Where will this end? And pray, at what price?
Of what use incessant progress and inhuman might,
When we can't realize a life can't be taken twice?
Smoke from our fires spirals towards the skies
While we burn and rape everything in sight.
When will this end? And pray, at what price?
A tattered woman weeps alone; untended, a child cries.
Their dreams carpet-bombed; their nation, in blight.
Why don't we realize a life can't be taken twice?
We wallow in greed; our lives, complicated lies.
Our pens dripping blood, a crimson history we write.
How will this end? And pray, at what price?
Souls muted, we spectate as humanity dies.
We war over the petty; for the meagre, we fight.
Do we even realize a life can't be taken twice?
Beauty lies dead, her corpse swarming with flies.
The pall bearers come to carry her away into the night.
Where will this end? And pray, at what price?
When will we realize a life can't be taken twice?
***
My first attempt at a Villanelle.
About Me
- musafir
- "A man is the history of his breaths and thoughts, acts, atoms and wounds, love, indifference, and dislike; also of his race and nation, the soil that fed him and his forebears, the stones and sands of his familiar places, long-silenced battles and struggles of conscience, of the smiles of girls and the slow utterance of old women, of accidents and the gradual action of inexorable law, of all this and something else too, a single flame which in every way obeys the laws that pertain to Fire itself, and yet is lit and put out from one moment to the next, and can never be relumed in the whole waste of time to come." Possession by A.S. Byatt
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6 comments:
Liked this one a lot. I think the same things to myself most of the time. You've articulated them beautifully here.
Your variations on the basic question "When we can't realize..." , "Why don't we realize...", "Do we even...", "When will we.." I loved those. Lends the poem a discursive texture.
The changing moods of the constant questioning...very good. Sucks the person readin completely into the poem's sphere.
It is not bad at all for a first attempt ;) !
so u changed stuff! Nice! :)
Good one. Have thought on the same lines for quite sometime now. You have got it in writing.This is my first Villanelle :)
kool da ..
your prose and poetry now shine equally. beautiful piece.
@ languorous_chaos: Wonderful comment indeed! You see everything don't you?
Yeah, I wanted to bring in that variation, and you're right on target when you say, "discursive".
Thanks! Appreciate it.
@ anonymous: Like I said, I take feedback seriously :)
Thanks :)
@ catch 22: The thing is, it's not a new feeling really. I mean, all of us feel it considering what we see and hear these days. But somehow we've become desensitized to all of it. I wanted to break out of that groove; hence, this.
@ karthik: :)
@ prat: They do?! Thanks :) But yes, still need to keep working on both of them.
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