How did we allow the everyday

[whisperer]

How did we allow the everyday
to dullen the colours of our yesterday 
and dream tomorrow as a better day?
We stopped living in the present day.

Time is an endless funeral parade,
where we don our masks and play our charade,
with painted faces and edited scenes
we've lost the sense of what this all means. 

We don't get to edit. We don’t get to delete.
We don't get to package it all pretty and neat.
We have to do this clumsy and awkward
and stumble and wallow on a faulty word.

But beyond the ugliness of our scars
We get to see the brilliance of our stars.
Standing side by side through the mundane
we are the only thing that keeps us sane. 

I wouldn't do this any other way,
if I get to do it with you every day

[Mostly Holy]

Method: No strict meter or rhyme pattern, but mostly solid rhymes and a quatrain structure, roughly in pentameter, with a closing couplet let an oversized sonnet. Rhythm frequently stumbles and many rhymes seem forced, especially the four uses of "day" in the opening stanza, whihc does not work at all. I get the idea, and I am sure you did it on purpose, but it comes off as more lazy than intentional, particularly since it is the opening stanza. You can get away with that kind of thing later on it in a poem, once it has been earnt, but front-loading it is off-putting

Manner: You drop your metaphors too soon, and some of your lines read like filler for something more impactful. You also rely too much on stock phrases and imagery that is cliche, which drown out your own voice. Time as a funeral, the ugliness of scars and the brilliance of stars, dreaming of a better tomorrow, life as masks and charades (echoes of Shakespear?) When your imagery is original, it is effective: "Painted faces and edited scenes" is intriguing, but you do not develop it so we are left wondering. It also contradicts the next stanza, whihc begins by telling us we cannot edit.

I could not help but hear the ghost of Omar Khayyam's "moving finger" in "We don't get to edit. We don’t get to delete. / We don't get to package it all pretty and neat", Idk if this is intentional but it was effective, and makes me think the "As You Like It" reference I read in "we don our masks and play our charade" is also intentional, which would be thematically appropriate since both poems are about time. If there are more references like these, they are too well hidden for me to spot, so these two seems almost incidental. Riffing off established verses could play well into your theme of life as something we edit and embellish (or wish we could? Your poem states both). However in both cases, if these are intentional nods, you do not develop them or add anything to them, whihc makes the borrowing seem stylistic rather than purposeful. If you are going to echo famous poems, you need to do more than rephrase what has already been said. I feel you could devote each stanza to exploring one reference each, making the "life as performance" theme more explicit and giving each stanza a specific focus, some aspect of life or time you want to meditate upon

Some lines stumble or are unclear, often because they are vague and use weak verbs and adjectives where you should be putting strong concrete images. "We have to do this clumsy and awkward / and stumble and wallow on a faulty word." could be an interesting line, but ironically it is too awkward and clumsy to land. Is this about failing to communicate with others, or living our lives by some creed or doctrine not of our own? It is unclear.

Matter: You do not dig in to your subject. You bring up time, death, regret, loss and absence, but never develop any of them. The closing couplet feels like it belongs in a different poem, was this a poem about love? It certainly did not feel like it, and the vagueness (You would not do what? Live?) and sentimental tone of the closer totally undercuts any pathos you built in the poem itself, it is a real mismatch in both tone and subject

In all, I think you are leaning too hard on rhyme instead of meaning. Your imagery is sometimes unoriginal, which flattens the poem's impact, the sentimental ending cheapens the poem's tension and feels unearnt, and there is no progression from stanza to stanza, whihc might be fine except this is a poem about time in which nothing happens

You clearly have something you want to say, something you find moving, but you have to share the images that move you, not just vibes, if you want us to feel it too. At the moment your poem beats about the bush when it should be going for the jugular

[whisperer]

Method: No strict meter or rhyme pattern, but mostly solid rhymes and a quatrain structure, roughly in pentameter, with a closing couplet let an oversized sonnet. Rhythm frequently stumbles and many rhymes seem forced, especially the four uses of "day" in the opening stanza, whihc does not work at all. I get the idea, and I am sure you did it on purpose, but it comes off as more lazy than intentional, particularly since it is the opening stanza. You can get away with that kind of thing later on it in a poem, once it has been earnt, but front-loading it is off-putting

Manner: You drop your metaphors too soon, and some of your lines read like filler for something more impactful. You also rely too much on stock phrases and imagery that is cliche, which drown out your own voice. Time as a funeral, the ugliness of scars and the brilliance of stars, dreaming of a better tomorrow, life as masks and charades (echoes of Shakespear?) When your imagery is original, it is effective: "Painted faces and edited scenes" is intriguing, but you do not develop it so we are left wondering. It also contradicts the next stanza, whihc begins by telling us we cannot edit.

I could not help but hear the ghost of Omar Khayyam's "moving finger" in "We don't get to edit. We don’t get to delete. / We don't get to package it all pretty and neat", Idk if this is intentional but it was effective, and makes me think the "As You Like It" reference I read in "we don our masks and play our charade" is also intentional, which would be thematically appropriate since both poems are about time. If there are more references like these, they are too well hidden for me to spot, so these two seems almost incidental. Riffing off established verses could play well into your theme of life as something we edit and embellish (or wish we could? Your poem states both). However in both cases, if these are intentional nods, you do not develop them or add anything to them, whihc makes the borrowing seem stylistic rather than purposeful. If you are going to echo famous poems, you need to do more than rephrase what has already been said. I feel you could devote each stanza to exploring one reference each, making the "life as performance" theme more explicit and giving each stanza a specific focus, some aspect of life or time you want to meditate upon

Some lines stumble or are unclear, often because they are vague and use weak verbs and adjectives where you should be putting strong concrete images. "We have to do this clumsy and awkward / and stumble and wallow on a faulty word." could be an interesting line, but ironically it is too awkward and clumsy to land. Is this about failing to communicate with others, or living our lives by some creed or doctrine not of our own? It is unclear.

Matter: You do not dig in to your subject. You bring up time, death, regret, loss and absence, but never develop any of them. The closing couplet feels like it belongs in a different poem, was this a poem about love? It certainly did not feel like it, and the vagueness (You would not do what? Live?) and sentimental tone of the closer totally undercuts any pathos you built in the poem itself, it is a real mismatch in both tone and subject

In all, I think you are leaning too hard on rhyme instead of meaning. Your imagery is sometimes unoriginal, which flattens the poem's impact, the sentimental ending cheapens the poem's tension and feels unearnt, and there is no progression from stanza to stanza, whihc might be fine except this is a poem about time in which nothing happens

You clearly have something you want to say, something you find moving, but you have to share the images that move you, not just vibes, if you want us to feel it too. At the moment your poem beats about the bush when it should be going for the jugular

Wow! Now that's a critique! Thank you for this. You've given me a lot to think about and to work on. Originally, it began as a working sonnet, but I couldn't decide between the last two stanzas so I decided to throw the rules out the window and just go with it. 

Thank you for pointing out some areas where I can be amateurish. I appreciate you leaving such a detailed and honest review. I will take your points into deep consideration and rework this piece. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this and to leave a critique.

[MidaPoems]

It misses a bit of rhyme and meter but still, it’s not bad.