A Dead Rose Painted Red is Still...

I came across some ancient poetry of mine. By ancient, I mean I haven't written anything in at least six or seven years, and it could possibly predate that. Reading through it, there was nothing really worth saving other than the memories of what compelled me to write them.

One of the originals:

I wake up to a cold bed
that once was warm from you.
In a daze I dress and go down
to the empty kitchen table
Looking out the windows I can
see the clouds forming
another stormy day.
Coffee trickles down like rain
drip…drip…drip…
And the heavens begin to cry

After an entire course over classical British poetry, I felt inspired to write absolutely nothing at all. I know I'll never be able to do anything that means to me 1/20th of what Ozymandias does, and if I can't do better for myself than someone else can, I don't see a point in pursuing it. Out of boredom, though, I figured I'd throw some of my new knowledge at an old work and see what I could do with it. Apparently not much.

The quick rework:

Waking to a cold bed
that once was warm from you,
dazed, I dress and go down
to our empty table.

Looking out the windows
I can see clouds forming
another stormy day.

Coffee trickles down like rain
drip…drip…drip…
and the heavens start to cry.

All I really did was make the first two stanzas run in six syllable lines and the last stanza go seven-three-seven. It doesn't run in iambs, it doesn't rhyme, the body stanzas aren't equal. All in all, it's pretty bad format, and like most of my work, not worth keeping.

That class I took, reading all of those gorgeous pieces, really made me feel kind of bad that I couldn't do something worthwhile considering my line of work and alleged expertise. I just never have had the desire to do so. Anymore, poetry is not considered art. Also, since the dawn of the interbutt, anyone (like me) who really should be ashamed to show their work at all has it plastered all over. People, especially teens with no idea of rhyme, meter, or what the difference between a monologue and a sonnet is, just do what they believe to be free-verse (it's not) and throw it out there.

Today's most common poetry, by all traditional means, isn't poetry at all. No rhyme scheme, no rhythm, no clear stanza organization, no themes half the time. It's just...frustrating. Why bother trying to make something classically good when the people of today will look at it and call it old-fashioned, if they recognize it as being poetry at all before pulling out their mass-printed butcheries of an ancient art.

Although, now that I think about it, I don't write in a traditional manner at all. I'm very passive-verb intensive and love to put commas after conjunctions. I use implied I as often as implied you and claim antecedents from the complete opposite end of the composition. And, as much as I demolish the rules of the English language, most people tell me they love my writing style.

Maybe I'm just behind the times and there's hope for the new "poetry" that's floating around so much.

I guess it comes down to whether I'd rather be considered an artist or a pioneer.

I'd take artist.

If, that is, I could make something worth keeping.