I guess we made progress today.
Toward what end I won’t yet say.
The border walls have added length.
Perhaps that means we have gained strength.
We’ve given border guards our guns.
Terror we fight with increased funds.
The GDP went up some more.
A few got rich; but most got poor.
There is growing obesity.
Thousands more kids did not make three.
More also have no place to stay.
We bought more toys with which to play.
New drugs each day our lives extend.
Their cost is more than most can spend.
Some more into our faiths are born
To follow paths that are well worn.
No meaning found in the old way,
Another one emerged today.
The smog alerts increased this year.
It matters not. There is less fear
Of lives all being thus destroyed
Then spending less to fill the void.
This could be progress but I say
Progress is to the other way.
Rather than self-realization
This way leads to self-destruction.
A nice “proper” poem all in all. The beat-pattern could be improved in a few places.
I’ll give this a proper read soon…but rhyming couplets…they have a certain rigidity that can easily bore and become stale. I like the ideas you are working on - Progress - and the way you address it to ‘contemporary issues’ but at times the rhyme feels a bit forced or you just miss it by a margin.
Keep up the work.
Iron out and try and approach this differently.
‘Progress is a comfortable disease’ - E.E. Cummings
Thanks Colinsign and Chimney Sweep. Your comments are always appreciated.I am writing other poems using rhymes that are not couplets. I felt the ideas here begged to be coupled however. I changed one line that was rough. There are a couple other places where I have to place the emphasis on syllable that is unusual to make the rhythm consistant but I find the change still acceptable.