My Senior

[everyadventure]

"I'm old,"
you complain,
a cantankerous senior.
Wincing dramatically at the creak, the squeak,
of rusted geriatric bones,
you blink feebly behind thick lenses
and hang your grizzled head.

"I'm old!"
you protest,
waving gnarled hands.
"Used up and brittle!
Now leave me be!"

How can I?
Beneath your deceptively wrinkled brow
greatness wastes.

[PrinceMyshkin]

The first two verses do a terrific job of sketching this cranky, self-pitying dude, but there's no evidence of the "greatness" you assert in the third verse, a blatant case of telling rather than showing.

Also, there is no way to understand, from what you provided, why this senior should not be allowed to waste away if that's what he or she chooses, nor why on the other hand you've made it your business to insist that he or she live up to their alleged "greatness."

[everyadventure]

The first two verses do a terrific job of sketching this cranky, self-pitying dude, but there's no evidence of the "greatness" you assert in the third verse, a blatant case of telling rather than showing.

Also, there is no way to understand, from what you provided, why this senior should not be allowed to waste away if that's what he or she chooses, nor why on the other hand you've made it your business to insist that he or she live up to their alleged "greatness."

You're sounding rather cantankerous yourself ;) I like hearing your comments anyhow.

[deryk]

I had to do a double-take on the lack of sympathy from the speaker in contrast with the (former?) reverence by acknowledging past greatness, but I guess that was my confusion and not the poem's. A waste is a terrible thing to mind. [incoming boos]

[Delta40]

I think the last verse implies that beneath the weathered, aged bitter howling package before us, greatness once shone. perhaps you could write it in a showing way.

[MystyrMystyry]

I thought it was fine Every. I feel like the old geezer you depicted about two mornings each week

[Jerrybaldy]

Was this a thinly veiled Prince tribute? ;)