FROM HOPE TO DESPAIR

I  think I should admit
that it’s not clear
to anyone except to me
how speaking of  my boat
afloat but stationary
tied up and tethered to
a dock

or how and why
the needle of my
compass is not working well

or how bereft I think
that mankind is
of its good guide
(who isn’t named)

and how,
by nonsense, it is doomed
to sail,
despite the fact its erstwhile craft
is lashed against its mooring place,
to unintended ports of call
where it shall be
stripped down to hopelessness,
disgrace,
and come to know
despair.

shows how, or even that,
“the way of life”
is like the sea
as I in my first line declared
the subject and the substance of
what followed it
would be.

Have I not failed
to write coherently?

And truth be told,
is it not true
my post is absent of the legs
that I have claimed
a writing must possess,

i.e, an evident abundance of
bold feelings and  imaginings,
and concepts of significance and worth,

that would have served,
had they been there,
to make the way
this post’s set out
adhere to what I said
makes up the genre poetry

Indeed, there’s little here
that has the power to engender
an experience
within a reader’s heart or mind
that’s filled
with animating grace
or open wide a reader’s eyes
to seeing things anew
as poetry’s supposed to do..

My “work”, when viewed objectively
is only statement-filled.
So it’s all “tell”, no “show”;
the language that I  use
is quite prosaic, strained;
my imagery, if such there is in it,
is magic-less and flat;
the rhythm in its lines
is awkward and un-metrical.

And then I note
the question-begging concept that
it’s grounded in
is hardly worth
a reader’s time considering
or looking at.

It's not my habit to do like  
what other people act,
but when they think they have some skill
to indite what they think is bright,
I do like them just to tell them,
"Please, don't suppose you are of might."
I told you that the way of life,
and did not say a mere garage,
from which the buses can depart.
I think the way means that the place
is not a harbour where you tie
and tether your boat to a dock.
It means the boat is sailing and
far from the place you mean.
Of course l know that you ken that
but what l can say to a man
whose heart is full of hate.
Please, don't exaggerate,
and don't suppose that you can do
what others can't

"Please, don't exaggerate,
and don't suppose that you can do
what others can't'

You are right.  You can't write well.

"It's not my habit to do like    
what other people act,  
 
To make the point you are trying to make, a native English speaker would say either  
   
It's not like me to do the things  
 that other people do  
   
or    
   
It's not my habit to act like  
other people act.  
   
" told you that the way of life,"  
   
You told me that **the** way of life was what?  
   
And if you say that it was/is  "like the sea", then you did not do what you should have done, namely, tell your readers how and why the way of life resembles the sea. Instead, you went on to say why it is that in the absence of humanity's true leader,  peoples' lives get swallowed up in despair."  
 
In any case,  where may I find in your piece, let alone in your retort the legs that you have claimed must be evident in a writing  (an abundance of bold feelings and imaginings in its lines as well as the writing's grounding in concepts of significance and worth) that make it poetry?  
 
Cue crickets or a response to this question that does not actually answer it with the the citations I ask for.

Perhaps if you had actually written about what your first deitic  line  creates the expectation that you would write about by stating how and why "the" way of like (which one) is like the sea, you would have written something like  the following (which I challenge you to demonstrate does not have what you say a writing must have to be poetry if you think it doesn't):


The way of life I know
is like the sea
when it is turbulent.

It’s full of pounding waves
that are relentless in their
bruisings and their  bludgenings .

There is no calm in it
and in the storms it brings
assailing my small store of hope
I have for some brief respite from
its staggered blows,
there isn’t anywhere  
a landing safe, secure
for me.

And so I find the path of life
that fate decreed as mine
is tempest tossed,
and when it is,
I am engulfed within despair

The way of life I know
that’s like the sea
is grounded in a path
that’s absent of the universe’s grace
and all tranquility.

I am surprised at this strange man    
who wants to impose his own will    
on other people and forgets    
that each has his taste and his style.    
Why don't you write what your own heart    
can find inside its rooms and doors.    
You might find in them what you like    
from rhythmic sounds to metaphors.    
They will suit its beats and its blood    
more than what you would imitate    
that comes from other minds and hearts    
with which you're not apt to compete.    
But don't tell that officious man    
not to interfere with someone    
whom he hates as he can't compete    
so he turns grudges into stones.

"that comes from other minds and hearts    
which you are not apt to compete. "  
 
I take it you meant to write "**with which** you are not able to compete."  
   
In any case, I did not impose anything on you, let alone imitate what you wrote since what you wrote has no cohesion and does not deal with how and why "the way of life" (which one?) is like the sea.    
 
What I did was to suggest one way you might have gone to do what you should have done given the wording of your opening lines and the expectation in a reader's mind that it -- that is, made plain how and in what way (or ways)  the unspecified "way of life" you make an assertion about resembles the sea.  
 
So thanks again for misrepresenting what I was doing and what I wrote. I have learned never to underestimate how low you will stoop in order to score points against me.  Cut a response from J-Z to this post that will focus solely on this point
.   
And, as I expected,  instead of demonstrating that my piece does not have what you say a writing must have to be poetry if you think it doesn't, you reply with a poorly written ad hominem.  
   
I'm not the one who displays a grudge.

Leaving aside the facts  
 
 (1)  that in your changing your    
   
"that comes from other minds and hearts  
 which you are not apt to compete."    
   
to    
   
"that comes from other minds and hearts   
**with which** you're not apt to compete",  
   
 you are admitting that I was correct in telling you that you wrote poorly, and  
   
(2) that since "apt" means  "appropriate or suitable in the circumstances";  "exactly right for a particular situation or purpose SYN appropriate. (https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/apt) ":  "inclined; disposed; given; prone: suited to the purpose or occasion; appropriate   (www.dictionary.com/browse/apt)", "apt"  it is not the right word for what to are trying to assert,  
   
I note that there are other places in your piece that show that your grasp of how to write well and intelligibly in English is poor.  For instance,    
   
"But don't tell that officious man   
not to interfere with someone   
whom he hates as he can't compete   
so he turns grudges into stones."  
   
should have been written, "someone whom he hates as [since] he can't compete**with him**".  
   
I also note    
   
(1) that your assertion that your foe has grudges against you is question-begging and an appeal to pity: that has no bearing on the question you should be dealing with -- i.e., of whether what he writes is well written -- since the motivation behind scads of poetry from the "greats" was a grudge they had against other writers and the way those others wrote;    
   
(2) that your foe actually changes any grudges that he has against you

(or actually against the way you write with its plethora of grammar gaffes, awkward inversions, solecisms,  dull language,  misunderstandings of the meaning of words, and your assertions that it is acceptable to get rhymes at the expense of making sense, etc.)

into stones" and    
   
(3) that without some explicit notice of what your foe does with the stones he supposedly creates out of grudges, your claim is likely to cause a reader to say "so what if he does make stones out of grudges?  What's wrong with that?".  
 
If you had written something like  
 
"so he turns grudges into stones  
 that he throws at me",  
 
or  
 
"so he turns grudges into stores  
that he tries to bruise me with:,  
 
 your line would have been intelligible as it now is not.