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Critical Analysis #1

One of Them

Systematic Decay
Senior Member

since 1999-09-15

Posts 1301
That place with padded walls and funny people in white.........

0 posted 1999-09-24 11:47 PM

Ripples of apprehension break the stillness.

Then they stir no more.

It is the calm before the storm.

You don't dareto speak aloud.

If you do,

The demons of society

Might destroy you.

You cough a strangled cough,

And fight to draw a breath,

But the air is stale with conformity.

The wind starts howling,

Striving,

To extinguish the flame inside.

The tiny ants,

Identical,

Are telling you to

Think no more,

Speak no more,

Be like them.

You begin to shrink in your own estimations.

But you mustn't change to be like them.

Well,

Perhaps just one mannerism.

Or add a few slang terms

To your vocabulary.

Then,

One day,

You look an ant in the face.

You realize,

You are one of them.

------------------
"Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage."
-Billy Corgan-

Brad
Member Ascendant

since 1999-08-20

Posts 5705
Jejudo, South Korea

1 posted 1999-09-25 06:13 AM

I think this is just crying out for some development. I like the transformation at the end but wanted it to be a bit more shocking.
Just an idea: Why not consider describing a gradual transformation from human to ant (with antennae and all)? I think it might make it more interesting (although some people think my fabulist ideas are pretty strange).

Brad

Systematic Decay
Senior Member

since 1999-09-15

Posts 1301
That place with padded walls and funny people in white.........

2 posted 1999-09-25 03:22 PM

Thanks for the idea, Brad. Im always ready to try something new...and in my opinion, the "stranger" the poem, the better, since you know it is unique. Whenever I get a chance to do a rewrite I'll be sure to poat it.

------------------
"Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage."
-Billy Corgan-

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