CRITIQUE THREAD? CRITIQUE THREAD

I thought it had some potential in the beginning. I was pretty gripped by the first couplet, then the estrogen like hit way off the mark for me. This needs some revision. Conceptually it's good, and the pacing is fine, but just rerrange the awkward middle bits at the very least.

"Seventh attempted".

For example, in a way that doesn't repeated the word 'light': "The candle his only light source, its glow flickered across the page..." Just make it work with your tone of writing.

Hey, I think that exceprt is pretty great. Reminds me of a good author but I don't remember exactly who. I'm not sure how fresh an entire novel in that style is going to be but beep doing what you're doing.

Much appreciated, friend. Post some of your own work and I'll give it a once-over.

weird analogies, but conceptually looks sound
agree with user, this seems like an author that i can't remember; also reminds me of what a friend writes, the tone of it is nice :)

this is a bit convoluted with references to stuff but yeah, give it a read etc

...

When disillusion runs amok the court
And true intentions are hidden in verse,
The fairer seen frail, no reason or thought;
Yet guilt prevails in the mind for the worse;
As twilight haze and honour descends fast,
Hurt maidens sink under love songs withdrawn;
With envy enraged, a cut to the past
Will leave spring bloody and finally gone
Less fair by fair lie maidens by rivers:
As fledgling morning wanes, an endless ring;
Chaste nymphs unspoiled, their joie de vivre;
Will blossom's branding tarnish future spring?
And through times of faith, this verse will stand true,
Time’s hand stays aside as the fair drown blue.

woops, here

He paces around the space now, stopping at the window and looking out. I come to his side to join him. It’s as if there are two layers to the view out of it, the icy black reflection of the room, me and Mike looking almost real in the mirror image, but with a holographic quality, kind of spherical and flat simultaneously, not quite three dimensional; and then beyond that, if I focus my eyes in the dark spots like the visible half of my jeans, or Mike's shock of hair, I can see the sky and buildings and the Iche Tower off in the distance to the far left, with its blinking blue light that pulses slowly, the whole thing like an image tuning in behind a layer of static. The sky's a mess. A violent shade of not-quite-purple, streaks of muddy orange and sickly green and night blue all formed together, like when you mixed up different coloured plasticine as a kid until you got a poorly unnatural synthetic uber-colour that hurt your eyes and was completely unusable. There are occasional cracks of lightening, bright fractures that rip through the plasticine sky and illuminate the fringes of the tower blocks. It's hellishly urban in that epic way, the size and scope of the view like some modern-day Turner painting. I focus back on our reflections. We both look tranced out by the scene.
'Crazy weather today.’
‘You can say that again.’ So he does.
'Crazy weather.’ There's a rumble of thunder.

As I tugged the reins of the Mare in the sun,
we ran through the blades of the snakes neath the dirt.
As the sun pierced my skin through the brown beech trees,
you laughed through the shadow of your wrinkled shirt.
As the deer behove for our hasty arrive,
you pointed a finger with an open mouth.
As I turned the path and shook the ground with hooves,
your laugh echoed through the woods and made birds sing.
As I raced the flies and felt the roll of wind,
your smile grew like the clouds threatening rain.
As I pulled and tugged to halt my horse's clops,
your Mare soon followed, and your hair was let down.

How's this?

Two democrats gather here.
Six paintings bloom before them,
their eyes pure and blue,
wide as lungs.

They nail their chairs
to the floor of the next
room shortly after.
Both built with pride.

Their sons are in the third;
and they have yet to notice.

Quite better

What would be your critique of the piece now? What do you think it's about?

The tone is done nicely. But what's with the references? You want to capitalize all the "i" and other words in the beginning of the sentences.

>"Seventh attempted".
I was told that was the correct way.

>For example, in a way that doesn't repeat the word 'light': "The candle his only light source, its glow flickered across the page..." Just make it work with your tone of writing.

Okay.

not him, but learn to accept criticism man

Ok, I'm going to be difficult and give a range of things because i love it but i think it could be so much more

Two democrats gather (why "here"?, is the location important?)
Six (significance of number? Is it perhaps the "perfect number" ideology or some other reference?) paintings bloom (reason for this word? perhaps look at the imagery you are creating a little more -
if its the flower being a metaphor for a conversation, an idea, expand perhaps? Or maybe use an actual painting to reference?) before them
Their eyes pure and blue (don't think we need "pure" because it goes with "blue" as an almost natural connotation)
Wide as lungs (Don't particularly like this, it feels contrived to the point where you just don't know what to say, try and bring the poem back to the first couple of lines to almost close up that little idea and then move on with it)

Think you need to work on the second stanza
They nail their chairs (meaning of this? If it's laying down roots, play on that idea, also look at progeny altogether throughout the poem, again you could expand massively on the idea that you started with the two democrats)
to the floor of the next (ok, this and its previous line could probably be one, i understand you're trying to use enjambment but its unnecessary and it kinda fails you)
room shortly after (expand, develop, can't say much more than what i have already)
Both built with pride (nice way to end the stanza on, play on this and the idea of democrats and what they stand for - which is ironic because sitting on chairs lol)

Dont think the third one has been developed enough to comment on but I like how its started

that one was mine :)

>not him, but learn to accept criticism man
I know. It's just I am being told one thing and then being told another on the same issue. And I just want to clear up the issue.

Thank you for this, you're not being difficult. I'll take all of this into account. The lungs are meant to represent the action of their eyes. A lung breathes in and out and filters air coming in into what is useful and necessary. An eye filters in the same way but with light, which also addresses the concept of the progressive rooms. Instead of saying full I said wide because that addresses another component of the geometry of an eye to give interesting imagery.

Thank you for giving me a full response

I have other pieces I've written. Can you let me know if the concept is clearer in this?

Neighborhood

The sky, low with light,
pushes forth, blue as nerves.
I call out hymns for minutes,
transition to verse in stasis.
The roads fold back in awe.

The sidewalks stand, high or low.
The sun spreads its gaze over the area's
perimeter, like a calendar,
light assigned in inchoate numbers.

Weighted by occupancy, walls thicken in dimension.
Residents come and exit in seconds,
gazing dutifully at the span of the year.

you're welcome dude, yeah i got that image but it kinda felt a little far-fetched, what worked well with the opening two lines was the possibilities that could entail whereas you're being too explicit, denoting what you mean instead of planting the seed of an idea; sure ill have a look

The sky, low with light, (With the rest of the poem, this feels pointless, you may as well just put "sunset" as your first line and we would probably get a more powerful image.)
pushes forth, blue as nerves. (Like this, imagery playing on "cold as ice" is nicely put)
I call out hymns for minutes, (is this meant to be for a muslim prayer? the maghrib one? because it seems like it with the next verse; nice inclusion of faith, perhaps add to this?) so
transition to verse in stasis. (guessing this just means that you've went from praying aloud to into silence, can't particularly see any other way of interpreting)
The roads fold back in awe. (not sure about this line. On one hand i like it, its short and glorifying the religion and perhaps the sunset/earth/life too, but on the other hand it could be too much, its a nice line though, i think it would depend on if you changed the previous lines?)
Also, if you are going to speak about religion/hymns, use more religious imagery (idk if that last line is a religious one but you could adapt it to be)

The sidewalks stand, high or low. (idea of height, again, don't really like this unless you're going to develop the idea of some sort of heaven/afterlife)
The sun spreads its gaze over the area's (personification, like it, maybe change "its" to a masculine or feminine pronoun? or "the sun's gaze spreads over her area's perimeter)
perimeter, like a calendar, - also with these two, definite lion king vibes hahahah
light assigned in inchoate numbers. (doesnt work with the rest of the poem. stagnant (probs because "inchoate")

Weighted by occupancy, walls thicken in dimension. (interesting line, probably my fav of the poem due to the complexity within it, use a semi-colon instead of a full stop.)
Residents come and exit in seconds,
gazing dutifully at the span of the year. (I like the difference in time here second/year, puts things nicely in perspective; also thinking that you're viewing mortality throughout i.e. time references, religion, and watching the day go by, taking everything in like you're realising your own mortality or something has occurred which has made you look upon your life with some meaning)

Area's
perimeter

I don't like how that reads or sounds. You might draw some inspiration from Alice Fulton's work. Your poetry resembles hers.

The blades of grass are crossed today.
Perhaps some earthly ruler has arrived,
Clad in brindled hides, or mad with kindled cries.
Or is it errant, I?
Sabatons brown, mucked by thee, dirt!
And my visor gleamed--by ye, O Sun,
The trees are by my side
With branches held so high.
As if to provide me triumph, and echo of Rome.
Such are my errant adventures
Such is to roam.

bumping mine again, and will give decent feedback like i've done, if you can call that even ok, before

This reads like a riddle. Hate poems that are structured that way

At dusk, the silhouetted trees bathed in light
Become, in the warm gold sky, refractions of light.

Sunset’s afterglow fades into a prism of everlasting fire,
And is slowly smothered by the darkening air. Failing light

Follows a bird cutting downward across the sky.
It lands in its nest, disappears into darkness. The light

Is dying, always. A feeling of delight in seeing the sun sink
Into cloud; the sublime moment when light becomes light-

ing. As nightfall ripples, deepens, distant opaque starlight
Glimmers. Tomorrow at dawn a young bird will first take flight.

The fourth line feels disjointed and out of place, but I liked the repetition of the final two lines and the third line ["brindled hides/kindled cries"]. I also liked the ambiguity of the opening line and the allusion to Rome.

Then Summer turned to Winter. Winter – Spring
But Autumn skipped, and summered Spring again
As we would too wish Death to skip on stones
And take us sudden in our highest heat.

Slower – Autumn, we shall not entertain
But dare ourselves to crack in one swift cold
And make our hearts a tragic brittle stone
To fend against the Autumn’s drifting roam.

To loam we crumble – but I wish to break
To seek, dream – and in dreaming die
As sudden as a sword would flint to flame
As wildly as a roving bird’s outcry.

So I would gladly cull upon my years
To make a lightning splendour of my tears.

desu I think your sentences are a mess. Take the first one: "St. James Park was once a yurt village that I was never allowed to stay the night in."

Was once a yurt village?

It sounds like this should be one of the following:
>St. James Park was once a yurt village.
>I was never allowed to stay the night in St. James Park.
But you're trying to make it both and it doesn't work. You have to separate out what you're trying to say and arrange it in a way that makes sense.

Better would be:
>St. james Park was once a yurt village. [Description of what the yurt village was like]
Then next paragraph:
>[Description of how you participated in the yurt village]
Then next paragraph:
>But I was never allowed to stay the night. Instead, I boarded the GO Bus to Union Station for $7.70... etc

Though this format changes the focus from the movement to the limits of your own participation.

I think you need to clarify what you're trying to say and then break it down into units; as it is, your sentences and paragraphs are trying to do too much at once.

Position me in careless form, I feel
No weighter weight than this here heaving sphere
That twists across the streets – the idle wheel
As wandering frost upon the leaves and rails.

The column appertains to form a roof
Like living house, it builds up to the shaft
And bends the light into its dimly hoof
And clings us to the daily run of rough –

But, to break from roof – this crafted mean
Would hold me up as my own weight in men:
My spine, the column that can tell the theme
Of my own exploits – and willingness to bend.

The parks are heavy with the forms of trees
That stand out farther than the tiles and eaves.

>inb4 genre fiction
is it TOO EDGY to have a Cool Big Sis elf character then after a time skip world-got-fucked-up event the MC runs into her again and she has ugly ass scar across her stomach where she was raped by an Orc, carried the child until term, and had to the incredibly crude equivalent of a Caesarean because her narrow cavity wouldn't allow the mixed bastard child to pass.

Blue blanket – you are not so warm,
Until your tomb can breathe the barricades
And save from death. A tomb – in turn a boat
That brings me to the worthier shores I know.

So close are poets to the wheezing hand
And dream to death, in turn, are life again
From that Orphic fruit as I had grasped:
Come death – you are not so cold

But warmer sleep than summer softened beds
But greater flush than wine can sink to give
But greater heat than ovens brewing have
I emanate from life – I die – I live

I take the blanket-shells of diving words
And breathe them into living consciousness

Larger words like epistemology
Can be turned to feeling – with a pen
Building on epistemological
Shifts in brain – to wire you in eyes

And turn epistemology to sky:
Epistle clouds, that bear their fleeting terms
Into the logic of a screen Lumiere –
Epicenters of luminous appears

Of knowing, not knowing – and then what knows
How the poet’s brain is keen to flash
The pattern structures built on undertow
Of waves appearing – that dissipate in dash

And by then, the word is gone, the seeking mists
Have borne you up on clouds to cadences.

White bowl with the pink petals
For washing hands in, wetting lips
For seeing yourself in, lessening
Your lips to the pinkness of petals.

This is how Nature draws you in
With placements that breathe
Of the wood, and bush, but
Are hidden in the everyday.

So, sometimes, eyes may meet
That scattering floral on dress,
Or bags almost flamed into flying
Canvases of bark balloons.

These are the points when your eyes glaze over
And lids seem like endless openings.

I want you as much as silence meets the rain’s
Afterthought – the weightier air
Has been released
By the shaking of heads
From the cloudy nymphs, in the now-brighter sky
And I want you as much

As a wayward thunder roams
Throughout the last ebbings of the rain
So much roar
Though a gentler tone
Could even shake the bars and their rotary stools

I want you as much as I want simpler things
From the still drone of life
As much as the living itself
Would pester us on – after the rain
To return to our jobs
From the melancholic dreams in our rainier heads
And I want you as much

As the phrase ‘mono no aware’
To be less lofty in dreams
And realer in life
To be glad of your passing by the pavement
My dearest, your hair dancing
Your mild definition: of the things I am saddened
Like the passing of rain
And a triumph in the sky
For our posterior loves to our anterior hearts

A Sketch in Autumn

My empty arms
Have no bangles
So do not think of me as your tambourine
Slapping belly-dancing girl
I am merely
The thin and lean little girl at the wall
That holds to herself
In the autumn clear

But even then my arms are folio
For the stars, hidden in folded pages
That are like peels and leaves
From the autumnal trees
When I have my excesses
Of graphite, and the lonely walks
And I hope
You can see
Behind my eyes, what I see
And what I hold as dear

Between my thumb and index
Is a pencil
That I use to draw
My stars on the page
From tracing the waves and the arcs of the trees
The autumnal rage
My little girl age
And my anything that I call my pencil
Friend
When the autumn ends
I’ve left behind
My own abscesses, amongst the leaves
My autumnal ends
And pencil grit
And my lone star that drifts through the penciled trees

An Afternoon Dalliance

An expensive mixture
Of bourbon bon-bon and cherry
Has lined the evening table

If this seems too much for you
I’ll make a second table
And fill it with two glasses

Sparkling streams of water
That should be enough
We don’t need much of this

I’ll trick your stomach with a treat
By making waiters spinning plates
Play their violin serenades

With their feet – perhaps a Bach
(Forget the words, and do the dance
Don’t trip – I’ll teach you secret steps)

The fresh garden of verse
Is very much like this
I’ll pick a springkept flower

I have saved the flower name for long
Its name: Crocus, Anemone,
Azalea – what a song!

Hi fiddle! Let’s play
Zig-zag, come ho!
Dance, yodel – my jolly guitar!

Place your lips upon the glass
Come – no fuss! Let’s dance again
Look at flowers, waving stems

And with the mad flush of your cheeks
And the lucid blossoms of your eyes
I’ll tell you now – my verse is a surprise!

Rainfall

The winds are witnesses to this fact
- Vitruvius

The lightest skim of mind, I took
From the sheet on the pond – of water over water, churning into water
And what is the grasp of mind I took? (It is mine, I derived it from you
And water manifests as the hangers of moods
Of the weird and worldly mirrors that flew into view
And of the clouds – they make dilapidated nests
For the thoughts, unrest, that I skimmed from your pond
That was merely the scum, and not entirety of you)

In winters, the slush pulls us packed in our vests
And spring is the clearest mode of seeing
But the cycle remains, arrest, unrest
And follows the troubles of mayflies, skimming
The glass of the pond – that is now us – not us
But the largeness of us – we came through that way
From the storms that would drag us out of ourselves
And bear us back down – as the picaresque minstrels
Of droplet-imp curling on reminiscing rinks
Skating fly on our pond – that has turned into ice
We are the bottled heads of our love
And we stare at new loves, from ambivalent heights

The Craters Of The Moon

What can we make of your lucid face?
But dreams of rabbit and the crab
A Chinese singer has sung a tune

Immortals waltz like whisky stems
Brushing across the tenderness
These are the tongues of stories told

And when humans made their mortal prints
Like pewter drops of fluent dew
Upon your eyes – you glimmering child

Spotted with the sun of a smile
(Half stolen from your sister far)
You became a lover of the dream

Of rocket ships and titanium things
(Stories & Dream in tune a-mixed)
Our desolate muse, in black of space

In black of thought, the stale iris
Of a man, seeking a thing afar
You are the clearest thing in night

In yours, you are the second sunrise
We love you as much as this
You are our life thereafter

So, my love, touch your face
And feel the craters and porous holes
And remember this – you are my Moon

Anyone? This is important.

-The Truth

In the beginning was the Will,
And the Will was with God,
And the Will was the will of God.

answer other people's and they'll respond. Same to everyone else who is just posting and not giving critique

I had a question, not a critique.

nevertheless, if you want something then give something back

so you're saying I should critique and then repost my question?

pastebin.com/LCpqaFKE

Will go through and critique now

yeah, doesnt have to be much, just give something back and people will do the same; the rest of people on this post who have just stuck their work on here and havent critiqued are just dicks

He had never been so anxious for the arrival of a woman he did not want to see. He remembered clearly the last woman he’d involved in his trying just one more vacation with dope and drawn blinds. The last woman had been something called an appropriation artist, which seemed to mean that she copied and embellished other art and then sold it through a prestigious Marlborough Street gallery. She had an artistic manifesto that involved radical feminist themes. He’d let her give him one of her smaller paintings, which covered half the wall over his bed and was of a famous film actress whose name he always had a hard time recalling and a less famous film actor, the two of them entwined in a scene from a well-known old film, a romantic scene, an embrace, copied from a film history textbook and much enlarged and made stilted, and with obscenities scrawled all over it in bright red letters. The last woman had been sexy but not pretty, as the woman he now didn’t want to see but was waiting anxiously for was pretty in a faded withered Cambridge way that made her seem pretty but not sexy. The appropriation artist had been led to believe that he was a former speed addict, intravenous addiction to methamphetamine hydrochloride.

I like it
Haughty, over-clever. Reads like my Undergrad dissertation
Reminds me of some passages by DFW. I like it. The style and lack of grammar might become exhausting for a longer work, but it could easily make for an interesting chapter.

----------------------------------------------------------

The centre of town was almost empty when Robert arrived. Only a few early-risers were drifting about on that soft-blue Sunday morning, and wisps of condensation trailed behind them like burnt fuel. A residual atmosphere of Saturday night still clung to the streets. Discarded cans of Stella Artois and Strongbow rattled along the curbs and what was left of those who had drunk them rattled alongside, homeward-bound and sick of life.

Robert took time to look at each one he passed, but there were no distinguishing features between them. They were all degenerates who were, he noted with some satisfaction, suffering for their degeneracy. All wore bowed heads and carried with them the unmistakable shame of having their nighttime charade exposed by the cruel sun. Their clothes were the most obvious vestiges of their degraded night; cheap polyester shirts, miniskirts, stiletto heels, and chino-trousers that had become more ugly as they turned anachronous in the pale morning light.

The rattling cans and rattling morning-after drunks mashup is really cool. Very visual. I feel like your descriptions are strong enough to stand on their own without the repetition of "degenerates/suffering for their degeneracy" bashing you in the face, though. You've got bowed heads, unmistakable shame, cruel sun, vestiges of degraded night. That's plenty to get the message across. Of course, that's just my preference, a show, don't tell kind of thing.
__

Sunflowers swayed, a soft slow dance in the heat of noon, rows and rows and rows. They painted the hills butter yellow, swells like the rolling ocean made still, all the way to the horizon, upon which, a cathedral nested.

Sun baked clay brick, somewhere between blood and sand, the color of Tuscany, cobbled together and rising against the sky in an act of rebellion. Cavernous inside. Like sunflowers, empty pews: rows and rows and rows. Statues of cherubim made of dead wood, daily polished. Light streamed in great dusty beams through the windows. Stained glass arches, soft-lit altars.

In the back, behind the heavy, burgundy drape, a straight and narrow little hall the light could not quite reach, and at the end, a door, a room, a bed, a boy.

This needs some polish, but you've got some interesting things going on here. Static, plasticine, uber-color. I don't know that I would use plasticine twice, and I think it works better in first one, the memory recall. "The sky's a mess" is a good punch in the middle of all of the meandering stream of consciousness style stuff. Could almost have a fear and loathing vibe.

Nice feedback, thank you! Agree with you on the second use of plasticine, seems redundant now I reread it. Glad the style works for you, I realise it could be somewhat divisive.

A quick glance over.

really like it!

not that edgy. has possibility of good development but might just become edginess/sad 'pity me' backstory for no reason.

the event itself isn't what makes something pointless and edgy or not. the question is: does it fit your theme? does it contribute to the story to have that happen?

if you just do it because you think it's cool, or badass, then yes, it is gratuitous. if it has (emotional) meaning in the context of the story, then no.

Yes. Common Courtesy

When disillusion runs amok the court
And true intentions are hidden in verse,
The fairer seen frail, no reason or thought;
Yet guilt prevails in the mind for the worse;
As twilight haze and honour descends fast,
Hurt maidens sink under love songs withdrawn;
With envy enraged, a cut to the past
Will leave spring bloody and finally gone
Less fair by fair lie maidens by rivers:
As fledgling morning wanes, an endless ring;
Chaste nymphs unspoiled, their joie de vivre;
Will blossom's branding tarnish future spring?
And through times of faith, this verse will stand true,
Time’s hand stays aside as the fair drown blue.

I like the descriptions

Too romantic for my tastes but some of the visual rhymes are cool

>To seek, dream
find something to replace this

>As sudden as a sword would flint to flame
>As wildly as a roving bird’s outcry.
not a big fan of this part.

The only real issue for me is that your volta doesn't feel so much like a 'turn' as opposed to a change of subject.

An autistic Viking was

One must be changing, she or I
As I draw and she is drawn
A slippage of the canvas
An abbreviated dawn

Her face amongst the oil paints
Assumes a spiteful air
Instead of rightful, native shades
Mere retrogrades of her

As in an airy drawing room
A vapor will dissolve
My pupils must be aging fast
Or else her eyes evolve

The poem is meant as a sort of metaphor for various concepts I've been thinking about. Any interpretations or suggestions for improvement would be welcome.

I'll do my best to contribute thoughts to some of the other material in this thread.

nice

Really like the narrator's voice. He seems like a likeable guy (not stuck up or pretentious) but it isn't forced.

I also like the description of Browner's mouth as "bright": it evokes his supposed cleverness (he thinks he's bright) as well as his winning grin.

I wonder if the sibling rivalry set-up isn't a bit familiar. Bookworm vs jock? It's been done before: you'll have to work harder to make it interesting.

>tugged to halt my horse's clops, your Mare soon followed, and your hair was let down
turned me on a little

Thanks for sharing!
I really like the line: "a cut to the past / will leave spring bloody..." It seems like a nice chance that a line break cuts this good line in half.

I was wondering if you intended the visual rhyme between "rivers" and "vivre". If not, you should pretend you did, because it's cool. Maybe even make "joie de vivre" plural to complete the effect? Joie de vivres?

I find this poem difficult to interpret, due to the archaic language and a general vagueness (indeed, your true intentions are well hidden among all this verse and verbiage). Here's what I think it's about:
>When courting involves deception, the innocent are at a disadvantage.
>Unable to succeed in trickery, innocent maidens feel envy for the lying sluts who win the men.
>The innocent, unspoiled girls make like Ophelia and lie spoiling and dead in the river.

That's as far as I can get. I truly cannot decipher the final couplet: seems like a ripe metaphor is brewing with "time's hand" but what's there doesn't make a lick of sense. Maybe I'm just not working hard enough, or maybe you're making me work too hard. Your call.

I'm having trouble with the second line. What exactly is "neath the dirt?" The snakes? Their blades? The speaker and his companion?

It would be very helpful if you could find a way to make this clearer.

Very nice. I'm unfamiliar with the form (poetry pleb), but this seems beautifully executed to me.

In the presence of all these "lights," your use of the word "delight" is illuminating. It seems almost like a pun. The sun is sinking behind a cloud, leaving less light. The speaker finds himself literally de-lighted by this decrease in light and delighted by this. Clever.

The end of the third stanza breaking into the fourth is really, really wonderful. You show us the light transforming into something new: lighting, an afterglow. You probably don't need me to tell you how good that is, but I will anyway.

I also like the way your nightfall ripples like a pool, producing glimmers. Very picturesque.

Sorry I don't have suggestions for improvement, but this is really great. I hope I was able to catch some of what you're doing in this.

This one is tough. I really like what you're doing here, but it doesn't feel complete.

I like your final couplet, and unlike another user, I thought it was completely on topic. It's a terrific ending: you just need a poem worthy of it. If there's one issue here, it feels like the poem takes too long to get where it's going. It the second and third stanzas seem redundant: too many metaphors (four or five by my count) express the same idea (a swift end rather than a slow decay). You either need a way to make your thought more concise, or expand it so that it justifies every line in your poem.

I'm curious: early in the poem, "we" are wishing to break, not to crumble. At the end of the poem, the speaker finds himself alone in his sentiment. What happened to the rest of us? Why the change from "we" to "I"?

Sorry for all the critique: you do have excellent stuff here. "Our highest heat" is an excellent turn of phrase. I'm also fascinated by this use of "summer" as a verb. I think you're trying to suggest "sired" or "started" with "summered." But I have to admit, I don't exactly understand what it means to summer something in this way. Spring is more suggestive of beginnings of things and birth, don't you think?

There's also the fact that "summered" can be used as a verb to mean "went on summer vacation." "We summered in Italy last year." Since you've got a season (Autumn) taking some time off, it seems like some quality punnage could come from this direction. Imagine Autumn taking a summer vacation!

Good luck with this poem, and I hope my suggestions have been helpful. Don't grow disheartened: what you have is good; it can be excellent.

would love any readings:

—That is because. That is because, I heard a man moan from inside one of theses shrouded houses, that is because, that is because. And the house seemed to sway also with his voice, flickering between myself and what was obscure. I thought of his voice for long after we had passed his house there on the road.If I let my mind wander and if i gave myself to the swells and ripples beneath the surface of my life it would seem his voice was linked now to my steps and that my footsteps carved out measures of his voice which would jar against those lines already in the sidewalk and appear as two people dancing and eventually meeting at one accidental and harmonic moment before starting again.

(promise to come back tonight and try to critique while drunk)

synthesis.blog/2017/04/07/the-mask-of-social-media/

Hit me up boys

>Braden

is that like the white version of Jayquan?

Found another sucker, used him as replacement for my current as he was too worn out. Gave him half the remainder of my med kit
and left him he as he was that high strung by the end of his cycle. Made about 4 hours north before I ran into the the next swell, nearly got wiped out
cause the replacement couldn't bolt down the chamber as quickly as the old one could. Go figure. He was pretty messed up afterwards, even for a newbie.
Gave him a line of meth and a shot of smack and he was good as new. Smoked a gram of wax with him
to help centre his already-fried nervous system and went about our way. Had to rest for a few hours cause my calluses were starting to bleed,
yeah these guys have to take a beating every 4-5 hours but I had to carry them the whole way so in hindsight I'd say it come out sorta kinda nearly even.
Slept in the chamber for 2 hours before making leeway for the island FKA Indonesia.

>yeah these guys have to take a beating every 4-5 hours but I had to carry them the whole way so in hindsight I'd say it come out sorta kinda nearly even.

went off the rails on this line, first you're using street slang and shit about drugs, couldn't tell if "swell" was the archaic slang for an uppity dude or the ocean, which was sort of cool, but "it come out sorta kinda nearly even" is now like the voice of some ol' hill billy fisherman who makes his livin' spendin his days on the ol' mississip livin a folksy livestyle, not some hardcore drug addled urban hardened mystery man

Left out my criticism
I like this, maybe needs some work with pacing but there are some nice sentence structures here.

Should probably post this as well to give some context into the environment this guy is placed in.

It happened around the 25th of January last year. Since said date and said event Earth was split into thirds.
Not by way of continents or political systems but physically into three separate plains.
For the sake of the exercise that is explaining our situation I want you to visualise a golf ball split vertically into even thirds.
Plate 2, being the middle plate, which use to inhabit all of Australia, Indonesia, Canada, most of Africa and its respective
surrounding waters was now covered completely in the earths water reserves.
Plate/region 1 & 3 were dry and hot to the touch and as a result uninhabitable.
As we saw it, it was similar in effect to the way a droplet of water reacts to being dropped on a heated surface,
and because this was coming from both sides via plate 1 & 3, the water couldn't settle in one spot so it really had no option but to be a enormous swell of liquid revolving never-endlessly around in an almost pendulum-like motion.

Agree with your critcism, still trying to dial in the character.

I’ve seen her several months ahead from the last: in between noiseless fleet of time, inverse acme of moments, motionless time still, but now captured for a moment in the still myriad of twines, streams, and whirls of consciousness capturing my own. They don't make sense, as she stops making sense, she always had when she walked like insanity at my sick closeness. Nothing but insanity, close insanity. And I find that she does not contain me as she ever did. Her effect has ceased off, enticement had swallowed itself infirmed. But when she walked by, her hair tied, and slim legs, slender sinews on bone protrude gently from her skinny washed-gray denim, and her tallness peaks a pale sun glare, sunny gentle lambency in front of lights flicker, I think the knitwear garments under her thin, stretched neck carried her very well as I saw from her sleepiness.

>that is because
Some of these lines need better placement. I had trouble voicing these specifically, it interrupts the flow, and even dare I say, rhythm.
Your last line with the analogy is pretty, I liked it a lot: would keep reading. Though, let me ask: what is this about?

Its shit

"She or I" isn't needed.

try L3 as
>A slip of canvas

"amongst" can be cut and the image will be stronger

>Instead of rightful, native shades
>Mere retrogrades of her

this sounds really, really awkward.

"As in an" find a way to not do this

>And true intentions are hidden in verse,
as old as you want this to sound, this feels too early to lose the rhythm

>in the mind for the worse
I know how fun anapests are, but it feels like your taking the scenic route just for the rhythm and its not working for me

>a cut to the past
this could be made stronger

>Will blossom's branding tarnish future spring?
find a better substitiute for future, because its bewildering in a way that dampens the impact of the volta

Here's Mine:

Tiber

Rain is crashing down
On thatch and dying

Torch. The Black Forests
Hold the souls and knives.

No arch built after
Mars nailed to trees.

Water-volley pierces
through the Legionnaire.

looking for critique on this, but i'd most like someone to tell me whether or not it's funny. i've read it too many times to be able to tell anymore.
pastebin.com/WtweCZis

"we had passed his house there on the road."
you dont need the 'on the road', where else is his house gonna be?
"theses" is a typo.
last sentence is very cool but could use commas. If you want to keep the stream of consciousness effect you could restructure the sentence before the first "it", so that it doesnt seem so much like you've omitted punctuation for no reason. It's very good after the "it".

"I’ve seen her several months ahead from the last" I'm guessing he has seen a vision of her in the future? something about time-travel or prohpecies? it's weird to read out of context like this, though i suppose it may make more sense holistically.
"ceased off" is tautological. just say "ceased".
im not sure if your tenses are intentionally inconsistent or not, it's confusing to read either way. e.g. the change in "Her effect has ceased off, enticement had swallowed itself infirmed."
I think this has an errant "and": "But when she walked by, her hair tied, and slim legs, slender sinews on..."

The prose gets better as it progresses. It begins a bit too much like Fantasy/Sci Fi for me, and without much action it's a bit boring. Can I ask if this is it? It seems like an excerpt.
>the Underground
I don't want to be a dick, but find a better name. It's so cliche. I'd never use it unless you wanted to do satire. Maybe find a translation you like e.g. "souterrain", since it sounds better.
>Senpai
If you're going to use slang, I'd find it a lot more interesting if it's very colourful and very integral to the story. The lingo of A Clockwork Orange or Trainspotting comes to mind. I'm piqued by the accent bit, which I think you should delve more into.

Not bad, just needs more direction I think - either stylistically or plot wise. Also, I think it could be funnier if there was more absurdity, or strange slang going on.

It autocorrected to Senpai, it should be the shortened "family".
2/2

I'm not sure what your pic is.

the Underground and the Tube are both slang terms for the London Underground Network, as in the literal real world trains. I didnt even consider someone not knowing this, even my grandparents refer to it like that. I'll have to make it more clear for foreign readers.

I think you're right about the slang. It's based on two real conversations I had, so I was transcribing what I remembered them sounding like.

The pic is my fucking piece to be critiqued, dumb-o

"Can I ask if this is it? It seems like an excerpt. "
sorry, i thought you were referring to the image.
yeah it's an excerpt, the last 6 pages of the third chapter.

what does it mean for someone to "feel stirs"? i have never seen that construction before, and i'm a native speaker. at first i thought you had lost track of your own sentence, because it seemed grammatically wrong.

i really like this man, what's it for?

only thing: the words "amorphous" and "ring" are used twice. might not be a problem, indeed it might be intentional, but they felt a bit clangy when i read them.

well executed and clear, whacked-a-mole or two

Synonyms

Miracles can happen
"what's a miracle?"
Well, life for instance
"how, that happens all the time?"
Well—
"shouldn't miracles by definition be rare?"
Yes, you see, life is rare in the vastness of the cosmos
"ok, but much of life sucks by out standards of life here"
Sucking is such a mortal concept my dear
"but mortality is a prerequisite to life"
That's true, however
"so only the very thing you're calling miraculous can suck"
Step outside your terms, young one
"how? I only have this language to communicate in"
The language of cosmic harmony is also available to—
"what the fuck does that mean?"
It means divinity has a pattern welcome to your apprehension
"how do I apprehend it?"
By killing yourself
"what the fuck, that's not very inspiring"
Just kill yourself you worthless piece of miracle
"don't you mean shit?"
>What is a synonym
"Jesus, even you shitpost?"
>Implying

your first and third stanzas are nice, though I think the second could use some work. The line "assumes a spiteful air" reads a tad on the nose, and I think the theme of air/vapor/ephemerality in material form could be better illustrated here

break it, the kit kat, split it among the herd
of troglodytes called Earthlings or
Terrans tearing a warpath along pieces
of peace betwixt twin Twix pieces
and snap into it like a slim's factoid cap
drink and snuff up some tobacco
designed for insufflation by the nariz
in France's idea of Niger or Australia
before it had a name or live game
liek Duck Hunter autocorrected to fowl play
before arm's get up for armageddon
sometime in the near future or present
3 thousand so-so years ahead or sew
after we reap grimly with norMandy and Bill
Clinton, where good and evil are just words
spoken by cousins named Good and Evil
underneath the cracks of morality in sin
where light can only outshine the darkness
inside the recycled man of heartless tin

tripfagging to post my stuff in a bit, I'll go ahead and critique now though

I enjoyed the setting of yours and found the style fine
I'd honestly like to see more so I could get a good feel for what you're trying to say or describe

this feels like I'm reading rap lyrics and while I get the general gist (which is interesting) it feels a bit over shrouded by your writing style

>clangy

I'm back
really rough and unfinished

He's trying to describe grass with too many syllables. The snakes beneath the dirt are the roots of grass.

This is definitely my favorite piece of Veeky Forums metapoetry I've ever seen. You've actually done something clever and amusing here. The mounting exasperation in the "explaining" voice is nice. I feel like this would be well served by being maybe six lines longer- three exchanges- in order to allow the dialogue time to develop before it devolves into pettiness. Typo on line 8.

Mine:

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 the pool,
precious gore now lost but given new purpose—
not to fuel the vehicle of flesh but challenge
the master, with crest 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, drying, play and whisper-
set in memory without meaning, so now to rest,
to nest, to lay in the dark, to chase those mad signs,
to dream.

thank you fellow interdenizens