City Of Contrasts Comments

I totally disagree with the first comment and I find the contrasts given are the intended uplift to the listed downside of city life, which teaches such as me that cities are not all the dark dreary places I once thought. So here's to more power to your pen Richard. The hard work you put in, with sleepless nights too I believe makes this a monumental and unforgettable piece. Thank you for sharing......from Fay.

CITY OF CONTRASTS cries out for an editor's blue pencil. Why the stanza division into rhyming quatrains (ABAB etc) ? A whole lot of poetic license going on here, don't you think? Thirteen stanzas of disconnected images linked by the use of the archaic 'whilst'? Too much repetition all in all! City traffic trundling along adds a rough rhythm offset by spashes of green parks- squirrels chatter and crows caw at pedestrians on sidewalks- automatons set in motion by timeclocks! -I don't know that this hamhanded revision is any better than your effort, but at least it is briefer! The images are fewer and the total effect will be clearer to the average reader, don't you think? What in the world do 'spoiled brats' have to do with the 'graveyard's gentle gloom', except for the contrast of youth and age? Are 'supermarket trolleys in the river' that make us blue something peculiar to the city you describe at such tedious length? Do 'tags of scrawled graffiti' lisp or sing in any real sense of the words you use, the way grasshoppers and other insects do in a figurative sense? Graffiti is visual, isn't it? Lyrics are auditory, correct? Get out that blue pencil and start whacking away at your verbosity!