Fear of Falling edit0.1billy, ella

[tectak]

Tom,

Isn't "plaintively and plangently" a bit redundant?

Def of plangently:resounding loudly, especially with a "plaintive" sound, as a bell.

Although you use a fair amount of alliteration, the only one that bothered me was "preposterous progress", aside from this one, the others hide nicely in the poem.

Most of the poem does quite well, but your first two lines bother me.

"Each day is the end of a unique journey
begun as a 'kerchief, tear soaked, hits the ground."

This is what it seems to be saying to me.

a unique journey begun as a tear soaked kerchief hits the ground.

which is I guess is a metaphor for the world is full of bunch timid wienies, the opposite of those who pursue excellence. A kind of Prufrockian anti-hero. Still, I don't get the odd syntax, is that there to maintain the iambic foot?

Then the segment about time, also somewhat reminiscent of Prufrock,

"Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions
And for a hundred visions and revisions"

I really liked these lines

"No scratches on tombstones describe what a life means
but clearly and coldly say, “ He took this long.”"

I'm wondering if the question posed in the last line is needed.

"Walk slowly, my friends, on the edge of existence;
falling is final, ‘cept to ask….is that all?"

I'm intrigued, when does one have the chance to say "is that all?" On the way down. See my reply


I find this a mixed bag, half has been stated and restated many times, yet these is a freshness in parts, like the tombstone line.

Dale

Hi dale,
many thanks for this...sadly, you have encouraged me to work on it further
Conceptually, and that is all, I was going for observed dichotomy...but I was watching the horror story of MH17 at the time and it got in. What dichotomy? It didn't work, obviously. Simply this. We have the anti-abortionists, the liberalists, the dignified death die-hards, the postumous war heroes, the bombed babies, centenarian senility...well, you know, the full whack of lives long and lives short. But note. Apart from the functionality of a semi-permanent stone tome we record nothing of life "value" in terms of "Was it worth it...enter a number up to 10"...all we see is "how long was it?" No pun or innuendo
I can see the piece needs more meat. I guess I tried too hard to concatenate. Your comments will help create a framework.
Best,
tectak
Oh, that "final"question, yes, it was the vestigial MH17 influence. It is not a good idea.