ecargo23 Feb 2006

A little too end-rhyme driven for my taste--admirable that you found so many rhyming words that worked in your narrative, but it too often leads to awkward phrasing or cliches. Also, too long for the eventual payoff, and the points are made a little too obviously and literally. Every read Ozymandias by Shelley? Another "met a traveller" poem with a big point to make, but he makes it without saying it explicitly:

Ozymandias

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

(Or there's always the Monty Python version:

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said, "Six vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert
And on the pedestal these words appear,
My name is Ozymandias, King of Ants
Look on my feelers, termites, and despair!
I am the biggest ant you'll ever see
The ants of old weren't half as big and bold
And fierce as me!") ;-)