The Passenger

[ShadowsCool]

The Passenger

The passenger saw an America that once was,
passing by his window;
factories that fed whole towns
abandoned,
making friends with overgrown weeds.

Ghost towns that once saw life
now see hollow wind,
that blow through
as the train blusters in.

The passenger took a deep breath
Into his paper,
and read about a world
that once was in the right place,
a world he couldn't erase.

Up ahead the last stop
for him or America,
one would never know
by the look of both.


Let Us Keep To Sleep

Let us keep to sleep
not be woken by the outside noise
that drives men to nothing
but dust and empty dreams

That even bored papa
who laid on his easy chair
reading yesterday's news
by old yeller.

[hillwalker]

Both of these poems are in need of a rewrite so that they make some sense - and stick to the point.

The Passenger

- there's no need for the 2nd line in v.1 - it adds nothing to the poem

- 'making friends' with the weeds is a clumsy metaphor and doesn't work that well - you need to think of some other expression that describes how the industrial landscape has given way to industrial wasteland

- final line in v.2 is again unnecessary and the verb 'bluster' is inappropriate anyway if you're trying to describe a train

- v.3 takes the focus away from what you were trying to write about - and is filled with awkward expressions - 'took a deep breath/into his paper' (How?) - a world he couldn't erase. (which means what exactly?)

- v.4 would make more sense if it was the last stop for him and America - and again the last 2 lines are clumsily expressed... 'one could never tell from the look of either' is presumably what you intended.

Let Us Keep to Sleep

- the title makes no sense - let us keep what? - or did you mean let us continue to sleep or keep on sleeping?

- v.2 leaves the reader hanging on because the sentence is incomplete - as it reads it makes no sense whatsoever

...so, you have the bare bones of 2 poems here rather than the finished article. I can see you have made an effort to come up with some original ideas or a fresh perspective but your work is still unfinished because you don't appear to have read through them afterwards or made any attempt to ensure they are going to be understood.

H

[Delta40]

I haven't got my degree in critiquing yet. I rather liked them both although I agree bluster is not the right word for a train

I didn't find the second poem title confusing. Let us remain in a sleep state was my interpretation.