Poetry critique thread

Bump

I like this. Like the other soon said 'in the nothing well' is a pretty grest line.

Saw this posted in the other thread, but I'm a sucker for nature imagery so I love it.

Here's mine: Ghost Sighting

I find myself standing within
halls of walls when none'd been,
condensed from air by winter wind
upon the subtle breath of spring.

Singing hymns of sins in making,
with silver tongue for golden mind,
I'm suddenly drawn into a womb-
a tomb who's realm is all's but mine.

The Devil stands before my path,
his question hums in harmony,
my silver tongue freezes still as
exorcising words remind me.

Silver tongue ice-picking for gold,
I lick from off my snowball mind
an answer which the fiend did seek-
a ghost to haunt this hall of walls.

The fiend erupts into a flurry.
To the walls the flakes do scurry.
Where once not I nor fiend did spy,
nothing remains to honest eyes.

Parts of Speech

Fuck.
Fucking fuck.
Fucked up.
Fuck this.
Fuckingly.
Fuckadoodledoo.
Fuckwit.
The fuck.
Abso fucking lutely.
Out fucking standing
Zero fucks.

if your lines don't have 8+ syllables, and your poem has 0 polysyllabic rhymes, don't bother posting.

Ulver

yonic water

day seas flow early
at dawn, i saw her
drowning in them.
she and the waters waved
so long

we fared well once
i caught her deep in one once.
she always slept in water
she said she felt best gasping
for air, lungs wet, mineral heavy

that's how I met her, drifting
off in the levee.
she said it was the place for dykes-
as she flooded me

Who am I not feel the snares of the drum?
Does not the heart beat rapidly?
Is that the meaning of the drum?
Does the heart really mean the love
or just the flesh beating inside of your chest
a hallowed out metaphor for your soul
anger is boldness learn from it but understand that change is good when good

...

This is a cringe love poem that I wrote

It's not that you intimidated me
I was just scared of screwing up
Wish I could show you the things I see
The visions that make my mind erupt

You walked into my life one day
The brittle leaves had fell
I knew life wouldn't be the same
So I came out of my shell

Your teeth were pearls
Your eyes like coal
Obsidian curls
A diamond soul

Oh how your hugs and kisses felt
When we would meet up in the park
My problems and worries would always melt
As we'd love each other til after dark

It'd be foolish to deny how different we are
But with our similarities our love grew
Eventually I will return to the stars
Until that day, I only want to be with you

On my visit to the Institute of Contemporary Arts of Boston, Massachusetts

On the back deck of the ICA I found the ocean and thought "shit"
All this blood behind me and I can't smell the iron in it
What a waste of all the horses, cattle, sheep slaughtered for it
All the hipsters with lenses, glue and stencils, their hides on display
What tasteless, chewy skin

Truth is like the sun for I am blinded in its presence
The water's movement moves me makes me wish the walls here
were lined with different relics, other million little
details, unnchecked, unnoticed in the canvas
all these little exorcisms
all the purges of the empty and overloved
that mean nothing to me, nothing to nobody, like how a dead man couldn't care about the hearse
dirt is dirt is dirt is dirt until we see it all and call it "earth"

Only mothers love their childern
Only artists love to die, so we do it many times
and we hang our guts to dry
In thick white lighting, almost-not-there glass
for some to gawk at, squint and understand
Or to come as close to dying like that
In someone else's understanding, in their altar to their minds
a place that holds no space for us, only for the bodies we have left

What an ugly boring death that is
mute and void of meaning
hung in supersanitized walls
fuzzed about by art school stillborns
cord still attached to womb
bending sloth into dung thrones, cold corpses into meatless bone
bending forward in compulsive self-fellation
wind-pipe all too full to speak

This was an attempt to cheer up a friend of mine who had to live in one of those miserable cities up north. Make it sound romantic rather than depressing. It didn't really work.

Across an endless ocean,
Upon a nameless shore,
Where faceless men have trodden
And, aimless, tread no more;

Where winter lies undying,
And blizzards howl unchecked,
Untiring spirits wander
Where unsung heroes cracked.

Beyond these wanderers restless,
Far from their sightless eyes,
Across the boundless chasms
The lifeless city lies.

Within those streets unspoken,
Past the unopened gates,
Atop a keep unbroken
The unseen maiden waits.

She waits, for fate is faithless,
The lightless hours long,
And soundlessly she opens
Her lips in voiceless song.

The untorn heavens shudder,
The unmoved mountains break.
The air carries unfeeling
Unheard timbres of heartache.

I was just thinking about making one of these threads.
Also, I'm drunk again. R8 H8 Appreci8.

Lullaby for a Lonely Soul

Hapless wanderer
Streetlight climber
Fencepost hopper
Midnight train rider
I am the one
Who kisses the lips
Of the darkness
Who drinks from the sky
The wine of the abyss
Window smears wearing midnight
Showing life continues on
In the church candles are burning
And even after one is gone
They burn on
Melting the eyes
Of the stoic mass-goers
While God comes low
And we become lower
He lends you His ear
Obeying the beckon of the holy God-show-ers
But He does not hear
He does not hear
His hearing aid fails
Though He is so near
He misses the candles
With His cobwebbed eyes
The one who dies is forgotten
The gold on his eyes
Will not be enough
To buy him a boat
And the other souls gloat at their crossing
Crossing themselves as they stow away
Watching Death rowing
Just rowing away
A snide snicker slides
From out the sinister side
Of the mouth of the old spinster
The other side smiles
Beguiles and charms
Holding wide both arms
And at a million miles up
It seems worth your while
So take that step!
Traveler depart!
Cast off the wormy cloak
Of a mud hut heart
For cats and cradles
Do you no good
Water is poison
Thanks to wily Wormwood
The end is nigh
Fly away to the moon
High in the sky
Like the Dish and the Spoon
You are a candle
Your flame is your heart
But there are so many candles
No one will notice
When one candle departs

>well-memed-and-dubs
I remember this one. Maybe from the last thread. Not bad.
Interesting. I'm too inebriated to say anything constructive, but i like this one. I like the imagery and comparison of grief to drowning. I enjoy the consistency it has. Its a good poem. Sad and lovely.
I like the last two stanzas. The others remind me of the intellectual community in Mass, which embodies the worst of intellectuals these days and I detest. A good poem, reminds me of home.
Simple but solid. Reminds me of folk songs and Poe. I can see why it wouldn't be very cheering, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Good stuff, good stuff.

Canadian Pacific 2816
(For John Hirchak)

You remember when the engines rolled
through here on tracks of ocean smoke:
pillars of creation, coast-to-coast.
You worked there, before Kodak,
with these photographic hulls,
breathing life into the coals; sweated
through winters in the boiling room.
Once,
you took me from Union to Guelph
beneath that gulf of steam, the choking
summer gulls. A Saturday in late July.
You hadn’t thought, at the time,
that conditions improve —
couldn’t imagine an axial stroke
churning fire back into those coals.

How to start writing poetry?

You gotta feel all the feels and read a lot.

HOW MUCH WOOD WOULD A WOOD CHUCK CHUCK IF A WOULD CHUCK COULD CHUCK WOOD?

HOW MUCH GROUND WOULD A HOUND DOG HOG IF A HOUND DOG WAS GROUND ROUND?

HOW MANY BOARDS WOULD THE MONGOLS HOARD IF THE MONGOL HOARDS GOT BORED?

HOW MANY SUMS WOULD ARCHIMEDES SUM IF ARCHIMEDES SUMMED SOME SUMS?

HOW MANY HUES MUST THE PAINTER HAVE KNEW IF THE PAINTER HEWED NEW HUES?

...

Why there is poetry only in English ITT?

It's an English language board, and poetry in other languages is very unlikely to get much feedback.

Its kind of like this user said. Read lots of poetry and get in touch with your subject matter. Reading poetry provides your work with structure. You first need to learn the technique of poetry so that you don't write cliche filled drivel like many contemporary poets.
Once you've got a good feel for structure, you should write how you feel about things. It helps to be inspired on a specific subject.
Really to start you should read lots and write what comes to mind, using the styles you've absorbed and adding some flair of your own.
Good luck. I recommend Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot, those are some of my favorites and all are very skilled poets.
Plenty of non-English poetry rolls through these threads. Wait or post some of your own.

This is pretty good m8. Sonically, and image wise I really like what you've got going on, but I do have a big criticism. I really think your target--dependent, spoiled art school hipsters is just too easy and too...petty?

Mind if I save this? It'll just be for personal use.

Oh it is, and its totally hipocritical, I'm also in college. I kinda wrote it just to get the thought out, but I might revise it to make it less shitty. Thanks for the comment!

From center to the rim and forward they throw
Unruly children wrestle in the heart of fire
Too small and simple to care, to look, to know

They have no choice but bounce and glow
In elemental brawl born, work done without a tinge of tire
At forceful center, to the rim they strive to go

Eons had passed, at the corona's plateau
Unlikely break from rampant father who them sired
Too small and strange to smile, or cry, or stall

Ahead's a blind voyage, tasked to bend the cold
And move like ripples in the darkly dire
Far from the center, void will be their tow

So many miles ahead, yet all that flies must fall
No living breath is here to pay the journey any mind
Too small and quick to weep and pull a sudden halt

When you're alone at night the pantheon is lit so droll
Your eyes are port at which they must arrive
A flash of epicenter registers in endless flow
Of those too small to care, to look, to know

I'm not quite sure how to interpret this, but I like it for some reason.

Seems less like a poem than some song lyrics.

It's my first time senpai, be gentle desu

you are a mountain, my dear, so be patient
when rain clouds throw kisses down onto your face
for birds will come calling to you through the sunshine
its old dusty rays all as shafts fixed in place

it's hardly worth knowing, my dear, what will come
of the widening crags that drag us away,
for the wisdom of goats which trapeze through their widenesses
soar without worry of perilous space

some hide beneath faces of those they've relied on
whose mothers would wake with a start and give chase
to assailants most wicked and nimble, beguiled
by the steps that they've taken but have not replaced

awake, oh my darling the crags do go deeper
to a distance we measure but rarely appraise
with dignity, dumbfounded dawdling wisps
of a smile I once saw on your crumbling face.

Thanks, yeah I posted the poem in the last thread but never really got an honest critique. Just someone saying it was 'impossible to decipher'. Im new to poetry, and I'm mostly trying to write verse for songs and a modern epic, so I really value any feedback right now. I'm self teaching and don't get to read much since I work forever and practice music whenever I'm free. I know I'm not that good, and the one writer friend I have isn't that good and always tells me writings are great even if I know they're weak. So that's why I'm desperate for decent feedback enough to post on here.

This poem is brought to you by BPD
I feel like I am burning
Up inside
My roommate sleeps
And I write
At my desk and stare across at Naismith
My cough won’t heal
My neck is stiff
And I feel like I might want to go away for a while
Put some space between the world and me
Lock myself in a motel room
And drink wild turkey and rail
All the Adderall I can afford
stay up all night and act
like I woke up early
I want to whither and
Turn out a vase of flowers
That I can show to anyone who will look
To prove my life was worth something
If only this vase of flowers

Your style is very spontaneous, which isn't a bad thing. Some enjoyable lines in there, especially the last four. But you might go through and shorten/clarify some of it. A lot of this is vague and disjointed from your main theme.

I enjoyed this. Your style is very fluid and smooth, nice to read. Also the length and rhythm work well with your theme. Don't have much else to tell you.

Five
Inches
Is a handful

Five
Inches
Is a mouthful

Five
Inches
Is a buttful

Five
Inches
Is a gashful

Five
Inches
Is plenty.

Niggas watch me on the street.
Niggas know I got those bills.
Niggas follow me loosely.
Niggas misdirected hit-men.

...

Something has to change.
Undeniable dilemma.
Boredom's not a burden
Anyone should bear.
Constant over stimulation numbs me
And I wouldn't have
It any other way.
It's not enough.
I need more.
Nothing seems to satisfy.
I don't want it.
I just need it.
To feel, to breathe, to know I'm alive.
Finger deep within the borderline.
Show me that you love me and that we belong together.
Relax, turn around and take my hand.
I can help you change
Tired moments into pleasure.
Say the word and we'll be
Well upon our way.

Little ashes
On the
Stainless steel
Like pebbles
In a riverbed
And pepper shakers
Music makers
Transforming
In the night
Reading words
On little screens
And drinking tea
Bach phonos
Hand-rolled
Last for me
Blurry-y?
Listen!
Lusting
Not driving
Just touching
Lip reading
Magazine clipping
Good good goodnight

Were I to eat the sun and become
Like gods in high and low spaces
Would I enter a new room and dine
With others like me
Or with others above me

What it was to have no one above
With truest spaces in halls and windows
My mind reaching edge of space
Losing it since

I, in an emptiness that exists,
Linger on corners in my boxmind

This six pack is my best friend,
While you needed to be heard
I needed not to hear.

When you needed more and more,
And I having less and less
To give again, a smile.

Stop

SWING FOR BLACK BIT UNDER GROUND

WE SWUNG.

DUG FOR IT, NOT QUITE HIT

HELL YET BOYS.

BLACK BEHEMOTH LURCHED UNDER FOOT,

NOT GOLD OR SILVER

LIKE SUNKEN ANGELS

BUT RAW DARK.

I SAW HIS FACE HAINT WHITE.

Overhead: a libertarian
canvas hooked to anchor
nibs. Margins where civil carrion
prints its tarlike rancour,

or, effluent, miasmatic,
overspills its tanker-
chiselled channels, a haematic
spurt from a ballpoint pen.

Congealed resinous canker
stained with hieratic
acquiescence, how could one
as I, world-schismatic,

I, who can prognosticate when
canvas will be rolled, white
as it was first unscrolled, be so
manned at a painted blight?

Part of a poem I made about my routine

In the offices
Sleepiness is the great evil that afflicts the evenings
Of the poor servants who crawl through
Endless labyrinths of the paperwork:
Like a snail, drowsiness wander on the brains,
Greasing them in mucus of apathy.
Our salvation are the many cups
Of coffee, whose embrace warms our entrails
And shakes the soul: the brains use it
To make electrifying mouthwash and spit
Out the lazy jelly and the yawning
Rancidity of sleep: the bitter and dark
Blood of coffee is the true
Nectar of the active God of Production.

>Original in Portuguese

>*Endless labyrinths of the paperwork:

THE endless labyrinths of the paperwork:

>Like a snail, drowsiness wander* on the brains,

wanders

A desire in my hands to
Strangle the neck of the demon
Who curses me to live imprisoned
In a cage of mouth
In a house of bones
Dies beneath its word
Crumbling and broken already
For it was never born soon
And only its voice softly passes
Ephemeral in nobody´s song.

So english is not my first language, i almost don´t read poetry written in that language (only whitman) and this is my first english poem.
Sorry

Will you guys critique at least one poem for each poem you post?

For fuck sake lads....

What is the point in correcting grammar without giving feedback?

not as long as some poems

Sorry, I was correcting my own grammar. I did not double-checked before I posted, so I ended up making stupid mistakes.

Fluorescent like the stars beyond
Upholding truth and love above
Perfection is there
But it does not safeguard us

Very beautiful. I can almost physically sense what you are evoking. Keep it up.

This is fantastic and I wonder if you didn't meme us by pulling some poem out of a local magazine.

I'm not a fan of "You worked there, before Kodak/.../breathing life into the coals". I don't really read "breathing life into the coals" as iambic, which it kinda has to be or it sounds off-kilter.

There's probably just a bit too much happening here. I'd cut the line "with these photographic hulls" (should it be photogenic instead?).

I have a soft spot for hipster liberal BTFO poems. A few parts are a bit awkward.

I like the anti-climax on the first line but the build up needs a bit more pop. I'd metre it.

"What a waste of..." Can probably chop this patr off.

"Truth is like the sun for I am blinded in its presence"
A little high-strung for the mood in the poem without having built up enough trust with the reader. It's not bad, but sticks out like a sore-thumb.

"Only artists love to die, so we do it many times
and we hang our guts to dry"

I'm pretty Eh about this

"bending forward in compulsive self-fellation
wind-pipe all too full to speak"

How about:

"bending forward to self-fellate
wind-pipe all too full to speak"

I have two poems with similar themes to this but I think they have a shot at getting published, although I've already been stung by >tfw rejected for publication again

>I like the anti-climax on the first line but the build up needs a bit more pop. I'd metre it.

By the way, maybe you could space the "shit" a bit more to the right. Like just put an extra space or two between "thought" and "shit".

it's not real latin poetry so be easy

hors de ma pensée

la ,d'où je véhicule mes eructations érailées
moins même qu'une ébauche
un tracé si grossier
cette pathétique chose, figure erronée
se trouve pourtant en osmose

white boi detected

To smuggle whatever thought i feel, to be born unless there´s rain
Comes to mind freely through sunlight and warmly and
In the evening, crashing my soul against unknown sea
I Drown myself in it swiftly and never swim up
Till i feel a return waves coming behind my steps
Trying to get me home incessently
And i always escape them, never see behind their masks
And they always look at me, their faulty eyes piercing
Like knives my white heart
Bleeding only fog and rain.