The Fall Of Carthage (POEM)

O Athens, queen of cities! How fair your Navy Yard!
How fair your Parthenon! How fair your Piraeus!"
O Athens, you don’t understand true grandeur.
Polybius knew that we, Carthage,
Are more exercised in maritime affairs than any other people.

Then came Rome, Devils in their own.
Hannibal created Scipio,
Zama gave birth to our final survival.

We gave up our elephants,
We surrendered our weapons.
Our hair made new bows,
Our silverware, new weapons.
Our lives bought our immortality.

originally posted by: TacticalStats
O Athens, queen of cities! How fair your Navy Yard!
How fair your Parthenon! How fair your Piraeus!"
O Athens, you don’t understand true grandeur.
Polybius knew that we, Carthage,
Are more exercised in maritime affairs than any other people.

Then came Rome, Devils in their own.
Hannibal created Scipio,
Zama gave birth to our final survival.

We gave up our elephants,
We surrendered our weapons.
Our hair made new bows,
Our silverware, new weapons.
Our lives bought our immortality.

That is fairly good. You should have a rhythm if not a rhyme, when writing poetry. That is a good draft.
I am a poet, have been published.

I do love the second and third verses, The first just needs editing. The last line is way too long.

A s a first draft it is very good. Every part could use small fixes.


Would the ships at port been described as a Navy yard? That doesn't seem to fit.


I am also going to assume you are the writer on the site where this poem appears.


Oh god, part is 'fragment from a lost comedy'. I doubt there is a copywrite issue, but you should not do that in poetry.

"Oh Athens, queen of cities!

How fair your Navy Yard! How fair your Parthenon! How fair your Piraeus!

Fragment of a lost comedy."

source


and here source Has more of the poem

There's a movie called Finding Forrester that uses this tactic and I did it intentionally for a few reasons. In the movie the kid takes the first paragraph of a piece of Sean Connery's writings and uses it to get his mind going into a full essay which he then uses to enter into his private schools assignment. Teacher finds it and almost gets the kid expelled.

The site I put this on seconds before setting it here is having a free contest of 80 words on a favorite moment in history. The fragment from a lost comedy was used to do two things. I wanted to set the mood into the time period, pre-Christ, and to allow me to then start off of it swinging the poem to its location in Carthage. All with the arrogance of the Carthage people as described in writings from the biased Roman perspective.

I dare say that texts from 2500 years ago can't be plagiarized in the manner you speak of for I've read plenty of poems with bible quotes in them. Plus, I'm not publishing this one for monetary reasons, not today or ever. When I made a few rap songs as a teenager the rules there were you could use anyone's 'beat', rap over it and then hand it out to anyone on the street legally but if you collected money on it that was where you needed permission, ie pay for it.

On your critiques of my side of the writing (line 3 on), all of my poems are rough drafts. Currently I have a rule to not edit any poem that I write. This may drive everyone that reads them a tad nuts but I do it by choice. The subjects of my poems are usually very personal and I use them to just let my mind go and when I'm done writing I view it as a moment into my mind splurging out raw emotion so I don't touch them later.

The mathematical side of poetry does not mesh with this concept so I do respect people's opinions on word usage or length of lines interrupting the flow of a piece, but I don't go back and edit. I only try to use it in the future at the next random moment I feel compelled to write.

Thank you for taking the time to respond and I'm sorry that I wrote a novel in response to your questions. Love that you got published and would love to read some of your work.

a reply to: reldra