Awaiting my ultimatum
is this virgin sheet of paper;
twenty-seven lines dwindle slowly towards the bottom,
each row asking my the same
They want to know, I now suppose,
my enlightenèd opinion
Each question, staring back at me, each saying
-True or False?
And I question, baffledly;
who am I to give the answer?
Is it general belief you seek,
or simply my opinion?
Explain to me, I do implore
how the truth of all existence
can be summed up, be all encased
in that simple, three word question?
Do you seek to box it in?
Celebrate in black and white?
Do you seek to turn to me,
expecting my approval?
And so I move, resignèdly,
to give them my response:
-an answer, scrawled with little haste,
now reading there – 'perchance'
(A/N: Bleh, not sure if I like this one. I think the
premise is cool – a critique of standardized tests and true/false questions –
but the delivery seems kinda forced to me. And the last line really bugs me to death;
I love that stanza, but the word 'perchance' just doesn't seem to flow, and I
can't figure out how to fix it. Grr….*eye twitch* Anyways, I'd love to hear
your constructive criticisms about it, and if you have any idea as to how I
could manage to repair that last line – my perfectionist little self will be
obsessing over it until it pleases me – you shall be bowed down before and
worshiped *wink* )
(A/N to the second power: Thanks to Terra Tigra for pointing out that 'resignedly'
didn't flow right; it's because I had forgotten to add on the accent for the 'e'
when typing it up! Anyways, the second-to-last syllable is supposed to be
emphasized instead of dropped now, making it sound like 'resign-ed-ly' instead
of 'resignd-ly'. I don't know if as many poets use that tactic on a regular basis
nowadays, but I do know that writers used to do that a lot at one point in
time, and it always just seemed like a handy thing to do, so I hung onto it.
Anyways, many thanks again! ^_^ )