I'm the writer of The Pendulum, my first poem ever. Thanks for all the criticism, people, both the positive and the negative ones. 

As for the origins of this poem; It was written during a minor bout of depression over what is essentially a second/third Cuba Crisis happening over in Europe. I'm sure you've all heard of waht's going on in Eastern Europe, with Russia essentially invading Ukraine and taking over The Krim? It might seem far away for some of you Americans, but the Ukraine/the Krim is practically on our doorstep, very much like Cuba was/is on the US's. At the same time, neonazi-like factions seem to pop up like mushrooms all over the place. They're small, but the very fact that they're here at all scares me to no end. Even over here in the normally so acceptant Netherlands, we have the PVV. Their leader Geert Wilders's most recent speech boiled down to first going down a list of Moroccans being overrepresented in criminal statistics, lots of them being workless and whatnot, then literally asking: "In this city [The Hague], and in the rest of the Netherlands, do you want more or less Moroccans?". Cue the audience chanting "Less! Less! Less!", apparently having completely forgotten what happened in the last century.

All of this together left me very depressed about humanity as a whole. So yeah, it's not just a "hey look at all this bad stuff that happened in the two world wars we've had, don't start another."[Thanks for the quote, Jorick :P] , It's that we really seem to be on the edge of another one. And this time, I'm not sure what the aftermath will look like. We all know Einstein's famous quote, right? "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." ... 

(Actual reactions to the comments/criticism will follow later.