There are three characteristics to the poems I write. They always rhyme, attempt rhythm, and often contain a changepoint. If the poem starts out gloomy, a changepoint is required.
"The Travelers" typifies it best.
It can be hard to detect but, the changepoint in "The Travelers" is very obvious. "But, what was that they saw ahead" Funny, of all of the poems I have written, this is the only one that I reread regularly and find nothing to change.
Anyways, I'm looking for that changepoint in life, now. It should be a sharp demarcation. It would be indelibly imprinted on me, if it happens while I am still alive.
In every way, I looked at life to detect what was wrong. But, unlike the opposite gender that cannot even hope for change, since it is not in their hands. Somewhere deep within, I knew that the fault was with my own gender.
I spent about twenty years studying all of the usual excuses and explanations of the madness of humanity and never said a word because, after lengthy review, none of it added up. I wrote at least a book's worth on the usual suspects but there was no point in discussing it because it didn't change a thing. It was all just words used as a coverup. Maybe I had to clear the deck before I could see what was really going on.
It is such a complicated situation that it still takes my breath away. A race becomes sentient and must, emotionally and intellectually, confront a problem that has wasted and confounded more than 100 generations.
Simultaneously, we are asked to confront a flaw in one gender, while living with the flaw. It completely dumbfounded everyone for so long. The last time anyone pulled it out of the Box to take a look was about three millennia ago. The only way it will ever be possible to change is by confronting it intellectually. Even that is scary because it does not prove the pudding.
No, the first step was to look back on a life of wastage in order to see the wreckage that the lack causes. It could only be done by one that would accept no lesser measure of Humanity than success in everything. How I maintained my confidence and self-respect is beyond me. I guess it came down to accepting that there is something wrong, even though it mystified me as it has one hundred generations. It never dumbfounded me.
In this case, the changepoint is when a heart that means it takes the next step while they are still young enough to count. A young man needs to be able to look at what I have laid out (especially in Explanations) intellectually and have the wherewithal to succeed. Every man has everything he needs to succeed, except the wherewithal. Nature doesn't create blind alleys. But, it will surely let a stupoured race come to its end, if it can't figure it out.
It will spread from that one young man. That is the changepoint.
It is so exciting, now, to reread the rhoems and see just how accurate they are. I can't call them predictions, really. It really is just a matter of insightfulness, clarity, seeing what is really going on. Not the future, but the past and that which sets us free.
I don't think I will be writing any more poems because I cannot write the changepoint any longer.