Tired

[Wjames]

I’ll wash my brain and dirt my feet,
I’ll dance in mud and skirt packed streets,
I’ll live and die before my hair turns gray.

I said before I settled down,
pretended love and hid my frown,
and wrinkled up to die of cold old age.

[just mercedes]

I like the defiant attitude here, and the rhymes and meter all work well. I'm a bit uneasy at the switch in tense, and direct speech not being identified. "I'll", repeated at the start of each line in the first stanza irks me too.

skirt-packed

"cold old" works really well, to slow the line right down.

Write on!

[Wjames]

Yeah, the switch in tense is a bit abrupt. I agree about the "I'll" thing, but the only way I can think to change it is to switch the "I'll" to "and" and then there's too many "ands" all bunched up for my taste.

Thanks for reading.

[beaufort]

I’ll wash my brain and dirt my feet,
I’ll dance in mud and skirt packed streets,
I’ll live and die before my hair turns gray.maybe leave out "I'll" in lines 2 and 3?

I said before I settled down, how about "This I said before......."
pretended love and hid my frown,
and wrinkled up to die of cold old age.

[tomoffing]

I enjoy the brevity you've captured here and the upfront delivery is punchy.

I agree with the points raised around "I'll" repetition and tenses.
I feel a constant meter through lines 1 - 5, then introducing some punctuated pauses, followed by your full trail off to ageing with an extra foot in line 6 would work better than the two distinct stanzas.
(line 6 is excellent btw, "cold old aging" takes a long time to say )

Something like;

"I’ll wash my brain and dirt my feet
dance in mud and skirt packed streets
and live and die before hair grays"

Said I before I settled down,
pretended love and hid my frown
and wrinkled up, to die of cold old age.



An opinion only though so trust yourself. Best of luck, thanks for the read.
eoin

[Erthona]

I think you could change this and make to more proper, but I don't think the person saying it would speak it other than it is. That's regards to 1 stanza, as it may be grammatically improper, but it is still intelligible. The second stanzas is more problematic because it is difficult to understand due to the tense change.

Keeping with the feel of the 1st stanza:

I've said before I settle down,
I'd pretend to love and hid my frown,
then wrinkle up and die of cold old age.


Dale

[alexanjah1]

First Post not sure what to say other then nice little piece

[Zainabk]

Interesting poem. I didn't feel the first line in the second line flowed too well. the last line works with the tongue twister.

[Humbert]

I enjoyed the poem, though I also feel that the first stanza could use some work. I can be a stickler about grammar, so the comma splicing kind of bugged me.

Perhaps the repetition of "I'll" and the problems with grammar could be cleaned up something like this:

I’ll wash my brain and dirt my feet,
and dance in mud and skirt packed streets:
live and die before my hair turns gray.

the living and dying before old age qualifies the implied "living" of washing your brain, dirtying your feet, and dancing. This is at the very least my reading of the poem. Great work

[LickinLyrics]

Everyone pretty much hit the nail here. The I'll is rather repetitive. Humbert has a great solution to that. Cold old age is brilliant. The third line sounds like it has one too many syllables. My suggestion is to nix the "live and…" in line 3 because the whole idea of living is already expressed in the first two lines completely. Or maybe nix die (its used in the second stanza) and use live? It just sounds more fluid to me that way. Hope that helps!

[Alex13]

I enjoyed the bravado of this piece. You write with a lovely amount of conviction, it hits you in the chest quite beautifully.

[alatos]

Love it! The first three lines I think could be me new life mantra haha. I don't know of any advice I could give to improve it, but I'm sure if you had the creativity to write something so clever, you will be able to fine tune it to be even better. Good luck.

[Bahdriel]

The 3rd line feels like it has too many syllables to me, it seems to disrupt the flow. I'd maybe change it to

"I’ll live and die before hair turns gray"

I feel the "my" isn't needed

I'd agree with the others that the tense swap seems a bit jarring. But over all i really like it so far, especially the end.

[1skylande1]

Just a two cent idea, but i think the cold before the old age is not necessary

[denniswilson]

I like how you have kept the poem short. People shouldn't be worried about having short poems

[Willpark]

I’ll wash my brain and dirt my feet, I'm not sure about "dirt my feet". It makes sense, but is weird to read.
I’ll dance in mud and skirt packed streets,
I’ll live and die before my hair turns gray.

I said before I settled down, what did you say? If you meant the first three lines, you need to make this clearer because the first four or so times I read this, I felt like you were about to write what you said.
pretended love and hid my frown,
and wrinkled up to die of cold old age.

I understand that the last lines of the stanzas are of parallel structure, and also that a sudden ending of rhyme can be useful, but I think the first time, you should rhyme (that would be the third line). By doing this, you maintain the flow of the poem until the last line where you break rhyme and really bring emphasis to the last words. Furthermore, the flow of the poem and ease of read would really improve by doing this.

[RiverNotch]

I’ll wash my brain and dirt my feet, Just a comment: I love this line. A variation of this would be a good slogan for about 50% of Youtube
I’ll dance in mud and skirt packed streets,
I’ll live and die before my hair turns gray! The exclamation point would highlight the contrast between this part and the next, making the poem feel more firm and cynical.

I said before I settled down,
pretended love, and hid my frown, The frown feels a bit forced, but that needn't changing. I love the "pretended love" part, though. And I'm not pretending that.
then wrinkled up to die of cold old age. Again, a fairly terse yet brilliant line. A good ending to a terse, but brilliant, poem.

This is brilliant. Plain brilliant. I agree with Erthona there, that however off some parts of the poem feel in terms of grammar, the speaker probably wouldn't have said it any other way. The suggestions up there are just little changes to make the structure feel more proper in terms of punctuation and whatnot.

[moniker]

Maybe leave out the "I'll" in all of the lines... It may just be me but I think it would make it more immediate and give it more impact rather than putting it in the future tense.

[Wjames]

Thanks for all the feedback everyone, I do want to get around to changing some (or all) of the I'll's eventually. It's "imperfect", but sometimes things are better that way.

[aerickson]

I’ll wash my brain and dirt my feet,
I’ll dance in mud and skirt packed streets,
I’ll live and die before my hair turns gray.

I said before I settled down, - not totally sure what you are saying here. What did you say? Are you saying you said the first stanza? It's confusing since it doesn't fit with the line after and the line before has a period.
pretended love and hid my frown,
and wrinkled up to die of cold old age.

This poem doesn't sound defiant to me at all, as another poster said, it sounds like regret to me. Like life didn't go as planned.