imAGine the FIRST MAN who HELD a STICK in ROUGH HANDS and DREW LINES on a COLD STONE WALL imAGine when the OTHers LOOKED when they SAID i see the ANtelope i SEE it
That emphasis feels outright unpleasant to read (and so did the OP). Whatever this style of poetry is it is definitely not calibrated for my kind of brain. ick.
I like hip-hop. I look at this after what I wrote and think "This may be like hip-hop." Maybe that's where our tastes part ways.
Hip-hop savors the sudden surprise stress, the in-line rhyme, the timing that makes you think "Why did that series of stressed S'es sound so fine?" Sublime.
**Note: I'm not a poet. I hardly ever write poetry, and when I do, it's usually because I've stayed up all night. However, this seemed like a very appropriate poem for Less Wrong. Not sure if it's appropriate as a top-level post. Someone please tell me if not.**
Imagine
The first man
Who held a stick in rough hands
And drew lines on a cold stone wall
Imagine when the others looked
When they said, I see the antelope
I see it.
Later on their children's children
Would build temples, and sing songs
To their many-faced gods.
Stone idols, empty staring eyes
Offerings laid on a cold stone altar
And left to rot.
Yet later still there would be steamships
And trains, and numbers to measure the stars
Small suns ignited in the desert
One man's first step on an airless plain
Now we look backwards
At the ones who came before us
Who lived, and swiftly died.
The first man's flesh is in all of us now
And for his and his children's sake
We imagine a world with no more death
And we see ourselves reflected
In the silicon eyes
Of our final creation