!
Covered in a gory blend of blood, salt, and water,
I trudged through the darkened waves -
Raptly, I discerned the spirit of my daughter,
But to me acknowledgment she never gave.
She seemed otherworldly and indifferent to time,
As she floated away down a saline abyss.
Her manner of ignorance, I regarded a crime,
Yet, still she journeyed toward an unseen bliss.
And ad interim, a scent of burnt, decaying flesh stirred.
It finally awoke me to a new world
Where all past edifices had been interred.
Still I lay here, my body unfurled
beneath the ruins of man's hatred for man.
With this I pray that you who read may cope
In rebuilding where we once began.
My story survive as ample explanation, in dying I may only hope.