A poem for three voices
Las Vegas, NV
2015, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
Ocean
I am the ocean
Greet me as the remnant of
pre-historia
I am powerful
For eons, I have satisfied the
Earth’s thirst
I am complex
My vastness is unrivaled
I am a creator
I have spawned life
I am afraid
For what I have become
I have been used
Stripped of my purity and
innocence
I have tried to be generous
Offered my young for you to
feed on
Given a home to what you
have deemed undesirable
My vigilance has gone to waste
You have become my master,
my shepherd, my captain
And now I confess to you, oh
captain
I am dying
Human
I am the human
Hail me as the god of our
world
I am powerful
For epochs, I have ruled the
Earth with stout force
I am complex
My intellect is unparalleled
I am a creator
I have designed empires
I am afraid
For what I have done
Plastic
I am the plastic
Know me as the catalyst of
progress
I am powerful
For decades, I have led the
Earth towards the future
I am complex
My versatility is undefeated
I am a creator
I have conceived advancement
I am afraid
For what I have been
I have hurt
My ways have become a
parasite
I sleep in the seas, the
benevolent destroyer
An artificial mistake in a forest
of blue
This was never my purpose, my
plan, my destiny
But here I lay, the substance of
the future, forgotten
I am rotting
Human
I have killed
Under my feet, sits the height
of civilization
The sacrifices I have given are
going unpaid
The people I have hurt have
not been healed
The things that I have done are
not undone
Now I must reap the mistakes,
I must be the healer, the priest
To my son the plastic, and
father the ocean
I am sorry
Plastic & Ocean
We know
Reflection
Reflection
There has been one thing that has been more than clear to me about poetry: it needs aesthetic. Old Shakespearean verse had aesthetic four and half centuries ago; not today. This three voice template, I thought, was creative, moving, and had a body/shape that could really catch someone’s eye.
I also used that type of poem to represent a different thing: character (and plenty of it). I wanted to show what each individual piece of this “triad” was experiencing. They were no longer groups or things, they were characters. Humans have truly created a tremendous empire, but in some ways, it is built of ash and sand. We need to clean their past and preserve the future. The Ocean, has given so much to us, and we need to stop abusing it. Plastic is one of our great innovations, and we have used to do great things. The way we dispose of it is the problem. I believe if we are to tackle this problem, it doesn’t need to start with the reduction of manufacturing plastic products, it begins with individuals taking the first step forward and disposing of these products effectively.
Why did I choose poetry over the other mediums? Simplicity. Nothing touches humans like a very simple and modern piece of short wordplay, in my opinion. This category also offered a certain level of creativity that I thought the others lacked. I could pave my own road when creating this piece.