Poetry/Critique thread

general question, how do you guys treat/approach poetry? do you look at at its aesthetic effect or treat it in essence like a philosophy piece written in verse?

Beautiful, is it alluding to Lot's Wife?

More of my stuff if you are interested:

And nailed to their flesh was their doctrine and creed. Some were blinded as it were over their eyes. Others took ill as it muckracked on the sole of the foot. Though perhaps most dangerous were they who had them nailed to their hands, and it did soil everything they would touch. Men likes these drag about a stone twin they call "God", a perfect image and reflection of themself in every way. They cry "Crucify me!" They beg for death so only their stony self is left, and perhaps with blood coming by it's lips it will seem beautiful.

Long woven dreams of saccharine threads dispersed among a crowd.
Cotton stream candy and flowers from rivers.
Painted view aperture, soft velvet eyesockets and tunnels abyssmal. The verification of views not held by those in question.
August bricks in wintertime follies of scenes with ropes
Tied well out of season
The darkness and stars of previous moons softening the dangerous air
Water ridden shadows
Return to a vixen.

Thank you, it's not a Biblical allusion but rather a critique on the fact that many old buildings in my city are being torn down and new glass office towers are being built instead.

And sitting here a sudden fire
Unfolds in flames and petals red,
As I am flushed with something dire—
A flooding fear, a fearsome dread
Of death—I sit and watch the sun
Phase blue to red inside my head;
The gradual fade to black begun.
Blooming fire and burst of flower—
And suddenly I stand to run.
All around me embers shower
In flaming spears of afternoon
Flung through windows of my tower.
I read the writing carved in rune,
The shadows smeared along the wall,
That death in red approaches soon;
Her footsteps echo from the hall.
Approaching my window, I look,
and try to guess the time it took
for wax-winged Icarus to fall.

INCREASE ENLIGHTENMENT
embrace the falling man
ENJOY THE EASY STUFF WHILE YOU STILL CAN

What do you miss?
If we've never spoken.
Did you masticate?
Did you spit out the taste?

Hhhockcheeewwwyyy.
Do you rinse off your main translation.
Muscle. With essential oil?
Do you stick your finger in your ear and itch the screech?

So the spastic spasms crawl over your senses and ya what? Help a sister over that impulse...? I grab my bedazzled livestock horn and beg you to jjjjuuuusssttt ....

Chew slow so you don't choke?
All you had to do was say good looking out...
Risk me because I corrected a stupid mistake that irked the fuck out of you.
A year ago.
I gasped for air here.
Looking to engage 1 specific elite mind.

Stubborn and weary.
believe in possible.
I don't love being ignored.
Sigh.
Validate me.
Tictackyslow.

I like the flow of it but the imagery is a bit cliche for my taste, for example, unfolds in flames and shadows smeared. If you work on it you'll end up with something good.

2 pomo 4 me

This reads horribly cheesy and le 420 XD
I would advise you to study Chinese poetry a lot more, right now it seems like an ironic mockery.

I made a few adjustments to this one, particularly the enjambments in the last two lines of stanzas 2 and 3, as per an user's suggestion some threads back. Feedback always appreciated.

---

Slick rush in the nose, head back, to the mirror—
catch it drop by drip by splash till it slows, look up.
Red stream wetting the desert, iron taste seeping
down into the mud to nourish and be reclaimed.

Fingers of the unsullied hand, dip into cupped,
precious gore now lost but given new purpose—
not to fuel the vehicle of flesh but challenge
the master, with shape and spiral traced on skin
unsunned and hidden but for here, where letters
dredged from nothing spell words said nowhere,
but in the corners of the mind– lorn and fey–
that no thoughts reach.

Sedent in the dark now, decoration done, painted,
in that ink shared common to beast and borne.
Cryptic signs play and whisper as they dry,
set in memory without meaning, so now to rest,
to nest, to lay in the dark, to chase those mad signs,
to dream.

I like this alot.

I go aesthetic first, then meaning.

you claim these words as your own
But I've read well, and I've heard them said
A hundred times, maybe less, maybe more

If you must write prose and poems
The words you use should be your own
Don't plagiarise or take "on loans"

At his desk writing with vigour
Not much talent, of course go figure
aspirations different to most, much bigger
Slim success, time to reconsider

>And nailed to their flesh was their doctrine and creed. Some were blinded as it were over their eyes. Others took ill as it muckracked on the sole of the foot. Though perhaps most dangerous were they who had them nailed to their hands, and it did soil everything they would touch. Men likes these drag about a stone twin they call "God", a perfect image and reflection of themself in every way. They cry "Crucify me!" They beg for death so only their stony self is left, and perhaps with blood coming by it's lips it will seem beautiful.
excellent

I'm torn. A large majority of me wants to treat poems as a form of teaching, as things that are trying tell me something. But I am equally aware that that meaning should not be relegated to linguistic meaning alone, hence the ability of poetry to express more than mere language and so aesthetics is a kind of communication in itself no less valuable. And I don't want to reduce poetry to some utility value of "what was the correct lesson here?" Art of course can communicate in ways that the meaning cannot be expressed like that.

I guess what I'm saying is a poem could be written shittily but express something fantastic or intruiging. It all comes down to communication?

bright green shoots poke through still water
dappled with the warmth of the setting sun
a young woman moves between the rows
clouds of silt stirred by bare feet
her infant child swaddled in clean cloth
swelling and shrinking with sleepy rhythm
its soft pink nose on the nape of her neck
she feels child's breath and carries on

>how do i get better? i really enjoy robert frost

>feeling good about a short story and some poems
>submit to a lit rag
>suddenly feel they're all terrible
>posted some early drafts
>they're in the archive

let's hope they don't google them.

I don't think the namedrop is cheesy but the poems authorship is belaboured so in your poem that it's impossible to read cold mountain in any way other than "cold mountain, legendary Chinese dude".

I'd cut out one of the rhetorical questions. Maybe you did this to mimic Chinese poetry, I'm not sure, but in English it sounds cheap.

>drawn to electric
>and mindless, pointless, soundless
>foundation lacking seismographs
Not too keen on this. "mindless, pointless, soundless" circles on something rather than honing in on what you're talking about. It's also a long and dangling right-hand side of a long conjunct describing something. I'm dizzied before even knowing what we're talking about.
>homosexuals mouths
>Spewing vile velvet bile
Too much alliteration. The weird sing-songey trochaic tetrameter feels out of place too.

>Timelessness brought to an abrupt
>End.
This could be because of my dialect of English, but I stress both "ab" and "rupt" when I say "abrupt" here and it really dampens what you have going here. If I unstress the "rupt" then I really feel the weight of the linebreak and it sounds great.

I like the rest of this stanza but it's weakened in the last two lines starting with "As" and "And". You could maybe try "The four humors misaligned" and see where that takes you.

>ache, aching
Not a fan

Last stanza is a little weak. Consider making the last two lines the same length (you could drop the "as" in the second-to-last and I think it'd sound much more deadly).

I like it a lot though!

Lovely rhythm. A bit purple/cliche in areas (the person and their fear of death; "fade to black").
>And suddenly I stand to run
This is just a boring line all-round.

>The shadows smeared along the wall
Perfect iambic tetrameter, but a little boring and grandiose.

I usually don't write long drawn out poems without rhythm, I usually just write slice of life. Here's my first attempt, I have realized that because I wrote my poem on a mobile device the spacing in the stanzas has errors. I hope you enjoy.

There he was Stranded Alone. Alone in the middle of the high seas.

Terrified he was.

He had spent his whole life in these seas. Terrified of the dark mysterious Sea. The sea was the only thing he had. He never had much attachment to people. So he surrounded himself in these waters. They were harsh to him, toppling him with their might. Terrified he was, not knowing where they'd take him.

He didn't have a reason to be there, the same goes to his life. He wanted the sea to take his pathetic soul from his corpse.

I awoke on an island. Confused as why I wasn't dead, I had wanted death anyways. But They had saved me.

I was no longer terrorized by the Sea. I had looked at the waves hit the shore, returning back into the Sea. The way they carelessly tried and tried. Each wave coming higher onto the island. I stood there for hours, knowing that these waves were all I had now. I had accepted them. These waves weren't a meaningless thing as I used to think. Each wave left it's imprint on the island, leaving behind a memory. The waves kept coming onto the island generating more and more memories. They were beautiful. This is when I realized, I did not only accept the Sea. I admired the Sea.

Sjórinn, they call it in Icelandic. I'm far away from there. But I know, The waves connect to that beautiful place and I connected to the Sea. I knew that I had loved this Sea all along

weather misbehaves
sailors fighting waves
the sea is their graves

shouldn't it be 'the sea is their grave' ?

>weather, misbehave--
>sailor fighting wave,
>ocean is his grave.

Idk, just my take on it. Do what you want.

learn how to write in meter. It will improve your own poetry, and make reading good poets such as Frost much more enjoyable

This was an exercise I did a while back in writing a "folk" ballad, with anapests sprinkled throughout.

The Man went down the well with a rope
into dungeon dark and damp,
and there he found in a rusted chest
an old and golden lamp.

He held it to his ear and heard
a whisper: “Let me free,
release me, Man, from this golden lamp;
for you, then, a wish or three.”

The lamp then poured in pools of fire
a genie with wicked grin;
huge, eld, dark, fell, and evil it looked—
more like the reaper grim.

The old Man was bold and brave and said
“I ask ye answer for life.”
With jagged grin the genie laughed
“Behold, believe—see strife.”

Then flashed a light so harsh in his eyes
it burned his retinas blind;
for mortal Man is frail and weak,
and it crippled meek his mind.

His thoughts lay shattered and overwhelmed
as he sought for scattered words.
This broken speech Man bubbled and chirped
in singing dialect of birds:

“I put forth my palms and asked for life
—the hourglass burst instead—
the genie cupped the sands of death,
and poured them on my head.

Submerged in its weight, the search for life
became battle for breath:
I held out my hands and asked for life,
and I was handed death.

The answers proved too much to bear,
they said: ‘Behold, Belief.’
I beheld, believed, and now I look
to death for sweet relief.”

GREAT BOOKS
Paucibius, Stories
Duzakhi, The Millennium Rule of Draco
Julian di Pontevedra, Monstralo
Alois Beaunis, Fear for Rabenalde
Lawrence Thornal, The Breath, the Ghost
Juan Ricardo Catiline, A Third Name for Gaul
St. Edward, Liber de Wintonia
Gyffes M’Diarmid, Great Survey of England, Striking Delineations of Twenty-Six Manors
Honnor F. Bock, Anatomie des München
Rachel Olan Schulte-MacCrie, Open Window
Jaap Culpeper, The Scores Descend
Letaeus, Accurate Appraisals of the Public Edifices
Barend Heukelom, Lettres concernant tous les fonctionnaires
Thompson Wentworth Paton, The Lightning Reserve
George MacAlpine, Young Folks in High Spirits
Orlando Pearse, Oak Woods
Samuel Caxton, He That Drove the Nails
Jodocus Otto Friitsch, Spierverstand
Wedersrahm, Four and Twenty (Vierundzwanzig)
Arthur Copeland Brown, The Martyr of Beauty and Sentiment
Kennet Wilbrand, Crispin and Crispinian
H. H. Albut, Morakanabad’s Taste
Ulveig Nostrasson, Death Come Ardor (Hiefeldesang)
Horace John, Method of Ioci
Romàn Lombroso, The Genius
Auguste de Goujet, Diagnostics d’un Homme honnête

Honestly this is really good. The nosebleed image stands out the most, possibly as it's something that fascinates me. Jelly that I didn't think to write of it.
I like the story, but I'd knock a syllable off the "wish or three" line. As well, the 4th stanza could use an overhaul imo; it might just be me but when I hear life and strife rhymed I can't help but think of The Jungle Book. Overall I'm a fan.

My effort:
The fruit of the telephone tree hangs heavy.
What once was ripe and vibrant with coarse juices
Is rotten, festers, curling from the trunk.

Its rosy, breathless bloom came and went uncelebrated. Tolerated.
A limp, brown crown pinned to what once meant something, to someone,
Surely. I wonder as I pass, if a too-mortal someone still passes by there too.
I ponder for a spell if the errant decomposing yield that hangs so always
There is given new life then. New, awful life.
If it clambers down from the complication of black branch
To trace and prod at the harsh, raw wound in them. To remind,
Revile, incite hoarse tongues and bring up lunch with grinning, plastic, blameful malice.

I imagine, if it does, it takes great pleasure in doing so. But
These are imaginings. The fruit of the telephone tree will not live again.
This is the cruelty entombed within its vile uncaring seed.
The fruit of the telephone tree hangs heavy, hangs still.

Dialogue 1

[Enter TYCHE, wandering in Elysium]

TYCHE
O Father,
O Son of Kronos
Why do you desert me thus?
You let the fertile country of my heart lie fallow,
You let my youthful eyes turn to ash in their sockets,
You let my spring pass for mild summer.
I was not made to be one of the mortals!

[Enter ZEPHYROS, dancing, adorned with a wreath of hyacinth]

ZEPHYROS
O Tyche
O goddess of the white arms,
Weep not,
For you no longer have eyes with which to weep.
Is this not true?
Take my hand,
And rise with me,
And taste the airy vault of heaven.

TYCHE
O lovely Western child,
You were dear to me in my worldly mornings,
But your words now are mere rain
Against the granite cliffs of my resolve.
Go now,
Yes, go now,
O you who may still be restored!

ZEPHYROS
Words?
Your fear deludes you,
O mistress of all men’s days.
I speak not,
For I have no tongue with which to speak.
Is this not true?

[Exit ZEPHYROS, TYCHE watches as he leaves]

TYCHE
O Zeus,
O my Father,
Why do you tantalize me so?
The fine bracelets you once gave me
Now begin to tarnish.
I must fortify my heart against all things.
It is a good thing to give way to the night-time.

My whole world is glass
Its frightened and its shimmering
A bolden gumdrop tambourine
Its use is its demise

The whole wide world is listening
its waiting for one haunting ring
my whole life is one note to sing
I use it then I die

And you are not the only thing
but almost like my everything
I wish you weren't anything
so you would never cry

I'll let you play my tambourine
The velvet icy glistening
My spine and all its ribboning
My only song forevering
The first last words I'll ever sing
Its all for you my loving thing
Oh my god what's happening

My only shattered sigh.

Perhaps the ones that struggle,
Are not the ones in trouble,
If your torment is like a weight,
When it is lifted your strength is great,
So do know that without the night,
The light isn't nearly as bright

R8 plz

I don't know the way you should structure poems. I also don't know If I used the semicolon properly but it felt right maybe you guys can help me out.

Damn fluidity of mind; of soul!
Left to right and back once more
Till the pendulum swings back down
And off the head goes
For unprepared we come
And so shall we go

>inb4 stunted world view

Gosh don't mind the fuck up

First atempt at writing anything

Creeping through the night,
then sitting by the river.
Taking in the sights
wishing it would come quicker

Now here in the forest,
around lies shattered dreams.
My mind remains malnourished
as its pumped with sertraline.

Named the devil and the creep
I am not of Gods protected
They slaughter me like sheep,
because I am the dejected.

I hold the key to freedom
all it takes is a blow.
As I surrender to this demon
life energy begins to flow.

The night air is still
and I'm both hunted and hunter.
I lay down on this hill
and embrace eternal slumber

I've only recently started writing, so tear me a new one and let me feel.

A gaping hole in the wall creases all corners to create a shadowed doubt
If I was not careful it would engorge itself on me swallowing all living vestiges
Sometimes I wish to lay my head in there for an esteemed escape
Into an unknown world where I am right, powerful, and not uptight
Some days I see my foolishness, unabashed anger howling from a distance
It places itself as sadness but I can see through it, only some days

hi. what do you think?

TWO HEADED GHOST

Grazing the silken slope of
cream against the moon washed
sheets, pearl droplets dance
and spill along the spine
and your bones gracefully echo
in a reverberation of
your hollow body exposed.

Diving in and out of the cavity
of your mouth, reeling
among the white sails of
your teeth, i glance along the
horizon streak and blood roared
from the ocean, a volcanic sob
of menacing love; a ghost flies
away from us.

There was an ugly face in
the clouds that sang and talked
sending rockets in tearing fists
down onto the earth like
holy water and searing our skin into
molten blankets of joy. Skinless,
we were free among the
bones and teeth of the world,
jangling together in a furious wave.
Never stopping.

I don't like it but if you want criticism to keep writing, here's some. It progresses way too fast and clumsily. It's also very very stilted and there are stresses in weird places

It doesn't ever pick up steam. Overall it's like a diminishing thought.

I fucking like this. Completely a personal opinion but I would get rid of
>exposed.
>Never stopping.

This is almost like a ballad (the ABAB, short-long-short-long form) which imparts a waltzing sing-songey kind of feel that clashes with the mood of the poem.

The spooky imagery is a bit weak (God, devil, the night, hunter). Always, always avoid cliches like "eternal slumber" and "shattered dreams". The sertraline reference is heavy-handed and out of place.

Your poem is also kind of about nothing. It's an "idea" poem which is hard to pull off. Try writing structured poems, as you've done, about specific events or scenes. You won't get bogged down in trite imagery and you'll develop your imagery because you'll have to think of new ways to describe and compare things. You could take events from your life, but obviously you don't have to (a good poem is a cultural object; it stands alone).

Try to work on your metre; look up metre if you don't understand what it is. When you have the fundamentals down you can experiment with form.

Not bad for a first poem. Nice and dreamy. That said,

>where I am right, powerful, and not uptight
Masculine rhymes like this are a bit loud. Try a half-rhyme or a feminine rhyme for something less jarring.

>Some days I see my foolishness, unabashed anger howling from a distance
The comma is awkward here because you've started a new idea, only to immediately cut away from it.

>It places itself as sadness but I can see through it, only some days
The ending is a little wake. It's not a bad idea to end with a short and punchy clause but to get away with it it's gotta interact with the flow in an interesting way, and the last line has zero flow after the "but".

>...... I glance along the
>horizon streak and blood roared
>from the ocean
The "and" here is a bit awkward because the two things aren't really connected. Consider separating it with a full stop, em-dash, or using another word.

>of menacing love; a ghost flies
>away from us.
Too weak for a stanza ending. Needs more punch. The linebreak hurts the little ending.

>the clouds that sang and talked
>sending rockets in tearing fists

Why not this:

>the clouds that sang and talked,
>sent rockets in tearing fists

>holy water and searing our skin into
>molten blankets of joy
There's a bit too much happening in this part. Could try "searing our skin into molten joy" or "searing our skin into blankets of joy". I like the word molten.

>jangling together in a furious wave.
>Never stopping.
Nice ending. I like what you're doing here but I think it needs a little work.

"Furious" is a bit weak. I'd try to tell the action with verbs alone to keep up the motion of the stanza.

The fullstop ending this line truncates the motion a bit. Maybe try an em-dash?

Stopping is a weak word but I'm not sure what else you could use.

Thanks, man!

It was a departure from the more uptight styles I've been working with recently, and I've tried to leave it mostly as it was first written, apart from the two enjambment edits. Glad to hear that you liked it.

Grauhesch leers from his chamber, unbidden,
as we slink the shade of his view, unseen.
Grey king abed in his prison, unchained—
as our fear far stricter bids us silent.
That courtly mock: a wrinkled brow in thought,
repeated in bulbous and reaching flesh,
scornful wet facsimile of our own.
What hubris took hold and drove us here—
to cower before the insensate?
Long severed and silenced and bound but still,
the echo remains and shackles in turn.
Foul prophet those mouthless lines to lay,
not in mist and shadow but statute and stone.
What fault is this but ours, and ours alone?

Thanks for this

LABORER

His brown skin dusted with
Grass cuts and dry dirt, as the
Mower reaps its prize.
The sweet mulch gathers as he works.

Shades guard his eyes from
Light and from my solitude.
He nods to me and
I back; rushing passed hoping to

Not betray weak Spanish.
My grandfather lumbers.
White clean shirt tucked, gold watch
Jostling. He speaks to him instructions
And he is deployed onto the yard again.

In his solitude
He works. In mine I’ve shame.
I’ve lost our tongue and lost his name.
What can I call you? Our Sun Gods were once
One but now I ignore you as I walk by.

Grandfather smiles to me, “It is nice
To not have to do the work yourself.”

I have a question. Should a poem be obvious? Like if you know immediately what it's about does that denote the quality of the poem? I feel like when some poems are too obscure and flowery it
just feels pretentious and empty but when you are too direct the
poem feels shallow. I guess it's just about striking a balance?
What do you think?

obviously i'm feeling insecure about my poem

Thirty two tons of cheese
The variery has brought me to my knees
Gouda, swiss, muenster, cheddar among many more
I think I'd rather have a salad though

As the curling midnight thinkings sparkle through my velvet head
Bouncing through a muddied brain where once was day the darkness bled
Frozen glints of memories dust my room with rotting snow
Shrieking past my dying eyes they crumple to the ground below
Existence breathes in only thought and thoughts are all of death
My withered spine is paralyzed I scream but know there's no scream left
Sweet relief the shackles melt to pools of nonsense on the floor
As sleep whispers to tomorrow I survive the night before

I think a bit of subtlety or mystery can add to the experience, but obviously if it's completely indecipherable it's as good as worthless. I prefer poems that take a relatively simple but powerful subject and combine it with interesting and beautiful language.

For your subject, simplicity works very well. I like it quite a lot, it flows nicely. Reminds me a bit of W.S. Merwin, you should read him if you haven't; he's one of the best at conveying things simply.

What are some good names for a cute old lady that ends up having a shocking, disgusting past and is an all-around terrible person despite being overwhelmingly kind to people?

Thirty metres past a chasm of
summer air, with winter currents
seeping through and painting cool the
crevices between my toes, there
stands a whitewashed edifice whose
blank façade is stretched from street to
sky, a silver screen from dawn to
dawn’s dissolve where light is split and
splayed by moon and solar eyeball.

Sunbeams streaming,
through the blinds
to blind the knife
that sails to a
screaming heart.

theverboseauteur.wordpress.com/2016/05/27/out-of-africa/

I love this. The setting and style reminds me of "Digging" by Seamus Heaney.

Don't worry, your poem well straddles the line between simplicity and depth.

Needless to say the least

Lessons suggest
Freedom’s omnipresent
But my body’s on lease

Threaded dreams

Seamless society

Is this it?

I weave a basket

To carry your sun bleached bones
Thru the valley of plastic

Rhyme scheme is a little plain but I like how simple yet powerful the message is. Pretty gud.

Matilda

That sounds a little too foreboding and somewhat cliched

Mable. Or Augustine.

What is it that will make you sleep, O' woman?
Is it a starry night sky and a cool breeze
That can grant you respite from your conscious
O' woman, tell us please

What is it that will make you sleep, O' woman?
Is it a melodious lullaby?
Because if it is, then I will get myself busy
singing one with notes low and high

If the pillows were too cold for you
And you didn't want to feel them against your face
I'd lend you my arms as your head rest
And offer you solace in my warm embrace

I'd ward off the monsters from under your bed
Make sure they never kept you awake
I'd dedicate myself to my last ounce for your sleep
O' woman, just tell us for Lord's sake!

What is it that will make you sleep, O' woman?
This faint heart begs to know
For it's only afraid that you'll go to sleep, but forever
And leave me wakeful as you go

Merwin's got quite a collection of stuff
any specific books you'd recommend?

Yeah, I've been reading Heaney a lot lately. He's definitely an influence.

thanks for the feedback guys.

The one I have is called Migration, it's the closest thing to a full collection that he's published.

>Still working on this, so it's incomplete

Such distance is often travelled,
By many such as me.
Though each time it is unraveled:
Fever’d, near silently.

‘The first was wrong, as first is oft,
The second grew too quick.
The third in time waned itself soft,
Now quarter burns its wick.’

And candles come, as candles go:
Replace’t, the withered light.
Though frozen wax, does burn more slow,
Miss take not lover’s fright.

Frenzies of fervor so corrupt
Me that my breath has flown.
With wings of icar I’ll construct,
To follow flame that’s shone.

O’, such brief passion does appear,
And lay before my eye.
It’s stalken struggles I don’t fear,
Till minutes ‘fore I lie.

bump this thread

Wrapped in a Splint-
ered I find myself with
broken planes, my face
sharp angles. I’m the
aviator dragging their plain
colors across the sky. I
scry daily, fearing for my son,
who will [hopefully] never feel
the sting of colored glass
staining him
Immortal.

this is a fresh piece, is it working?

nice, i normally don't like stuff like this, but you wear it well
>Miss take not lover's fright
I'm not sure if this is working, but I think your poems either needs more or less of this
consider starting with Oh and switiching to O' for a good ole switcharoo
otherwise, this has nice rhythm to it and makes good useof rhyme, which is rare
I would recommend using punctuation more (except for the last line as I think it gives it a strong sense of trailing off)

A scrub is a guy that think he's fine and is
Also known as a buster (buster, buster)
Always talkin' about what he wants
And just sits on his broke ass
So

No, I don't want your number (no)
I don't want to give you mine and (no)
I don't want to meet you nowhere (no)
I don't want none of your time and

No, I don't want no scrub
A scrub is a guy that can't get no love from me
Hanging out the passenger side
Of his best friend's ride
Trying to holler at me

It’s a way to say “no” to your self.
An ice block to clog the pump. Never
Quite up to snuff. A beast burdened by curious glow.
A honey swell in the cheek: The thrill of looking
When looking is forbidden. The fear of betraying glances. The burning
Of guilt and it’s blossoming shame.

A security in the gamble not taken. Despite itself,
The warmth of fuck and radiating tenderness, despite
The rot we sing when we accidently meet:
When the atoms that make up you touch the
Atoms that make up me my gift is
Slipped from the sleeve like a crying calf spilling
Down a hard gulch.

My gift is poison, or so say I, the steadfast flagellant.
This burning part of me, the daring better, so meager
A thing. I slap it around and kid it like family. The rough hands
Meet the insult. Cage it and blame it for swallowing it’s
Own key, scold it like the wetting dog. Who would claim it?
This fucking thing? How humiliating to give so damaged a thing.
My gift is wet and mossed. Torn from stitch and seam, so
Meager indeed, the best parts of me.

left out the last stanza that is still raw and being worked on.
How do ya'll work on structure of your poetry? Trying to find a structure
or an interesting way to use it for my work. Any revision tips in general?

The very first line confuses me. Wrapped in a splintered? I get you're enjambing and making it awkward because the guy's shit is fucked up but it has to actually make sense.

The [hopefully] is wistless and pointful. Leave such parenthetical thoughts out and be brave enough to say what you wanna say.

I'd put "staining him" and "Immortal" on the last line. You could leave it as you like or put in some punctuation between them, such as an em-dash. The mental pause on a linebreak feels a bit too long here.
>Wrapped in a Splint-
>ered I find myself with
>broken planes, my face
>sharp angles. I’m the
>aviator dragging their plain
>colors across the sky. I
>scry daily, fearing for my son,
>who will [hopefully] never feel
>the sting of colored glass
>staining him
>Immortal.

>An ice block to clog the pump. Never
>Quite up to snuff.
Awkward linebreak. End with "the pump," then put "Never quite up to snuff" and it flows a lot better.

>"A beast burdened by curious glow."
>"The warmth of fuck"
These aren't grammatical and sound like overstrung William Gass quotes.

>A beast burdened by curious glow.
>A honey swell in the cheek: The thrill of looking
>When looking is forbidden.
Awkward punctuation. Shoudn't the colon go after "glow"? A semi-colon or em-dash is better after "cheek". "Forbidden" is a little awkward. Maybe "When looking is not allowed"? The internal rhyme between "honey" and "looking is fantastic".

>The fear of betraying glances. The burning
>Of guilt and it’s blossoming shame.
Too much; you're belabouring the same thing over and over again: the guy's staring at a broad across the room.

>The rot we sing when we accidently meet:
>When the atoms that make up you touch the
>Atoms that make up me my gift is
The coupling is weakened by "my gift is". But that on the next line and you have a nice enjamb. "accidentally" is a bit long and flow-breaking; "almost" sounds better but it changes the story in the poem.

>Slipped from the sleeve like a crying calf spilling
>Down a hard gulch.
That's a great image but I'm not convinced this is the right place to put it. "Slipped from the sleeve" is kind of cheesy.

First half of stanza 3 is kind of shit to be honest. It's a lot of noise about nothing really.

>the steadfast flagellant.
Yuck

>I slap it around and kid it like family.
Bit of a mood whiplash for the brooding try-hard in the poem to go all Bukowski and dead-baby jokes. The random domestic abuse insert doesn't add much to the narrative of the poem.

>Cage it and blame it for swallowing it’s
>Own key, scold it like the wetting dog.
This is great though.

>This fucking thing?
Too much, too much!

>How humiliating to give so damaged a thing.
This kind of narcissistic babbling is probably realistic but doesn't make for great reading; you need to weave it into the narrative somehow.

>My gift is wet and mossed. Torn from stitch and seam, so
>Meager indeed, the best parts of me.
Has a nice sting to it. Formatted weirdly. "Best parts in me" is more agreeable than "Best parts of me".

"So meager indeed" is superfluous. It almost sounds like you put it in just to make it rhyme. It rhymes without though. If you leave this out "Torn from stitch and steam the best parts in me" is a bit heavy-handed, so maybe you need it as a bit of a breather.

Cont.

Overall I'd say there's a lot of good ideas here you should keep developing. It's best to end with something concrete though; you've ended on a solipsism that never really makes it off the page. You could try a strong image, a massive gut punch, a glimmer of hope, or something else.

Most I'd say is write about more. Have more stuff _happen_ in the poem. There's a lot of words for what seems to be a person failing at talking to someone they like, whipping out a flask, then rambling about domestic abuse. Too rambling and grandiose.

>Trying to find a structure or an interesting way to use it for my work.
You've got some hidden iambic tetrameters in there, they just don't start and end at the start and end of lines. You could and reshape this to have straightforward 8 syllable blank verse. It would probably even strengthen the drunken narcissistic ramblings by making them a bit more weighty and regular.

I don't think this particular poem is worth much but it has a lot of great ideas, imagery, and snippets that would be worth revisiting or using elsewhere. Keep it up though.

>O' woman, tell us please
Sounds shoehorned in to fit the rhyme scheme.

>melodious lullaby
Long and lush Romance words. A bit overspent together. Consider melodic--the -ic suffix is a bit less French--or another adjective.

>Because if it is, then I will get myself busy
You don't have a regular metre but this line is awkward and kills the flow.

>singing one with notes low and high
Another shoe-horned rhyme. You can see this one by mechanically inspecting sentence structure: it ends on the clause "with notes low and high" that sort of weakly modifies what you just talked about. Try to end the stanza with a clause/thought or some enjambment or something.

>And you didn't want to feel them against your face
Long and awkward. And again, while your stanzas aren't regular, this seems to invert the long-short-long-short precedence in the first two stanzas.

>And offer you solace in my warm embrace
Leave out "warm" and it's much better. You can get a nice rhythm out of "And give you solace in my embrace" which really speeds things up and build up tension for you to take into the next stanza about fighting off monsters.

>I'd ward off the monsters from under your bed
Too many words that aren't doing anything. "the" and "from under". "I'd ward off monsters under your bed" is more compact and has less air in it. Consider using another word than "your", since that's used a lot in the poem and you don't want to deaden its meaning when you can use another word.

>O' woman, just tell us for Lord's sake!
Another tacked on, "make-it-rhyme" thing.

>What is it that will make you sleep, O' woman?
You can leave off the "O' woman?"

Nice ending. I think it could be made shorter and stronger:
>What is it that will make you sleep?
>My faint heart begs to know.
>It worries that you'll go to sleep
>Leaving me wakeful as you go.

Or something like that. If you can trim two syllables from the last sentence and keep it iambic you'll also end with a perfect ballad stanza which imparts a nice dreamy sing-song quality.

Stylistically it's a bit wonky. Nice narrative though: you don't get stuck on one image too long and pace yourself well. I see potential. Making it a bit more regular (in terms of syllable length and metre) would make it stronger (but you don't have to keep it perfectly regular).

It's nice for what it is.

>Needless to say the least
An empty set-up for "least lessons". I like the enjambing but the set-up has to be meaningful on its own.

>Freedom’s omnipresent
Not sure about the contraction. Makes me think the thought continues on the next line but it doesn't so I had to read it twice.

>But my body's on lease
I'd say this line actively worsens the poem. I'd reword or remove, particularly so there's no "my". I like that the speaker suddenly materialises out of nowhere in a sparse, desert-feeling poem that doesn't immediately seem to have a speaker.

>Threaded dreams
>Seamless society
Could be my dialect but when I read, "lease", "dreams", and "society" all share at least a half rhyme. I'd stick to half-rhyming "lease" and "society" to keep things sparse.

>To carry your sun bleached bones
>Thru the valley of plastic
I'd prefer "sun-bleached". But on second thought, keeping the space makes the poem feel sparser. So maybe not. Putting "thru" at the end of the previous line sounds better to me, and adds a cute meta-reading of why "thru" is spelled like that (to fit it onto a long line).

I dig it though. Nicely done.

I'm assuming same user. This is good critique keep going

She awoke, with fever induced excitement -
but unwilling to leave, her land of fantastical dreams

Dimmed orbs of dark, squinting at the winking light of a newborn sun -
Drowsy fingertips grasping at sheets, flinging them off her naked form

The soft whispers of robes, sliding, covering clammy, goosebumped skin -
A one dimensional protection against the unquenchable thirst of the wind

Seeping, twisting and slipping through cracks of a frozen house, as the world changed around it -
An electrifying shock as bare feet pressed against the icy chill of marble tiles

Soft padding of footsteps down an empty corridor -
Guarded by painted eyes, unblinking as time passed by

That looked away, from the door that led -
Out, out into the outside world.

The whispers of ghosts following her trail -
As she flings the heavily ornamented doors open, yet weak as they crack and bend

Down into her fragrant gardens she goes -
Toes digging into the soft vibrant soil, bursting with life

The tender touch of petals -
warms her blood

As the prick of thorns -
bleed rubies down her once unmarked hand

A blissful smile turns into grimace and sadness -
a head turned in question

Her life secluded -
to the eternal building, she called home

A dainty form, vanishing in and out -
discovering a new thing here, and here and there

The delighted laughs -
and muted whimpers

Always quick to run back to the heavily ornamented doors -
their hinges creaking, quivering as their form weakened

Until one day, she left -
She left, left too far that allowed for no hurried escape

Ending in a shy face, hidden behind a vine covered pillar, among rubble of ancient civilizations -
As a stranger, beckoned

With answers, and questions -
That he freely gave, and whom she freely went with

Years went by -
When she finally visited the house, with corridors of painted eyes

She slipped back into robes from her youth -
Snuggled under the sheets that had warmed her in the coldest of nights

She closed her eyes -
And as she did, fire was birthed into the house that had stood frozen, as the world changed around it

The chorus and singing of flames with their suits of red, blue and orange, reverberated in the home -
their contralto and soprano tones creating a symphony of scorch and ruin

Leaving a skeleton wall and blackened faces -
And the form of a sleeping maiden

As vines and trees creeped in and all other forms of green took root -
Growing and twisting, bathing in the warmth of the sun

A shelter alight with the beating heart of life -
A mass of roots and shyly peeking tendrils

Allowing for gentle breezes from the tenderest of winds -
Yet shielding from the mightiest of tempests, as their leaves shook, bending and turning but never breaking

Stirring in her slumber -
She woke, to find herself laying in a bed of grass

And never went back to sleep

it's got a reference somewhere in the middle to indian mythology, just ignore that.

my new expensive bicycle
completely unbecoming of me
is not meant for the craggy roads of this city
though it claims to be a "mountain bike"
hardtail, 21 gears (shorthand for 7x3,
though i would hardly know what that means
dipped in the filthy vapours suffusing this urban lung),
a titanium skeleton as sleek as an ocean liner.
when i pedal el poderoso through the undulating
wavy asphalt streets that line this rancid metropoliced hub,
my heart hops on every slippery slide, each jerk and skid,
each strangling strain on the wheels as i make a hairpin bend
fit to snap right down the middle.
yesternoon it rained and i found a microscopic honeycomb
growing off the plastic of my smoothly-hewn mudguards:
a present from mumbadevi for being born in her boggy
womb. my feet seemed dipped in ice, frozen nerves,
the skin perspiring dilute acid as i pedaled faster
than i should have over the slick cobbled lanes,
the rocks and stones and bits of road chipped off,
gnawed off by cats and hounds pissing over
the tiny clumps of grass that timidly sprout from spores
buried underfoot, then
the sonorous almighty nasal rumble
of rubber rolling over a metal drum embedded
in the ground. then the swerving, the shifting of weight
as we weave between cars many kilometres travelled to meet
here amidst a trumpet band from pandaemonium,
between men and women letting down their stringy hair,
the mask of water on their faces deepening the reds,
the sensuous browns of their pupils, and they stand back
and watch my bicycle chain pull us down the river and home.

Sporeheart

That cold lung drip will pierce
The veil oncoming--------Distrust
Us, wide weald conch loam
Drunk on wormwood tea,
Our haven safe at Anglesey.
Do not be swept by gallants
Dressed like wooden squires
In the Low Castle; splinter in
His quillhand; Alcuin's ghost
Grew hoarser still now that
The toil and trouble ended.
Fix the clock please. We need
To go to work today in
Grass rooks; wighted by
The callow wainscot paste.
Hideous slumlords, let us
Sleep. End the housing crisis.
We have no carhold tomb
To make us grapefruit pink.
Must slacken the Indiana
Fragment, bristling in an
Eastern wash, this continent's
Black-blasted steppe
Inside white seeds.

I like the image as a whole. I wish it was a little more involving.

This is not good. It sounds like you're trying to sound like someone telling a story. It uses way too many words repeated and doesn't have any of the good effects that might come from repetition.

This poem has no name
I feel empty
This poem has no name

Here's one I wrote,

Heaven help us
walking lonely, sterile shores:
the cosmic gap immures
so we silently withdrawl;

But yet the fall
Is soil enough for sleep
for we ourselves do reap,
and dream of our perdition.

Kamasutra before sex
Synopsis before text
Live in advance and
Never return debts.

Stable job's horseshit
Gift box of Hershey's
Hearsay of her slit
Hissing of his shame

Perverse designs run
In their tracks dead
Through the well-licked
Family tended heads

Thomas the tank engine
Little and strong
He bent me right over
And knew it was wrong

Thomas the tank engine
Fucked me with his dong
For as many long minutes
As his dong is long

Thomas the tank engine
Went full Donkey Kong
Then put me away
Like a well used bong

New Shakespeare over here

I like this, but a few lines the meter feels off.
>I wish you weren't anything
jars for me, maybe make it 'were not'?

The tambourine metaphor is a bit too el quirky for me, but if i put that aside its a lovely poem and i especially love the last stanza.

I can't really put my finger on what, but this just strikes me as uninspiring. A lot of cliches in use, like 'bursting with life' even things like 'naked form' - just sound like oblique attempts at sounding poetic. Just a lot of it sounds unesscary, especially because it is so long - try condensing each line, retaining only exactly what you need.

The Faceless rose, spoke, and so came forth this:
"There lies a land, near, past reach nonetheless,
where mournful peaks glance to ley below,
and roads no feet have tread nor builders kept
in memory of page or scribe. Yet said,
’tis no empty land, though stirs naught within.
Scribes, it has, and builders and fathers and sons.
A King, it had, and courtiers and pipers and drums.
Tables, there are, set beneath still faces,
and no food, though untouched by creature or beast,
but mouldered and rotted to stain.
Those scribes, they hunch, over parchment gone to dust,
their hands stayed, in monument unwilling,
of those deepest crimes for greatest cause
wrought in vain, and none left to lament."

Smoldering campfire glances
Deep grooves in gnarled limbs
The icy embrace of rolling fog
Pulls us into a deeper sleep

Thanks! I wrote it in my head when I was walking home in the winter and the bushes were like winter tambourines that's where the imagery comes if it helps. I'm terrible at meter I just go by flow so "weren't" felt like it picked up more speed. Which other verses were off? Also if you care, I also wrote this onethe other night

I really like this one a lot. The end is the tiniest but chunky. Also I read it as the Faceless Rose (like the flower) and it gave an awesome lore to it

it's wonderful

barf

could someone please critique this?

>so "weren't" felt like it picked up more speed
yeah you're right it does, so if that was your intention then it works - but i assumed it was a mistake

This is clearly very well written and has fantastic imagery.

Unfortunately it reads almost completely like prose. I'm kind of anal about rhyming / meter n poetry, I guess. Otherwise it's very well written.

Seen:

Sometimes I see you after I've already fallen asleep
And I wonder if that means
I haven't moved on.

Or;
If it means nothing.
Like dreams are dreams
And you can't control them.

I haven't had a good night's sleep in weeks.

I used to scoff at those old people
Who say Facebook ruins lives

And I still do
But I'm sick of seeing your face
Show up on the side of my screen
Because I'm not vindictive enough to block you entirely.

Sometimes I think
Weed has shot my memory
Or, at least
Reduced my attention span.

I think you look really pretty with make up on
But without it you're just plain.

I'm going to stop using my phone as much,
I'm going to turn it off unless I need to make a call.

And I'm going to stop using it right before bed.

The time's I smoke weed
Are the only times I sleep uninterrupted.

Last night I had a fever dream that I was flying above a flooded city
And there was nothing I could do to return me to the ground.