Come smell the toxic flower's fume,
Come walk the poison shore
Come breathe the sweet sulfuric air
Until you breathe no more.

Let's frolic through the wasted fields
Where no green thing can grow;
But please take care, for the land mines
are everywhere, you know.

We'll gaze up at the tarnished sky,
find shapes in olive clouds,
and never think to wonder why
all of this was allowed.

It isn't anybody's fault...
It's everybody's, too.
And only two of us can halt
this horror: me and you.

Well, now we know why you wanted to submit your story as poetry.

Anybody who knows me knows that I generally detest most poetry. Nor do I give compliments when they are not deserved, preferring instead to say nothing at all. But this poem was very good and I wanted you to know how much I enjoyed it. It painted a picture and told a story that was at once bleak, depressing and brilliant.

I have enjoyed your work in the past, Parallelogram, and if this entry is any indication, I shall continue to do so in the future. Well done.

Your praise is very much appreciated, Jeremiah, and not least because of the caliber of your own work.

Far be it from me to accept such a genuine compliment with satisfactory grace... but it is encouraging nevertheless to be given the opportunity!

I have to admit, I very much enjoyed this as well. I live in a college town so most of the poetry you hear around here is teenage angst taken to the extreme, therefore i don't listen to or read it.

I enjoyed your work allot though. This was really good.

Love and light,

Wupy

I remember all too well the sort of poetry that gets bandied about in college towns, and you're 100% right about the hyperbolic angst toward which it tends so constantly... so I appreciate being told that I'm past that level, at least. Thanks, Mrwupy

Hi Parallelogram,

I really liked your poem, as it gave me great visual pictures through your words. What is really wierd is the fact that I felt as if I were really there experiencing everything, yet blisfully unaware that my world was a poisoned one. I guess that is not so far from the truth for some of us huh?

I usually am not very in to poetry because I often feel like I have to dissect it in order to arrive at the authors true meaning, which I think takes away from the spirit of the poem. With yours I did not experience this feeling, and I was able to enjoy it and at the same time capture its meaning.

Thanks a lot that's what I was going for; I agree that one shouldn't have to work to be able to appreciate a poem.