Poetry: #89 Foregone Conclusion
An Innocuous Poem About Esoteric Voting
Foregone Conclusion
A template, a beginning to something new. A hard fought victory special made by the insanity of actions left to the drones of society. Hard fought, hard won, hard earned. Death by a thousand cuts the priests of ideology marked every strike in the cornerstone of their fundamental beliefs. Little by little the marks upon their bodies colored a story that one might read as a dystopia unimaginable. Left to the winds of fate the priests desperate for a slice of pie they worked so hard to form, they are left by the select few to witness their flaws. Alone in the wilderness created by the beasts of burden who gave up all hope and are now as robots in an economy stagnate. Candles burned out as if the wick was no longer enough to sustain their lives. But the candles with the dried wax and the wick linger, never gone but most likely forgotten as each day is a new day to stay above the water of the oceans of disease sweeping across the nations of greed. The wealthy deceiving, the few corrupting all desire to live with meaning.
What are your thoughts on this poem?
Thoughts on Poem Drop 89
This is a poem written back in 2019 and sits in the “for books” folder. I’m not entirely sure which book I had in mind when writing it. Foregone conclusion is a pessimistic, downbeat poem that chooses to follow a different format than standard poetry. Indeed, many of the poems I’ve planned for the rest of 2024 will break the mold of what one might call a “traditional” poem.
One might ask where this poem rhymes? One might ask why a poem must rhyme. This poem is written as a contradiction to the traditional template for poetry and to the abstract ideology that is at the center of this poem. The purposeful rhymes here are in-line and numbering only a few. “A hard fought victory” and “the priests of ideology” is the first rhyme. Each is 4 words past the most recent punctuation. You can include “beliefs” as a partial rhyme, but I don’t.
Why rhyme like this? Did I do it on purpose or just try to connect dots after the fact? The truth is instead of focusing on rhyming, I focused on working the metaphors and encapsulating the ideas within the complex sentences written. Not the best sentences ever, but it’s a poem, one day I might take the ideas and write a new poem with more elegance. However, the few rhymes in place help bind each expanding thought to itself. The entirety of the first stanza can be summed up in this way “priests of ideology fought for victory”. That is the crucial thought and it’s bound by the only purposeful rhyme in that stanza. The ideological zealots have succeeded in their revolution.
Similarly, in the second stanza, we no longer have that symmetry that existed in the first rhyme scheme in the first stanza. Where the priests had an orderly air and understanding of where they came from and where they were heading, they are now “desperate” and “stagnate”, their minds, their candles, their essence, has come undone. The lifeblood of their beliefs is running out and their world is in shambles. The idea that came to pass: “the priests desperate for a slice of an economy stagnate.” This is a warning to any followers of ideological zealots: their leaders will cannibalize the movement for themselves.
The last stanza punctuates the meaning of the second. “Oceans of disease”, “nations of greed”, “wealthy deceiving”, “live with meaning”. An ideology that won over the others fell to the typical reasons any society, any ideology, falls. It becomes diseased. This abstraction calls out the zealots looking to take their slice no matter how well the economy, the people, are doing. They are wealthy, deceiving, the nations of greedy people. Even the question that must be asked is co-opted! “the few corrupting all desire to live with meaning” instead of “what can I do to live a life with meaning.” Something that can only be done if we break free from what holds us back, the template, the rat race, etc.
Everything comes and goes; generations, societies, civilizations, and ideologies wax and wane... what’s left for We the People at the end of the day is what gives us meaning; only if we live with meaning.
Question Section
With America flush with political fervor, this poem is more apt that I knew when I listed it at the beginning of the year. It does, however, bring up questions we ought to ask ourselves when thinking about our political beliefs, parties, friends, foes, and ideology. When was the last time you challenged your own beliefs? When have you attacked someone else for their idea instead of simply challenging the idea itself? What do the leaders that fit your political mold/party/ideology have to gain by being elected? What do you have to gain? These are the kinds of questions I ask myself before walking into the voting booth.
I hear another poem is coming every Saturday!