John #2

[jajdude]

With regards to Jim, these are my brothers and I love them.


My old friend, the end is near,
But don't feel bad, I'm not sad,
We've had fun, or so I hear

We listened to tunes, we drank beer,
And I remember you had fear,
But John my friend, it isn't bad.

It just went, like the wind,
You fell, I helped, we sinned too,
And hopefully that's all we'll ever do.

[Skia]

Sweet poem about the true meaning of friendship?
Am I right? :P

[Cunninglinguist]

If I could submit my suggestion, I've read a couple of your poems now and I think they'd all be stronger with a meter. With a loose meter it could be something like:

My dear old friend, the end is near
But don't feel bad, I am not sad,
We've had our fun, or so I hear/We have had fun, or so I hear (the first one is stronger)

We heard our tunes, we drank our beer,
And I recall you had your fear,
But John, my friend, it isn't bad.

It merely went, went like the wind,
You fell, I helped, and we sinned too;
With hope that's all we'll ever do.

[Wendy M]

Cunninglinguist....I believe you are right, and this has put a new perspective on meter for me, as I am a huge fan of free verse ,but do like classical methods....but you are right it works well with the sentiment here in this poem..........

[AuntShecky]

I'm afraid I have to agree with the previous commentator who suggested you tweak the meter. I still have the psychic scars from a few years ago when an expert beat it into my head that you can't have end rhymes in unmetered verse. (Even then, the stresses in the syllables have to match up exactly. As an example, "regret" does not rhyme with "egret," even though they look the same and have the same vowels and consonants. The stresses syllables are different: regret / egret.)

There's another problem with the rhymes. According to the Oxford Companion to the English Language, our native tongue --unlike, say, the romance languages, is the most difficult in which to rhyme. The rhyming words you've chosen are a bit pedestrian, sing-song, and childish (not in a good way, as Dr. Seuss's rhymes are.) --"bad/sad, "too/do," etc.

The words themselves don't really say much. The words may be short --"Fear," "sin," etc., --but they're all still abstractions, including that verboten "hopefully."

Unless we're using clichés to point out the lack of creativity of a fictional character, we are supposed to avoid old hackneyed expressions such as "the end is near" and "like the wind."

Your verse could use more specific imagery, real things that we can see, taste, touch, smell. The line that is the most specific (and therefore the best one in the verse) is the beer-drinking reference.

There are "no ideas except in things" said William Carlos Williams. For more about abstractions, please read the short Walt McDonald (http://wwwstage.valpo.edu/english/vpr/mcdonaldessay.html)essay (if you haven't already done so.)

There's nothing wrong with the core idea of this poem. It only requires revising with a bit more expressiveness. I believe that you should give it another try.

Auntie