Thread: Television

Sounds waves crash-
slash against the wall
light waves scatter-
chatter and fall
blind my vision,
with a bent precision
ground me in reality
numbing my thoughts.

Turn it off, control regained
the switcher --
an elixir,
turn it on again.

The box of light glows;
shows replayed
moments in time froze;
dead but relayed
people
things
that don't really exist.

Taking away my time;
moments that slip...

Into abyss
melodic remiss
symphonies switch
with the change of a click.

On to a another subject
again and again
the tv melts the mind
with no rewind

Shows of;

careless crimes,
the life and times

doctors and diagnostics
crazy fighting robotics

worldly events
and a modern day cave man
makeshifting tents.

Sit here, why?
watching my life on the screen
as it goes by.

I think this is a good concept -- TV as a kind of addiction -- the power it seems to have over some people, how it sucks up time etc. I think you capture it best when you say, "Turn it off, control regained"

In the opening stanza, I'm not sure what you mean by "grounding in reality" it seem the opposite would be true. Your last line seems a little imprecise too -- it's more like you're watching other people's lives, rather than your own. The TV is more a substitute for living.

moments in time froze;

Maybe that should be "frozen."

Some things seem a little off -- a little fuzzy. Here are some examples:

numbing my thoughts.

Are the thoughts numb or is your mind numb?

with the change of a click.

Does the click change?

I think you have something here. Maybe go back and think through some of the things that aren't as precise as they could be.

You do very well to create a sense of being stuck in the televised world here, and the reflective rhyming from line to line works well within this piece, but it tends to lag in places as you go through the piece. Joseph offer's some good advice, and a edit on your part for misspellings and grammar would not go amiss. Some of your punctuation is redundant, in that things like semi-colons and ellipsis are used at the end of a stanza and are used to create breaks, which are actually already implemented by the stanza break and serve no real purpose. One or the other works fine if you are simply creating a pause. If you want the information to be viewed together as relative to each other, combine stanzas and use the punctuation, otherwise eliminate it and don't bog down the reader if you can.

"Sounds waves crash-"

Probably should be "sound" instead. Double plurality is confusing. The piece is nicely done, and like Joseph, I see a lot of potential here.



T

A good concept for a poem. I have no advice to offer other than what Joseph and Tenebris have already stated.

Sitting in front of a television now is sometimes a waste of time and melts the mind.

Hey Jon, I really like this, but agree with the others that it needs a bit of tweaking. My suggestions:

S1, remove the dashes, not necessary and change Sounds to Sound as T suggested. Take out the comma after vision. I think by "ground me in reality" means one of two thing, either you're watching reality programming or like a plane is grounded, it disables you from living normal life. Is it either? S2, remove the dashes. S3, I'd take out "the" before box and would remove those semicolons, the line breaks do the work fine without them, and froze is a bit awkward, it really should be frozen if you're willing to give up that rhyme.I'm including the next two lines as part of S4, remove the semicolon, retain the ellipsis, but make the following into lowercase and remove "the change" to make it "with a click". S5, take out the extra a before another, personally, I think tv looks better as TV, and put a period after rewind. Swap the semicolon after Shows of: to a colon. I'd take the comma out after crimes since you didn't include them after the other examples. Joe's got a point about the penultimate line but I interpret it as since TV is your life, watching is really living to you, if that makes any sense. I really did enjoy this, hon, and I hope this helps. One last thing, perhaps you'd consider changing the title to Ode to Lisa's Husband.

Best,
Lisa

I think this needs more of a personal touch. It has the vital symptoms of something well thought out, so this is a beginning. The rhymes were simple to me and didn't leave much of a mark in my recieving end of the psyche. Seemed like more of a basic exercise than of a poem you wanted to make new and exciting. The ending read a little dull for me, but that might be because of the depressing tone of the whole poem overall. Television, repetition, what flashes on the screen - and your own life going by in the process..

Decent write sir.

- frankly juben

Hey sorry for the delay, I thank you all for the suggestions. This piece was kinda rushed, and i kinda posted it prematurely. I may rewrite it one day using the suggestions provided here, awesome suggestions too I might add.

Thanks again!