What Has Become Of Us? -------------------------------------------
What has become of us?
We, who’s rough hands formed
All things of industry?
We who brought down the beast
And made of him a meal.
We who clothed and fed the body,
Who nurtured the growing
Things on our blood.
We who mined and smelted
And forged
The very iron that binds us;
Made cathartic
With the bondage of toil,
We serve and sooth our parasites.
We lie upon
The gory ground and
Surrender-up our weathered flesh.
The blood and sweat
That made them strong;
Smug, bold and imperial.
What has become of us,
Anemic and complacent–
Whipped and broken working hounds
Struggling to keep our cages.
any plans to go, balaclava'd in the night, around the cities of america painting this in huge, screaming letters on the side of every corporate office filled skyscraper?
a poem like this on a page feels slightly confined, because it's not really a poem in the traditional sense, more a rallying cry.
"What has become of us?" right from the start you're making the point, and the use of "use" is very inclusive, your speaking directly to the audience while letting them know that you're one of them, it's like saying comrade without all the negative connotations.
"Who nurtured the growing Things on our blood." I think this bit would be stronger if you changed the word "things" to something more meaningful and less vague, such as "nation" though that's a bad example as it has an extra syllable, but you get my point.
That was my only nitpick (and feel free to ignore it) with what i felt was a very good poem. Thanks for sharing it.
Americans are more interested in someone, who gets a million $ a year, moving an object into a hoop, or net, or end field, or outfield, than the size of the national debt, or the erosion of freedoms in the name of fighting drug lords or terrorists. The company that aired Janet Jackson's tit was fined a half-mil, but the mining company whose violations cost 19 miners' lives this year typically pay a couple of thousand in fines per infraction. The religious right believes in values...and ours are certainly whacko! The people take such great pride in the American train that, that they are proud to lie down in a row to form its rails. We have some high-tech workers, immigrants, who are moving back to their original countries, because they do not want to raise their kids in a land with so many stupid, poorly educated people. Sad., fred PS. Oh yes, I forgot...I like the style; quite lyrical.
love the retorical nature of this verse, the free form aspect of the unanswered question always seems to be more powerful than blatant outburst of rage against the great masses...
We've become 'civilized' (tame animals, fearfully subservient employees, maintenance junkies, fill in the blank), and no longer care to 'boldly go where no man has gone before.' Basically, survival, not trailblazing boldness, has become the rule of the day/mantra of the middle class (and fear lubricates the machinery of unquestioning obedience to dark forces masquerading as magi). A nice rhetorical postulate. Take care. Bill.
these is the marxist wildibeast in all of us just screaming to be free... our sweat and toil waters the lands of inequality... they water the veins that choke us.. Marx was right and he always will be...
what a sad, yet so true poem... and there is gW flipping off the American people. he is flipping off the whole world... and we dig for him and indisrty. our blood feeds the leaches that we can call big oil or sara leee or frito lays and whatever the [censored] ...
I am sorry for ranting too much. poems like this do this to me.
Submission Name: What Has Become Of Us?
