9th grade, yellow bus, LSD driver.
Sitting next to your best friend,
Probably wishing the moment would last forever.
Fatality strikes, nail with a hammer.
10th grade, wet road, faulty brakes.
Your Daddy driving you and her home,
Celebrated your birthday with your favorite cake.
Then BOOM...you're all gone.
11th grade, homecoming, loaded gun.
You needed a date, she said no.
Life isnt much fun.
Took the glock, slipped the lock, NO!
12th grade, football, bad decisions.
Took the truck out for a last spin,
You used to throw the ball with precision,
But this final choice was a dead end.
There's never a right time to say goodbye.
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Wow! This poem is really touching. It speaks about so many subjects and issues and tragedies someone somewhere in the world has experienced. In the first stanza the added simile in the last line is a strength of the poem and very poignantly illustrates the impact of the moment depicted. I find it very interesting that you use the word “you” all throughout the poem. It makes the poem more personal to the reader and serves to transport the reader deeper into the action, for rather than being a spectator, the reader becomes involved. "You" also implies that the death occurring in the poem is happening or could be happening to the reader and makes each circumstance something to which the reader can relate to. The punctuation also shows deliberate use. The period used throughout the poem helped infuse the tone of death and shock and finality. The semicolon used in the last sentence serves to illustrate the continuity and hope that the speaker feels in seeing his loved ones once again. Had there instead been a period in its place it would have made things more final and harsh. I also liked the imagery contained in each stanza; you paint pictures very well. The critique I have for this poem has to do with some grammatical errors. For instance, in the third stanza, you put down "your" instead of "you're", and in the fourth stanza "use" instead of "used." I also have issues with the capitalization of goodbye at the end. I am guessing it serves to bring attention to the word which also happens to be in the title, however I believe it simply distracts from what is already a good ending to the poem.
ReplyDeleteWow. That evoked a lot of emotions and leaves me with a lot of questions. I wonder what inspired this. It was deep and well written. An interesting depiction of the tragedies that could occur in high school. It makes me want to make smart decisions. I loved the summary in the end of the poem. It really brought the point of the title all together.
ReplyDeleteZ, i really like the theme of this poem as it shows the fleeting nature of our lives.
ReplyDeletei was going to suggest something for the end, possibly another way to show that humans are by nature, ticking "bombs" until their death.
i think your poem shows the universality of death in humanity extremely well through personal experience with it.
we are "walking dead." i dont know if that makes any sense to you, but if it does you could easily use something like that to end the poem, showing that ALL of our final ends are DEATH.
Really an interesting poem that tells a story in every line. each year there is a deadly or violent incident that sets the scene and also what kind of bad situation the writer finds himself in. also it shows how high school is a hard time and that life is not always fair.
ReplyDeleteI would venture to say first that I do agree - there is never really a right time to say goodbye when people die in some respects. You never know when it's going to happen, as you indicated.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that you meant the poem to have a meter but if you wanted to go back you would be looking at some of the more complicated rhythms past a simple iambic meter :) (Which isn't a bad thing!)
As it is, the poem flows naturally and the rhymes seem to be more memory markers, as if you mean this poem to be performed somewhere. Do you?
Watch your grammar -- "You needED a date; she said no" is more correct (or if you want to put in a period, that is also correct).
Other than that, thank you for sharing :)