I see her standing in all her pride.
From a distance i notice her majestic stride.
Attracted by her, towards her I ride.
Getting closer the apparition dawns,
Standing ahead is a distraught damsel torn.
Her shambles tell a story forelorn
of times good and bad she's borne.
I look in her eyes, those beautifull brown delight;
Would have commanded once, an army without respite.
Now she hides them with shame and despise.
She looks here and there with humbling spite.
That scarless face in its majesty she beholds
Standing the test of time it beckons me towards;
With pity and compassion i approach her, hands cold
to offer alms and a prayer of solicitude.
She looks up, her pride unmistaken.
Smiles and refuses that i had given.
And utters to my surprise the cuckoo voice-
"Not alms I beg for, nor I seek your prayer,
My condition lay be, for its caused by my own vice."
To this i stood wondering
How can something as beautifull come to err
She shows me the box and unravels the mystery
Ahead stood Pandora, regretting the mistake she dint foresee.
She blamed herself for the misery,
For all the ills, Of human deviance and indulgence,
And the unseen that ought to bereave man of peace and humanity.
Unsure of what to say, i utter a word or two of solace
"With all evils released the box still holds hope within;
In spite of all the ills we still have hope to live with.
If not, there would be no reason for us to exist."
Beautiful !!!! Buddy
ReplyDeleteThanks man. So you read my blog finally eh! I'm waiting for you to start writing something.
ReplyDeleteReally superb... :)
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ReplyDeleteI liked what you wrote because this is a diversion from what you have written so far. But there are some instances where you may have rhymed the poem a little more than required.
ReplyDeleteFor eg. 1) I see her standing in all her pride.
From a distance i notice her majestic stride.
Does the poet see her standing with pride or striding along the highway?
2)Now she hides them with shame and despise.
She looks here and there with humbling spite.
Is Pandora ashamed of her deed or proud of it? Humbling despise? (I didn't get that)
There is too much focus on rhyming and less on substance. Redundancy in describing the state of Pandora.
I liked the ending. Good job.
Prabhjot
Hey Prabhjot,
ReplyDeleteI know that the readers of free verse generally get annoyed by any form of rhyme and find it wasteful. I know, I am one of those.
For the first point, if I were to quote all the crazy geniuses, everything is in a constant state of motion; they only appear static with reference to your own motion. But that would just be the geek in me talking! Pandora isn't obliged to move or or to stand still.
I guess you were trying to point out the contradictory lines in the poem rather than the "redundancy" in it. The contradiction was necessary to indicate Pandora's state. The first woman (of Greek mythology), the daughter of Zeus, and yet a woman who would forever be known as the one whose mistake, whose curiosity and disrespect for Zeus' advice, is the reason for every evil that mankind has ever known. It is an attempt to bring out her intrinsic pride which is apparent even in her anguish and quest for absolution.
(I wish I was accused of redundancy. It is a an art to convey the message, emotion, thought and what not and reinforce it in many different ways. It is a poetic tool of the 18th and 19th century. )
I agree that mere rhymes do not construe poetry. I'd rather not rhyme if that would create a rap that lacks any structure or content. But rhyme adds to the beauty of poems and makes reading more enjoyable when used correctly. I hope I have done that here.
Some poems are less about substance (when substance implies information or data or whatever) because that is not the purpose of the writer. In here the purpose is description, portrayal of a scene, an event, of a person. The cause and consequence are necessary only to provide a structure. The description is paramount and not Pandora's story.
I like such criticism. I believe it comes from being detail oriented and implies that you have read it and not just browsed through it. It also gives me an opportunity to provide clarity and argue my side of the story.
Cheers,
Aashish
Well, a good explanation of the poem. I can always ask you what you mean when I don't understand some of the dense parts of the poem.
ReplyDeletePrabhjot