/critique/

I'll admit that I haven't actually read any of Dante's works (yet).

This poem, like almost all of mine, came first as an idea out of nowhere (usually right as I'm trying to go to bed), which I then try to cram into an off-the-cuff structure, because all my stream of consciousness writing turns out garbage.

The intent, for this one, was to have a "core" consisting of the first six syllables of each line in the primary stanza (you'll notice that in the primary stanza, each line meets a definite pause after syllable six), plus the two ending lines. The core is supposed to be the "descriptive" backbone of the work, providing all key information and being a complete narrative in itself, while the second segment of each line is the "elaborative" portion. This structure falters, notably, at the end of line 3 and beginning of line 4, but I've been unable to remedy that without radically altering the whole shebang.

Unintelligible gibberish.

this is begging for rhyme, screaming for rhyme
there are some weaknesses due to abstraction
>somber dissent
>endless life lamenting— one it could not take.
>An ending I offered, a fool's pity.
>the last two lines

I feel like pushing the imagery even further would also strengthen the piece

My Church is my ass
My farts is the sermons
Bitch don't gimme sass
When I'm all up on you squirming

...

I can see where you're coming from, but there's actually very little, if any abstraction in there. Read it as a very literal narrative that makes implications that prompt consideration of the characters and their dilemmas.

I have the feeling that I'd destroy it while trying to drop in a rhyme scheme, but I'll definitely fiddle with the imagery, thank you.

(1/2)
The old man has spoken, his eyelids fluttering in revelation as we watch him in his cot. All the men of the village have gathered here in the dark bungalow we wove for him, our eyes following his vein-rooted hands as they reach out to pull dreams from the air, returning them to his mouth—his old-man-mouth with no teeth, soft like the inside of a clam, his uvula a gray pearl blinking back light—swallowing these dreams like tasty little orts, sucking them off the tips of his fingers, and then speaking them alive to us. A fateful whisper as we all lean in, all the men of the village, we strong anglers now bending our ears to this corpse. He says there will be a ruin from the sea tonight—that God will finally reach out his hand and scrub the bay of sin. He is glad at our alarm when he says this, of the way his dark bungalow is suddenly full of shouting and shallow breath. He is one to relish such power, this old witch-man we keep alive with bone-paste and raw snapper fins, the power to know and withhold knowing.

(2/2)
He looks at me as he speaks his doom, only at me. Watches my face with hate and pleasure. For I am the youngest of those gathered here, the youngest boatswain of the village, my father having died a season past in a hurricane, and his sloop and name and manhood thence turned over to me. I am also beautiful and strong. The women of the village, the wives and daughters and mothers of those gathered here, some very young and some very old, they come to me in the night when there is no moon and when the clouds daub out the stars. On these nights I take them down to the shore where the crashing of the waves will cover their yowls, their cat-songs, and there I fuck them without mercy. For they want no mercy, and do not come to me for mercy. I push their soft women-bellies down on the boulders that stud the beach and I punish them amidst the spray of the breakers, watching the salt-water brine bead on their smooth backs, watching the salt-wind toss their black hair such that it seems like I am driving them out into the sea where my father died. They scream and I whisper and the sea destroys itself, and when I am ready, I turn them over so that I can revel at what has become stamped upon their bellies. The nautiloid spirals of shells that pattern the boulders have mirrored themselves upon the soft vellum of their flesh, cephalopods rewritten and imprinted into life, their ancient shapes now sprent hieroglyphic on the pale tape of woman-skin. I draw my rod from out their bodies and run my fingers down the grooves and shapes that have notched into their flesh, trace with the tip of my manhood those ancient coils, and upon this field I finally spend myself. In the dark, my seed is lunar and luminous, and it settles into the molds of the nautili and hardens there. Every such night I create these waxen ghost-shells on the bellies of the village women, and every night I tell them to go and wash themselves in the sea. Then I sit upon the boulder of our sin and watch their pale, naked bodies cross down to the shore. I watch as the black edge of the sea swallows them up until they remain only as a white torso crouched in a wall of susurrus and void. I watch them clean themselves, their hands raking at their fishy clefts, scrubbing away the ghosts I have molded onto their bellies, these mothers and grandmothers and daughters mute in their shame, and in the dark I pray for my father.

>read it as...

You can't make qualifications on how to read a piece, when it doesn't come across well. Expecting someone to read something that clearly resembles a lyrical poem as a short (and literal) narrative poem will lead to miscommunication and failure to create the desired effect.

And the abstraction is there regardless of you wanting to deny it. And I think it detracts for good reason.

Very good is all I can say.

Here is my first poem ever critique please

To Deserter

Oh friend, with whom through fire I did sail,
My eyes have seen you brave the cruelest seas,
Through tempest as through time we did prevail,
And with this sentiment my heart agrees;
My eyes defy the gods to see your tail,
Fading to silhouette over the seas.

For those the storms that we did bravely weather,
Through waters navigated with such ease,
Through waves which would drag Juno to the Aether,
But pattered on our bow as weak as leaves,
Will eat your coracle, all but the leather,
And the flimsy wood will join you in the deep.

>I know I have some good ideas but every time I try to write them it just comes out as teen-lit-tier unsubtle shit. Advice on how to improve? I may have to soon just accept that (dare I say it) I am an untalented creative writer

The rain was relentless and the street was deserted and the stranger’s hand was edging ever closer to his wife’s breast. There was a passion in their kiss which he had never been able to inspire, a visceral lust which gripped them both. The man kissing his wife was tall and handsome whereas the husband, watching from his car, was not. He was dressed stylishly and expensively whereas the husband was not. He was able to make the wife squirm in pleasure with his kiss whereas she only seemed to be annoyed by the husband. It was already too late to intervene, for any marital love she might have once felt was clearly gone now. Her love was in her thudding heart as he pushed her firmly against the wall, in her body as it shuddered with anticipation, in her eyes as she stared into his. The husband was already a memory that she was starting to forget.

Finally they broke apart. He brushed the rain from her hair, whispered something into her ear, and they both laughed. She was flush with ecstasy, basking in the morning delirium that always follows a night spent with a lover. The husband couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her like that. Maybe as far back as when they were dating, all those years ago at university. That was the way she had looked at him on those lazy Sundays when they’d still be in bed at 4 in the afternoon. The way she smiled with her eyes, the way her every pore seemed to exude brightness and happiness. He had become fiercely possessive over that look. It was his, she only looked that way when she was with him. Only, that wasn’t true anymore. He’d forgotten that look, and now here it was and it belonged to another man.

The pain of watching was almost unbearable and yet he could not muster up the will to look away. To start the car and drive away would have required energy and purpose but in that moment he had nothing. He was nothing. He had no real life other than his family and now here was a very visible sign that they would soon be starting a life without him. Every hour he worked was for them. The only thing he wanted in return was for them to be his. His wife, his daughter. His family. Something that was greater than he was, a collective spirit. Something to enable him to be more than just the self. But, no. This was his future. Robert Jensen, nothing but an individual man soon to be alone and empty.

Careful with the "was" use. Almost every verb in these paragraphs is "was." They call them "was clusters."

Then a furrow of dustlight
Enters then barely crawls across the chambers
Just enough for us to make out
The Spanish dogs in formation
The pluming organ swells coiling around their tongues aloll
Held in the slow pulse of anticipation

And in the light their teeth and yours
Are the same shade of white
And I ache for the bite.

Vodka is the only friend I still charm
And I cannot take it to Prom
But I can try

And round, a-round the drunkards go,
The buzzards not far behind;
The leaders lead, the workers woe,
The blind leading the blind.
The insipid procession of mankind,
Thoughtless drones, burning coals;
The heartless hogwash they keep in mind,
As if parasitic trolls.

Any critique welcomed.

Blending in with the common
Indulging in their outlets
Hilarity ensues upon laughless matters,
Disguised catharsis on unspoken ends.

Hickety Pickety Poo
The mouse fell in the stew
Bickity Bickety Bock
I servered mine own Cock

A man with nothing left,
A true man, well said;
For to be himself,
He must lose any thirst;
To be a steel,
He must Tremble first!

And now this Iron man,
Has nothing left;
Except the will to Conquer!
Tremble therefore, tyrants of the world;
Tremble before Man!
A man with nothing and no one left,
Wretched man, Blessed man.

and are also mine btw

Amusing.

1/2

“God is dead, thus spake Zarathustra.”

I’ve always been a man of little means. Through my life I’ve hardly asked anyone for anything, but every now and again I find myself looking up to the heavens and unsure of what to do with myself. I cry out in my mind at first, asking God what is his plan. And then as tears form in my eyes from the lack of response, I pound my fist against whatever is nearby and then cry out again this time with my vocal chords strumming. Again I have no answer.

God is dead. I read the lines which Zarathustra speaks and they ring out like clear notes. But as I close the bindings of the book, all of the thoughts which had sparked my curiosity are sealed within. God is not dead. He cannot be, for he is forever. Or at least, that’s what I’ve been raised my whole life to believe. God is good, God is kind. God is loving, God is a gentle God. God is fearsome, God is magnificent. God is everything, and everything is God, and so long that there is something then God does exist. If I am and we are, then so too is he. I’ve read every religious text over a dozen times. I’ve acknowledged the conspiracies and seen both sides of every coin. But God in his purest form has continued to elude me.

In enter my dreams and I hope to see him. A magnificent giant towering over me. A small child begging for scraps. A lion roaming through the forest. A deer that stares me down from across a field. Whether magnificent or not in nature the vision would be, I believe that should I acknowledge his presence then I would know. Even if it were in a dream if I were to be able to see him but once, all doubts should be cast aside. But he eludes me still.

I enter the churches, the synagogues, the mosques, the backyard tree stumps and the cement podiums. Every man and woman who believes themselves a saint steps up and yells into me. They scream at the God hiding within my heart, to pull him free of whatever darkness lurk beneath. I hope to see his ghostly hand tearing from my chest as the holy men cry out their lines, reduced to actors too dedicated to toss away the script they’d so arduously memorized for the play that never came and will never. We all come to search for the God hidden deep within ourselves, hoping that someone who’s pretending only slightly less will be able to pull him free from his shadowy shackles. But he eludes us still.

2/2

I enter the holy city. The pretender waves at the masses and addresses them for their morning prayers. Hundreds of thousands around me fall to their knees and press shut their eyes. Clasping their hands together and lowering their hands they began to whisper in unison. I do not fall, for my eyes are set on the sky. I scan the horizon as I wait for God to descend unto his people. Surely there would be someone here who does deserve a miracle? Surely there would be someone here whose faith could rouse the creator from his slumber? But as I trace my eyes along rooftops, I stare into the sun and to my surprise find the pretender himself also staring into the sky.

I remember, when I was a child my imagination ran free. Every which direction that I looked I could see that which was not there. With my mind I could create great adventures in our small apartment home. I could weave great and intricate stories about the figurines lining my shelves. At a young age, I had become acquainted with God. But as I grew older our friendship grew distant. I forgot him or he I, either way by the time I’d become a teen we no longer held a single memory together. In the place of it stood the great church bell, which I’d only been too happy to ring on any given Sunday. A small town with a small church, and a small boy too keen to start the ceremonies and reconnect with that which he’d recently lost. But there was no God to be found.

Stone floors, wood rooves, stained glass windows. The fear of a hundred men and two hundred boots echoed around the hall as the preacher began to take his first breath. Dim eyes yearning for the glow that had escaped them so long ago. Those eyes meeting with mine only just beginning to glaze over. The holy garments shifted as the man pursed his lips, suppressing the knowing pain that had started to spread across his face.

It is their job to believe for those of us who know no better. It is their job to convince us who have nowhere else to run. And as I stand here in this great courtyard, staring up at the holiest of living men all the pain swells from within me. To my side rests a child of only five or six. His hand clamps around mine as he begins to smile. Opening his eyes and meeting mine, he follows my stare and watches the holy man as he finishes his prayer.

“God is dead, isn’t he?”

The boy next to me smiles. His eyes glisten as he awaits my response and pain lingers beyond the shimmering pools of blue. My fantasies of meeting with this grand creator and all of my pain from never getting to meet him. My dreams of entering this holy land and feeling some grand presence and the comedown from its absence. The imagination which I had begun to nurture once more in hopes of accomplishing anything of importance at all. Those blue eyes, like endless oceans washing over me. I clutch at my chest, the familiar pain of void within my chest as I think of my childhood friend.

And I drown.

“No. God is not dead.”

I've just drafted up an idea, I know it needs work and I'll be doing it over the following days but just from reading it now what would some of you say needs fixing/changing most?

Sounds great, I'd like to read more of your stuff. Could you critique and the 2 poems linked in that? Thanks.

I think you'd write well in third-person.

Your stanzas could do with some restructuring in regards to grammar, some of the lines feel quite jarring. I'd say keep your Tremble lines definitely though.

I feel like that might do better more minimalist, so you'd have to do something like cutting at the first line by getting rid of 'And round,', removing 'The' at the beginning and then reworking the remnants so that they keep a good rhythm in their rhyming.

The first two lines of that are great, not sure about the other two. Personally I'd rework them to fit the tone of the first two.

I'd like see how you do writing a verse with a different narrative perspective.

critique my website. just two posts so far.

brasswarinsect(dot)com

Rad stuff man. I like it. You nailed that sort of modernist tone while managing to keep your critique sounding poignant and not just whiny.

hmm, i wonder if phrases like "parasitic trolls" has much connotative meaning at all. I'm just not getting the internal logic here. the words you have down are often vague and convoluted. there isn't enough substance in this poem that is concrete.

pastebin.com/5Ug2f8e5

A very short story, maybe a bit quaint. I haven't been reading or writing in years, started reading again recently. English is not my native language so I had to translate.

I don't feel qualified to give constructive criticism, but I really like it's very grand and meditative.
This is good, too, but I hope it's not the prologue to a blacked novelization

two things: you are invoking one of the most central literary themes in recent memory very very directly. I'm not seeing the gravitas that warrants such an invocation. it's not that it couldnt work at all per se, but the piece as it is seems unable to sustain its own loftiness, if only through the fault of the concept itself (rather than the execution). in other words, you are almost certainly at least proficient at writing, but it doesn't come off at the level you are aiming for.

2: the work right now is too familiar. the internal logic is a little too clear and it occupies a space too conventional/one ive seen before.

I like to make little wordplay sentences for fun. Too annoyingly whimsical?

Poor suffearing eccentricd, madgining a wratchful eye, was at first totally paranyzed but soon pantically surged for a place to continue his hide.

>his hide
The only part that deem me snickers

The syracuse trees sway with the wind with their bacillary branches stemming from the wooden work of God. The leaves fell and gathered near the iron fence and crumpled in response to the winds howl, and folded to their natural death. Each branch in this orchard had swayed to the Earthly rhythm of the birds and the grasses, playing on for life and its carriers. Footsteps crash and break against the mixture of red and yellow leaves, and the leaves accept their fate. A shadow of a man obscures the critters and the crawling ants of the ground and absorbs the sunlight in the area. He swayed his walk and circled the tree like a passive predator as to analyze every piece of the bark and to feel the textures of each color. Brown was rough against his skin, and the touch of yellow was sticky and crumpled. So the man brushed off the colors and wandered to the color of blue, and found himself engulfed by the color. He dived into the azul pit and took in it’s freshness, and drank its cool. He lapped his tongue to the drop;;ets drizzling down his face and body, glimmering in the blazing sun. He unsheathed a cigarette and let his lighter snap and echo through the wood-walled woods and tasted the smoke and blew it into the clear air. A squirrel brushed beside his foot, and, with a terrible fright, retreated to the great syracuse that towered above the others. This syracuse had been large enough to be two of them combined, which intrigued the man. So the man walked towards it and wanted to observe this, too. And with a sleight of hand he drew a pair of binoculars out of his satchel in order to see what may lay above his wrinkled skin. The scope was fixated on the brown and the burnt squirrel seeking a resting spot. He withdrew his cigarette from his tight mouth and blew the grey out into the empty air. So that each cloud seemed to sink with his cigarette smoke, and roll with the vapor. The bees aswarm, the honey tempting, his senses were appealed.

depends. Make it subtle. I know that sounds generic but it really simplifies matters

l like the "about" page. hard to put my finger on why, but it's good.

very textured, but almost overwhelmingly so. You might want to cut back in case anyone accuses you of having "purple prose"

Very heartfelt, but I think its all a bit too open-wound. I don't believe you can discuss the death of God in this way nowadays - it feels like something that might have been written around the time of Nietzsche, rather than something one would read today. If I were to write it I'd probably scale back on the emotion and let the death of God speak more for itself. Having said that, I like it.

Best in thread

I love this and I'm not sure why. It's a kind of vague pessimism but I enjoy the drab imagery. The rhyme scheme makes it a joy to read though. Honestly, my favourite here.

I smiled

//////////////////////////////

Something I wrote a long time ago. I just wanted to make myself and others like me laugh. Partially at ourselves:

williamguppyblog.wordpress.com/2017/03/31/first-blog-post/

bumpa