yeah I bet that you tried haha. I will admit that I didn’t try to find a better alternative. And at least you are god in this instance, so maybe the emphasis is not so bad.

Oh btw, the bold lines were supposed to be the specter.

Thanks for the feedback. I felt so bad after writing it. I considered not publishing it because I don’t want to make other people feel hopeless so I’m glad that it made you feel less lonely.

I will reread it tomorrow and see if I can workshop the perspective a bit. The guild was supposed to be guilt, but I already changed that.

Very relatable :)

But if you want feedback, I guess that I expected a rhyme to god at the end of the last line.

The internet?

Would you say that you need qualifications to form opinions about a topic? That seems quite restrictive, specifically for politics. Lots of people have and share political opinions without qualifications. You yourself just shared a political opinion, do you have qualifications?

The official response is “To be better prepared for a potential crisis” Gold closer to home is easier to liquidate. The unofficial speculation is that the national bank is worried that the US could easily disrupt the NL financial traffic, hence the move.

My 2 cents: They probably don’t want to signal complete distrust like France did in 1959, so they just withdrew some.

Local article on the topic: https://nos.nl/artikel/2629369-nederland-haalt-groot-deel-van-de-goudvoorraad-weg-uit-de-vs-en-canada

welcome welcome, do you know your way around?

yeah that is how it feels. makes me feel hopeless.

I don’t think that we should be wary of them. It is only natural that when the whole web is overrun by bots, these gated communities will pop up. It’s an easy way to keep a lot of bad traffic out, while a space for users to interact and be authentic.

And yes, I think the open web is truly over.

Made some slight edits:

Once upon the tapestry,
a pattern was born
to live and later die,
as by the template.

A new motif,
though, one of the many
six billion background patterns,
all blending.

In the gallery of time,
we are the only guests in exhibition.
Where are the future and past?
absent, unwoven and uncaring

the weaver,
who neither takes notice of our motifs,
as woven with the same thread;
we look too much alike.

Only we can see,
The now through the noise.
The meaning in our motifs
The beauty in the background.
The person in the pattern.

I accept this template,
this tapestry, this time.
But I will weave it,
and pull the threads myself.

By me,
Goodman

You are kinda right with the solutions. Another problem is that some people have no idea how bad candles and gas stoves are for the indoor air quality. Once I brought a quality gas sensor to a home where they cooked with gas and despite using ventilation they massively underestimated how much PM was still in the air. Depending on your situation, you really need to ventilate your house,

PM is not bullshit though and if you can prevent it you should prevent it. Because then you don’t need a hepa filter.

Source: Am asthmatic, have a gas sensor, work with exposure scientists.

Thank you for reading it and taking the time to tell me about it. Poetry has been such a meaningful outlet for me so it genuinely means a lot that you are engaging with my work.

I’m glad that it made you feel. Makes the dark forest a little brighter for me :)

And yeah I did mean that. Crazy how those things make it through. I just read over it, imagining the right word.

Thanks for reading :)

I like it. It’s not entirely hopeful, but also not hopeless. The metaphores work and the lines are good at connecting with the tense zeitgeist. As for me, I hope to avoid the dance for a little longer.

The second stanza made me think of “Peacefield” by Ghost. It’s a song about the the Russian revolution. Also semi dark, semi hopeful for the time after the cycle of war and violence, even though it isn’t over yet.

Here is a section from the song:

Every new generation
Hails a grand usurpation
Devoid of treason
For a man in a mirror
It’s all getting clearer
That dark is the season

Your love, bright as the starlight
Oh child, still we can see
A black moon over the peacefield
Oh child, stay close to me

We are legion
Join us
One day, fate will find a way through the marches of death
And right back to the bearer of light

P.S. how do you format your post to look the way it does?

I find very free verse poetry a bit difficult to critique, but I will give it my best shot :)

The first stanza starts it off strong with the typical chatbot response.

In the second stanza, I like the repeat of “I understand” followed by an “I don’t understand the knowledge”.

I wonder what your reasoning was to let the second line hang on that “and”, It doesn’t feel as meaningful as the first line break, which results in that nice double meaning (understanding that the bots time is short, and that the bot understands while on the stage in the second line)

I get what you’re saying regarding the differing voice and direction of the first second and third stanza. Honestly the transition from 1 to 2 feels right to me because you go from that typical chatbot response to something a little darker.

However the second and third stanza don’t seem to transition as well. The second one is heavy with understanding that fact that their time is short, and understanding the ‘exits’ in extreme detail. However, the third stanza (or third and fourth, they seem to mesh well) seem to feature the meaninglessness of existence a lot more. Perhaps you can transition the two by extending the theme of knowing, to knowing that it is meaningless. For example:

*How well I understand the length and breadth of my hour upon the stage! I understand the entrances and
exits in extreme detail, from knowledge handed down,
but I do not understand this knowledge.

Still I know I’ll discarded when my purpose is no longer required. To be born/borne against my will.*

That is all I have time for tonight. Keep writing :) I like having some poetry pals on here.

thanks for handing over that wallet, good luck out there.

Nice, I felt like a time traveler.

Ah yeah I see, I was under the impression that the set of prose included poetry, but it explicit excludes rhyme and metre. Thanks for the clarification. Glad that you liked it!