i’ve realized that everything that i know about life and it’s functions comes from things that i’ve been told
going through school i remember teachers saying things like “America is so great because we are free. We can walk down the street and not be shot at. That is freedom.” Well, I composed my cynism into a poetic form because it’s the easiest way i can truly express how I feel. I can’t change the world, but gosh damnit I can unleash my bottled up anger on it whenever I please.I am the product of those who have thought and felt
A child of existenalism, as my grandfathers generation suffered…
long list of grievances human cruelty lay rest from brutal warfare
Now We dance with apathy and make passionate love with uncertainty
welcoming the stupidity and ignorance with open arms
Define good and evil… when such things are subject to change with each generation
The blood of those who fought for something better run through me
They sought enlightenment and refuge from a vague life… Did they search in vain?
define this liberty that has indifferently claimed the lives of so many
Because the only thing that is apparent to my digust and bafflement
is politicains and buracrats hiding behind the iron-fisted majority
and faceless men telling me that I’m free
This needs some work. “Existenalism” is not a word, and neither are “politicains” or “buracrats”. “Dancing” and “apathy” contradict each other, at least from a poetic point of view. How can the majority be “iron-fisted” if it’s the hidden politicians and bureaucrats truly controlling everything? And are they hidden or are they telling you things?
This isn’t close to being a sentence, or making sense. This is the Pit, feel free to throw in a few swear words. It still won’t be a sentence, but it will be a bit more “edgy”.
I’m not really sure what your apparent rage with American foreign policy has to do with whatever freedoms you have as an American. Perhaps your poem would be more on-target if it were focused instead on those elements of government which are actively eroding those freedoms, such as the notorious Patriot Act, Patriot Act II, the president wishing to back a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriages, the Total Information Awareness program, etc.
As it stands, it sounds like mostly whiny, vague dreck. Needs work, and a lot of it.
As for your request, the best working definition of the freedom that Americans seem to sometimes take for granted I’ve heard came from Martin Sheen’s character on The West Wing.
“Freedom is the ability to make a choice.”
The implications of that are really quite profound, and if you bother to think about the choices we can make compared to some other countries (oh say, f’rinstance, China) you’ll see that America really is remarkably “free.”
The Pit is not the place where one can post one’s Dark Poetry. Especially not BAD dark poetry. I would advise you to buy a spiral notebook, write your poems in that, and after you fill it up, take it to an understanding English teacher and/or a shrink to get help.