*FORGIVE...IF YOU WILL?

by Melissa Taylor
1st September 2016

*FORGIVE...IF YOU WILL*This is me... Drinking beer to make sure i don't see clear. Will you forgive me Mom.? Staying indoor's. No i don't have any flaw's. Taking "Phet" drinking even more you bet. Will you forgive me Mom? Forgive me.? Please Forgive me for my Sins. My Negative feeling's. Please forgive me. For clearly i did not see. I sure as heck wasn't being me. Will you forgive me Mom.? For all the bad thing's that iv'e done.? Not like your "goody two-shoes" Son.

Comments

I like this one! I think the idea of keeping it all on one line (though a little bit irritating for the on-line reader [I'm trying to imagine how this would work on a page]) is good, as if it's a thought that has to get out all at once.

Some of the rhymes aren't PERFECT (shit [or is that another word?: if so, I don't get it] with bet; indoors with flaws, sins with feelings), but they're close enough. There are plenty of songs with more mis-matched rhymes. Even in the days when all poems were SUPPOSED to rhyme, you got the old master poets rhyming gone with done, bow (as in "take a bow", not the bow you wear in your hair) with grow, alone with one, etc. Perhaps they did really rhyme in some regional accent... but I doubt it.

Wilhelmina's scan changes do make it "chug along" more rhythmically [though her scanning in the 2nd-last verse is also not perfect], but that might not be what you're after. You have to decide. My experience is that poems stick in my mind more easily if they've got a constant rhythm. And rhyming is also an aid to memory.

Profile picture for user emilie@l_41018
Emilie
van Damm
330 points
Developing your craft
Poetry
Short stories
Fiction
Autobiography, Biography and Memoir
Middle Grade (Children's)
Picture Books (Children's)
Comic
Business, Management and Education
Popular science, Social science, Medical Science
Practical and Self-Help
Romance
Speculative Fiction
Adventure
Emilie van Damm
27/08/2016

"If it's any consolation, wikileaks makes the same mistake" Whoops! Showing my politics there. I meant - of course - wikipedia.

Profile picture for user wilhelmi_40676
Wilhelmina
Lyre
330 points
Developing your craft
Wilhelmina Lyre
27/08/2016

I REALLY shouldn’t restructure (OR rewrite) somebody else’ poem. You must have had good reasons to write this one as a one-liner. But allow me to pull it apart to suggest other scanning/rhythm. It can then be put back into one line.

This is me...

Drinking beer

to make sure i don't see clear.

(Will you please forgive me Mom?)

Staying indoors.

[add short line here, to rhyme with indoors/flaws]

No i don't have any flaws.

(Will you still forgive me Mom?) [Perhaps underline “still”]

Taking shit [BTW, do you mean cannabis? I ask because it comes right before reference to “drinking more”. In which case, “kiffing” or “smoking” maybe better than “taking”, though if you wish to be ambiguous, all power to you. And if you DIDN’T mean cannabis, some of us are going to wonder.]

[another short line: --- it, --- hit, etc.]

drinking even more you bet.

(Can you please forgive me Mom?)

Forgive me? Please?

Forgive my Sins.

Forgive my neg-

ative feelings.

Please forgive me.

Because clearly

i did not see.

I sure as heck wasn't being me.

(Will you PLEASE forgive me Mom?)

For all the bad thing's that i’ve done?

Not like your "goody-two-shoes" Son.

[If this were MY poem – and I’d be proud of it! – I’d CONSIDER a short continuation, asking forgiveness for not BEING the Son.]

Profile picture for user wilhelmi_40676
Wilhelmina
Lyre
330 points
Developing your craft
Wilhelmina Lyre
27/08/2016