The three of them my dear. Well, maybe not the first one, except if you insist.

Here is my first response:

To the Rugs of Noffield House, where it all began

Since they won't squeak when our host lay next door
snoring, reading, or wondering the evening away like us!
Even the Cameroonians missed the tryst that played
like a serenade beneath the walls of their gathered nose.

ah, great poem. I must now find a way to match this

Sigh.

Please mon amie, would you deign to give a little insight into this one?

www.poetry.com is SHIT.

They are crooks. Avoid them like a plague. There are a thousand better places to place your poems than where some whitey uses your work for his own commercial pleasure.

Beware.

BACK TO THE POEM

Final Words, if these were to be your edited lines, what would we do to them to give them better appearance? We may rhyme? And we may re-edit. Let's see how to do both. Then I will be off.

Man, to change the world, has often failed to change himself
The West spits on all we hold hallowed
Like in a trance, man rolls in the mire of waste his own hands have wrought
he now runs to lick the lust of his rebel heart
He floats, drifts, now on a vast stormy sea of the unknown


A five lined poem that follows a pattern could be a  limerick, or a cinquain, depending on the content. Now let us imagine that we want to write a Cinquain, like that one in Wikipedia by Robert Browning, following the ababb rhyming scheme, and using your poem as specimen. We could have the following:

Man, to change the world, has failed to change himself
The West he blames who spits on him with fangs wide apart.
Like in a trance, he rolls in his mire of waste like a drunken elf,
and he runs with glee to lick the lust of his rebel heart
He floats, drifts, now on a vast stormy sea from where he can't depart.

Now we have rhymes - ababb. Himself/elf, apart/heart/depart. Read about rhyming schemes on Wikipedia/Rhymes).

We have just turned your long tirade against man into a cinquain of some beauty. It can get better - and I leave that to you - but see what we have, short, and showing of some hardwork to the craft of poetry.

You want to write good poetry, the first step is to start. And to work hard.

(For a starter, check this article at Wikipedia on Poetry. Get some other books, and read them. You will need all the information on the way people have written over the years. Read all the links. Becoming a good writer will not take a day, but a journey of a thousand miles, they say, begins with the first step )

Hope I've helped. Be well.

Thanks for your comments on my blog.

See you around.

A CORRECTION

When I corrected about passive sentences earlier, I must have meant your usage of "reversed" sentences. You seemed to have preferred reversed sentences instead of straight ones.

The following was offered as correction by a friend:

A_Friend:



The Passive Voice in English.
In the "normal," active voice, the subject of the sentence acts upon an object: She snubs him.

Both German and English offer an alternative verb structure, the passive voice, in which the subject of the sentence receives the action: He is snubbed by her. To transform the active to the passive, we turn the direct object "him" into the grammatical subject "he" and place it in the customary first position. The active verb, "snubs," becomes the past participle ("snubbed", and "to be" is inserted as the auxiliary verb: thus She snubs him becomes He is snubbed.

(Colloquial English sometimes uses "to get" as the auxiliary verb, as in: "He gets snubbed all the time."

One purpose of the passive voice is avoid identifying the active subject - "Mistakes were made" - but if we do want to retain that information, we put it into a prepositional phrase: He is snubbed by her.

The passive sentence's tenses are achieved through manipulation of the auxiliary verb:

He was snubbed. He is being snubbed. He had been snubbed. He will be snubbed. Etc.
  http://www.dartmouth.edu/~german/Grammatik/Passive/Passiv.html

Regards.

Ok buddy, but listen again,

Being a poet may not really be as "cool" as you might think it is. The first lesson you would have to learn is to believe foremost in yourself. Then it won't matter what people say, and you would not have to beg for their attention.

So cool down buddy with the "knowing you better" stuff. We're cool like this. Don't make posts twice just to make a point. It will be read even if it is a line, as long as it is important.

Just listen. Read other people's work. Read books. Read about tips on how to write better. Learn from them but you do not necessarily have to write like them. Write like you feel, but write well.

For a "budding" poet, you do try too hard to preach. And this I see in your work, shorn of the much-needed conviction that impresses beyond much words or begging. What are you beyond what you have read from books or heard from people (pastors, parents, priests etc)? I believe in poetry that stems from a conviction. Write what you feel. For a start, you might enjoy the flow of your pen as it aimlessly tries to make sense, but don't let it carry you farther than your thoughts can reach. Look below:

Basic:

What a huge success man had recorded
In mastering the material world
A success achieved at the expense of failure!
The failure of man to disciplione himself
On the moral and spiritual planes

Here your thoughts are a little clear, but not original. Even clumsy when you say "A success achieved at the expense of failure". What does that really mean? Then in the next line you go on to misspell one word that should matter most to you. All what you intended to say in five lines you probably could have said as "Man, to change the world, has often failed to change himself"

Let's go on:

Basic:

Indeed founded is Western Civilisation
On a materialistic philosophy of life
Which like a vanquished soccer coach at his boys
Frowns upon all that is spiritual
And against all moral and spiritual values revolt

What I suspect you wanted to say here was "The West spits on all we hold hallowed", or something along the line. Sometimes for a good poet, less (words) is always more, and preferred.

Next verse:

Basic:

Like as a prayer warrior in supplication
So had man become engrossed
In this materialistic world
Of disillusionment and frustration
Of many problems by man caused

I'll say "Like in a trance, man rolls in the mire of waste his own hands have wrought"

You went on:

Basic:

The pursuit of carnal pleasures
And the gratificatification of his sensual desires
Are what man had made his goals in life
Totally had he forsaken the spirituals
And the morals he had eschewed

Here again you try to make a simple morality case with the most unnecessarily skewed set of sentences. For now, I will not ask you why you so make these didactic spats, but why didn't you just say - to continue from my last suggestion - "he now runs to lick the lust of his rebel heart"

Writing in passive sentences as in "as the morals he had eschewed" does not often help either. (Don't mind that I have done the same here )

The best part of the poem undoubtedly is as follows:

Basic:

Man's existence may now be likened
To that of a rudderless ship
Drifting aimlessly in a vast and stormy sea
The sea of the unknown

Only that it could also be re-said, perhaps as: "He floats, drifts, now on a vast stormy sea of the unknown"

From the above, you would see that I only tried to make you write with better accuracy. Say only the words that matter. Leave ostentation for the empty. It doesn't matter whether your poem is short, or little. What matters is that you have said what you feel needs to be said. Leave the rest to the critics.

Listen to J.P.Clark in his poem titled Ibadan:

Running
splash of rust and gold
flung and scattered
among seven hills
Like broken china in the sun.

Soyinka's book of the same title is 397 pages long, and not necessarily a better authority on the city than that poem of just eighteen words!

I hope this helps for now. I'd be back.

I am reading your poems, but hear this. It doesn't matter that you're 18. As long as you write, you will be judged, not by age, but by (the quality of) your words.

John Keats died at 26, and he is still considered "one of the principal poets of the English Romantic movement"

Hi Basic. I like your name.

I shall look at your poems. I presently and send you my comments.


Be good.

I was here. And I'm loving it. Cheers all.

Hi Orikinla. You could beep me when next I'm online. I'm concerned from what I read in excerpts that your effort here is not much towards great fiction but great history. How true is that?

And how much are you ready to be a literary historian rather than a fictionist who only uses history as a footstool.

You should read Salman Rushdie's SATANIC VERSES and his THE MOOR'S LAST SIGH. All pieces of history but written in great prose fiction. This notwitstanding the irrational response to his works in the arab world. How prepared are you to take responsibility for re-writing history? I would say that it is far easier to get a way with a history well written as fiction, as long as it is entertaining. But I may be wrong.

You must write, and you must be responsible as much to your readers who want great writing, and those who want (historical) conspiracies. So far, you seem to care more for the conspiracy than the prose work. Here too I might be wrong. Enlighten me.

First thought: Bad rhyming!

Not as if it matters much though, but, I like it well done if to be done at all.

Poor finnicky me.

Vagina Monologues, by Eve Ensler.

The one I'm reading now is Salman Rushdie's SATANIC VERSES.

Great books

I like the fact that your writing is indeed different in nature from mine.

But why do I get a feeling that there's something else in that sentence of yours that I have not got, something along the lines of your dislike for my style, or the nature of what I write?

I fly but I am not a bird!?

No, wait.

I lay eggs but I'm not a bird!?

No. Not that. This:

I give birth, but I am not female.

Hilarious paradox, actually.

I like it. Like a song sung to a different tune. But its nice.

I too will sign off here. And let no one find me.
I go on to search, or find, what is eternity.

Here is what has been much and again said,
and I now believe it: ALL GREAT MEN ARE DEAD!

Great poetry.

Great Poet.

Must be a great love.

Yea, I'd be here, I hope, and another day may break.
Hope, yes, hope may stay to soothe like a desert lake.

If love be alive, girl, and one is dead.
How do we dance when the tune is fled?
Doom postponed now stares in the face
Like a flood. Just be there to say the grace.

It's almost over, though now I cry
my tears are frought with endless bile.
My muse is flown, gone, lost with style,
and naked on this pillory strut now I.

She could have stayed, she could have.
I stretched my cords to stay the strain.
From my mile of rage I rolled in pain
with the last lone strand that once was love.

But it's gone, with the last hot wind,
not of me but a strain that may never mend.
And it looks, oh it looks like the end:
A last touch with the likes of a saner mind.

Like life, I'll write this down in folds of chagrins.
A dream fading off before its meaning begins.

"Love is an Ass"

macalurs:

To them that understand.

Gwatala, u're a great poet.

And so are you Macalurs.

"All great men are dead. And I am not feeling too well myself!." Now I know why.

Well, maybe I've grown, cos there's nohow else to say
why the world now seems strange - the one I knew before.
Old faces fade, new ones blend like a bad rag's day,
and now I seek in vain, tracing a once known shore.

Maybe it's the air, that blows to clear an erring tone.
Maybe it's the wind. Maybe it's the mind drooling old.
Maybe it's I who, not knowing, had walked the world alone.
Maybe I have slept when all days crept off untold.

The wet winds blow coool but vain droplets of waste.
A land known and warm now denies with a long silent stare.
No, nothing remains here but memory, shed in vile distaste.
What stares back are rough remains of such random care.

Known days are gone but remain only in the head.
Age recalls, recoils, in bits of a thrill too long fled.

CULTURAL CRAZE-FLUX STROLL DÉJÀ VU

Forward moving in paces mothers laid
Are steps taken now on paths trod times before.
A road winds thin here as new beginning
Though ever yet as constant trampling floor.

At once new, at once old, time flies
Once set free, once browsing on strange human ties
Old times bred new by fresh human forms
Still move me to recurring life paths of stray norms.

Being here, divine flesh onward on preying hands
For true meed meal had wandered free alive,
Shapes of mores mixed breed with human dream bands
All fly apart anew, again on real, now needful strive.

I can only wish, only vainly hope:
Real storms still drive on time's twenty-rope.