a bottomless pit
Berr Kilgo
A Bottomless Pit
To live luxuriously someone else must suffer.
Thin sweaty skin stretched over a bony survivor.
Stumbling, muscles straining with every step
The sun beating down like a cruel slave driver.
Struggle, the rocks in your path, holding you back
barefoot. Every rock an ironic needle,
painful as the knowledge that it could end
Never enough for us,
so they live on a rough cusp
The 1 percent enjoys a comfy existence
playing in a bottomless pool of privilege.
Gliding across powder as light as entitlement.
Doing it off the backs of others
laughing at length in a bubble of luxury.
It’s easy to forget about the others less fortunate
while sitting a pile of your own good fortune
Never enough, never enough, excess
For future generations
we leave a lasting mess.
Generations that ravaged mother nature
why can’t we take care of her.
A island of our waste corrupts the waters.
If the money flows like sweet honey here
in another place, paucity awaits.
Rummage through trash while the rich all shout jeers.
Never enough, may be too much
A Bottomless Pit
To live luxuriously someone else must suffer.
Thin sweaty skin stretched over a bony survivor.
Stumbling, muscles straining with every step
The sun beating down like a cruel slave driver.
Struggle, the rocks in your path, holding you back
barefoot. Every rock an ironic needle,
painful as the knowledge that it could end
Never enough for us,
so they live on a rough cusp
The 1 percent enjoys a comfy existence
playing in a bottomless pool of privilege.
Gliding across powder as light as entitlement.
Doing it off the backs of others
laughing at length in a bubble of luxury.
It’s easy to forget about the others less fortunate
while sitting a pile of your own good fortune
Never enough, never enough, excess
For future generations
we leave a lasting mess.
Generations that ravaged mother nature
why can’t we take care of her.
A island of our waste corrupts the waters.
If the money flows like sweet honey here
in another place, paucity awaits.
Rummage through trash while the rich all shout jeers.
Never enough, may be too much
Reflection
My poem, “A Bottomless Pit” was originally supposed to be about humans effect on the environment. It was intended to be about how our consumerism and greed are driving us to destroy everything that has value or is beautiful. For my first draft I tried writing about this and found that I had too much to say about this whole subject so I focused in on the effect that greed and consumerism are having on the less fortunate people living in poverty around the world. My second draft came out a little better. In my first drafts I focused on using alliteration. I ended up overusing this device so then I spent time finding a variation of other devices that I could use. My final draft incorporates powerful figurative language and imagery as well as alliteration.
In order to elicit a strong sensory experience the biggest thing that I focused on changing was the vocabulary I used. My first draft contained words such as “everywhere else shortage awaits”. This line has the intended meaning but it doesn’t inspire the same experience for the reader. I took time to try and change these words to ones that give them deeper insight on my intended message. This change has a stronger effect in spoken word and it adds to my poems overall intellectual effect. To find better words to use I searched the thesaurus for the word that contributed best to the intended imagery and overall euphony. This line eventually morphed into a more powerful version, “In another place, paucity awaits. The words have the same message while simultaneously adding to the the poem's imagery and euphony. This language made my poems message more clear and compelling.
Another aspect of my poem that changed a lot throughout my writing process was the imagery that I tried to evoke in my poem. In my first draft I had lines in my poem that were boring and uninteresting. Communicating inconsequential things with mundane words, “Owning it all in the global village”. This unimpressive line then changed to something that inspired the reader to imagine this imbalance. When this line was changed to, “Doing it all off of the back of others.” this added to the experience of greed that I was trying to communicate to the reader. This made the reader feel more sympathy for the many poor people holding up the fewer upper class. This change made my readers experience a better fit of my intention of what they should experience.
I think one important change that happened to my poem over the time on this project was the vocabulary changes that I made in order to improve the euphony in my poem. Originally I had lines in my poem that didn’t sound good when read aloud and on top of that they didn’t make sense. In my first draft I conclude my first stanza with, “Dumped and forgotten, skinny and feeble. This line overall isn’t communicating anything of importance to my reader and it lacks the euphonic ring that I was hoping for. I wanted to change this to a line that would resonate with the readers and inspire them to think about what affect they are having on the world, whether it's negative or positive. In my final draft my first stanza ends with, “Never enough for us, so they live on a rough cusp”. This changes the intellectual message of that stanza by showing the direct relationship between their suffering and our gluttony. This allows the reader to emotionally realize the impact that they don’t always see that they are having.
In order to elicit a strong sensory experience the biggest thing that I focused on changing was the vocabulary I used. My first draft contained words such as “everywhere else shortage awaits”. This line has the intended meaning but it doesn’t inspire the same experience for the reader. I took time to try and change these words to ones that give them deeper insight on my intended message. This change has a stronger effect in spoken word and it adds to my poems overall intellectual effect. To find better words to use I searched the thesaurus for the word that contributed best to the intended imagery and overall euphony. This line eventually morphed into a more powerful version, “In another place, paucity awaits. The words have the same message while simultaneously adding to the the poem's imagery and euphony. This language made my poems message more clear and compelling.
Another aspect of my poem that changed a lot throughout my writing process was the imagery that I tried to evoke in my poem. In my first draft I had lines in my poem that were boring and uninteresting. Communicating inconsequential things with mundane words, “Owning it all in the global village”. This unimpressive line then changed to something that inspired the reader to imagine this imbalance. When this line was changed to, “Doing it all off of the back of others.” this added to the experience of greed that I was trying to communicate to the reader. This made the reader feel more sympathy for the many poor people holding up the fewer upper class. This change made my readers experience a better fit of my intention of what they should experience.
I think one important change that happened to my poem over the time on this project was the vocabulary changes that I made in order to improve the euphony in my poem. Originally I had lines in my poem that didn’t sound good when read aloud and on top of that they didn’t make sense. In my first draft I conclude my first stanza with, “Dumped and forgotten, skinny and feeble. This line overall isn’t communicating anything of importance to my reader and it lacks the euphonic ring that I was hoping for. I wanted to change this to a line that would resonate with the readers and inspire them to think about what affect they are having on the world, whether it's negative or positive. In my final draft my first stanza ends with, “Never enough for us, so they live on a rough cusp”. This changes the intellectual message of that stanza by showing the direct relationship between their suffering and our gluttony. This allows the reader to emotionally realize the impact that they don’t always see that they are having.