poemranker ::A Good Man Ruined by Dovina

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Free verse № 128707

A Good Man Ruined

by Dovina

Member since 2004 · Posted 17 Jul 2005 · 20 comments

Working alone, the ace engineer gets it down. Like an artist of few mistakes, he conceives, births practical designs, buildable, awesome. Promoted and monied, he runs a team and thinks he can run the world. Off for himself now, fumbling, failing, fanatical, driving nails in what he could have designed, still unaware. It's the fault of a woman draftsman, he's told, but he knows it's his own damn fault.

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20 comments

[8] Blindpoetry 17-Jul-05/10:43 PM Reply
kind[of] like a poet
woot.
[n/a] Dovina › Blindpoetry 18-Jul-05/8:04 AM Reply
It's always desirable to draw attention to your own lonliness. So like a poet he is. Maybe some teenager will read his words scratched on the stud of that wall he's building and say in some distant century, there went a man I can understand, and post it on poemranker.
[5] zodiac › Dovina 18-Jul-05/11:01 PM Reply
re "there went a man I can understand"

Was he Jimmy Buffet? Consider:
"Some people claim that there's a WO - MAN TO BLAME,
But I know it's my own damn fault."

No points for originality.
[n/a] Dovina › zodiac 20-Jul-05/1:29 AM Reply
I knew that, and decided to use it anyway.
[5] zodiac › Dovina 20-Jul-05/11:20 PM Reply
Then the issue isn't even really unoriginality/plagiarism, it's that you're not questioning whether something Jimmy Buffet would say is particularly wise. I personally consider this a very bad move.
[n/a] Dovina › zodiac 22-Jul-05/8:05 AM Reply
It's not that I consider his statement wise. I used it a different way than he did, and thought doing so was entirely cute.
[5] zodiac › Dovina 24-Jul-05/2:45 AM Reply
I don't see how yours is different at all. Jimmy Buffet thinks it's a woman's fault but knows it's really his. Your character thinks it's a woman's fault but knows it's really his. What gives?
[n/a] Dovina › zodiac 24-Jul-05/6:18 AM Reply
It's the POV that's differnt. In the case of my poem, I know that he knows, and that he realizes he could only do good engineering under the umbrella of the Company, and incidently with the sexual stimulus of a certain draftswomen. My knowing that is what makes it so much like breasts against his hairy chest. Doesn't that ring with a major difference for you, or is it all about the bridges and stuff like that in your world?
[5] zodiac › Dovina 26-Jul-05/1:03 AM Reply
Are you drunk?

From the POV of Jimmy Buffet's song, the only people who don't know by the end of the song are the "some people" who claim it's the fault of a woman. From the POV of your poem, the only people who don't know are the people who "told" him it's woman's fault. Still not seeing the difference.

None of the rest of your comment comes across in the poem. So whether it rings with me is kind of immaterial. I think most of your commenters would agree.
[n/a] Dovina › zodiac 27-Jul-05/6:06 AM Reply
Yes I AM DRUNK. Like Milton Buber, I am a philosopher without logic. What you say is true logically, and I am sorry to tell you I see it like a drunk woman. POV is everything in the world of emotion. Mine is after the fact, if there ever was one, when he realized his fault. Mine is the kind of knowledge needed to go on. It`s the sort of understanding that makes a good life out of a bad one. Logic never does that.
[5] zodiac › Dovina 28-Jul-05/12:10 AM Reply
Then we're back at our old impasse. If you wrote this poem for yourself only, bully. If you had any other purpose or audience in mind, I just don't think it works. Besides, I don't believe thinking things are your own damn fault is very healthy.
[n/a] Dovina › zodiac 28-Jul-05/6:53 AM Reply
I did not write it for my own damn self. I wrote for anybody able to think this way, healthy or not.

He knew it was his fault after realizing his ability to do good engineering depended on the framework of his company, and not solely on his own genius. If you think that's an unhealthy realization, then I pity you.
[5] zodiac › Dovina 29-Jul-05/4:07 AM Reply
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying IF you wrote it for yourself, it's great (if a little overexposed). IF you didn't, I don't think it works. Saying I wrote this for people who think like me is the same as saying I wrote this for myself.

I don't think it's a necessarily unhealthy realisation, but the way I think it would be healthy is not the way it's set up in the poem.
[2] Bankrupt_Word_Clerk 19-Jul-05/2:07 AM Reply
Jimmy Buffet said it better.
"Wasting away again in Margaritaville..."
[n/a] <~> 20-Jul-05/8:03 AM Reply
somehow i feel this one might have been more effective written from the engineer's point of view.
[n/a] Dovina › <~> 22-Jul-05/8:17 AM Reply
Could be, but then it would end up a drinking man's crying song. Somehow, we have enough of those.
[7] jessicazee 20-Jul-05/7:46 PM Reply
tell me why buildable is awesome in the beginning and I will begin to care. I think you have a grand character sketch here if you give it another go.
[n/a] Dovina › jessicazee 22-Jul-05/8:19 AM Reply
Awesome in the way the World Trade Center was, or the Golden Gate Bridge is. How do you mean - another go? More detail?
[n/a] ALChemy 21-Jul-05/5:22 PM Reply
Maybe change engineer to architech. Also you say he works alone and he runs a team. You might want to say "then promoted and monied he runs a team" or maybe change the first line to something like "Alone at the top". Change "damn" in the last line and the Jimmy Buffet fans will leave you alone. Fix this poem but don't ever throw it out because if one imagines the "ace egineer" as possibly being god or the bible or even Adam then the poem takes on a whole new profound meaning.
[n/a] Dovina › ALChemy 22-Jul-05/8:22 AM Reply
"then promoted and monied he runs a team" is clearer, might do that.

The 'damn' is shakey, I know.

I never thought of it as being about God, but in a way it works if you think of it as man created in God's image as creator.

Thanks for the comment.