Hey there

Hey there,

I noticed there wasn't a critique thread for prose. There is one for poetry, so maybe keep your poems in there. It's not very good though. So I guess you can put them here if you like.

Have fun.

I'll start.


Whenever it rains the puddle fills with worms, their pink bodies submerged, wrinkling, nestled in their sunken brood. Every time it rains, it's exactly at that spot, just beside the sidewalk where the water on the road drains like shit. I can see the spot from my smoking chair on the balcony, so it makes sense that I've become familiar with it. I see it four or five times a day or more if I've been drinking beer. I can't see the worms from my chair. They'd be awfully big worms if I could. Snakes, even. Monsters! But I can see the people that look at them.
I live in the city, so I often see somebody look at the worms once, and then I never see them again. These people move through the city like floating branches on an extremely long river. They never return because that's not how rivers work. But there are other people that move like cells of blood through a vein. They come through every day so I see them quite a bit.
There's this one man. He's Filipino. Not young, but skinny, handsome, maybe where he's from he's tall, but here, not so much. Maybe for work he makes sandwiches or burgers. Maybe he lives in a house with fifteen people. Or maybe he's from here. Maybe his mother was an immigrant, the First Filipino Nanny. Or the Second. But maybe not. It's hard to tell, like everything else.
I guess I do know one thing though, about this man at least. It's the way he stops and looks at the puddle full of worms whenever it rains. He looks harder than anybody else. I can always tell it's him because he never wears a hood. He'll usually squat beside the puddle, maybe he'll turn to look if anybody's coming, some secret guilt about the very ordinary things that we do, and then he'll reach out his hand and very gracefully dip his hand and fish though the water, waving it from side to side, conducting the worms in some underwater requiem. From my chair, I imagine that all of the worms are dead. I imagine the man's hand leading their ghosts in some tender melody, like young deer in green woods. They sound like happy eunuchs. You can tell from their voices just how happy they are to sing, now that their mouths aren't full of dirt.

you needed a cherry pie and so you ordered one

mama spooks had to throw out the old processor because it began inventing new colors. individuals sending smells as attachments. pal derby walking in circles chanting “the stoned guardian angel flowers on.” man. another day another world. cobweb killer my throat is the enemy of 40 nude baristas. london brother your hair is covering the mantras of tuesday acorns. la-doo. crumbling band-aid brain winds up discovering the pixelated beaches of californ-aye-ay. klingon secretary for short times my evening blossoms toward you. doo-la-lee. lily trundled to the best spot we got we got the best spot we got. billiard bubba blow my french silk balls when you can. “politely,” i plea; “politely,” i plea. apply leeway safely to the lever that struggles you up without failing. porta potty princess my lisp welcomes you home. yes my vest vexes me. minty monday leavin’ it up to drew barrymore. winter of suckitup monuments. lit candied drugs you errored there. live me again and again. song to song freed me into a good time with a real brother man tomorrow i will scoop the grass all finger-fed green. everyone in jumanji had hazel eyes. eradicate this indecision silas of the sovereign hills. who said to me “cherry pie grave digs the most ludicrous appetites.” minion of the yellow river you want it and you want it gone. i do things, making a simple offering. simplicity is blue, you know. it rains in front of me sometimes. surround sound meteor. pour me a churning rhythm over that plangent little sock. frocked we run amok. who cares to take stock anymore. keep on whispering “someone’s gotta do it.” see where that gets ya. the jubilee man frowns in yesterday time. nantucket! i knew i put my...yes the million machine. landis port sings in swims of softly gauze. no one knows what to do when the blue whale chirps. god tried to make a world in my stomach. gods do that. sometimes you prescribe a certain amount of staring to your routine. rudy farmweather samurais himself into the oblivion of just one good night, finally. reggae bobs and apple blossoms. until now there has never been mouse clicking in the persian islands. crestfallen lithium froth wave storming into the empty denny’s demanding pink lemonade. i won’t be serving my purpose until i create children.

FLIP/FLOP. orange peels in profile descending under starlit ufo’s. morbid jungians tessellate a game or two before losing their bodies in a bet with horus. blanket statement puzzle gaming into the silvery mist that befuddles the pathologers. mondo filming grey bricks because why not. okay look. there are a few dynasties left in the bucket. what i’m going to do is take one out, soak it in warm butter throw it down the bowling alley. is that okay with everyone? i’ve announced what i am going to do and i plan on doing it okay? i’m doing it now. alright alright. calm down. this is what you wanted. yes. i still need you.

an ikea salad

been bamboozled another by that moonslinging son of a whip-crack. one of these 3:36 pm’s i’m gonna wake with cake on my throat. speed racer earning some greasy simoleons, he does. grendall kirchner aimless and true mumbles his way into rightless eternities. my elbows grungy up to the idea of wingless avocadoes. please be told you are one buddy walleye in this fling-up parade. you are my rastaman from iceland with golden fingertips.

weightless birds with lego blood dance towards infernal burger joints. like 30 times the bunsen burner feeds the viagra babies in pepsi. with my lighter i set the mosaic mirror on fire. georgia peach in georgia font. keep on surgeon on for those mink iron answers. billy eyed bluebelly really ought to do something about this.

tennis elbow johnny manhunt lily willow steal this heart of water bells. the stream seems false. verify your freedom condition with your freedom identification. who do you think you are smoking space shuttles in the blossom pie night? the future takes you where? ablaze’n din and even ablaze’n lulls. the task manager is a task. go back to your home.

loved the ending, pleasure to read. especially the bit about the branches as compared to the blood cell.

The day was yellow and December and Soy, unaware of both, stared at a grey ocean of water which had either become too incapable or too inconsiderate to define itself. His dumbly troubled face managed itself into a series of impulsive grimaces, his mouth said a word: No. His hands he firmed on the dark circular bar, writhing in meaningless exertion and his head of paper he bobbed recursively toward the water. Soy stood there, leant on the thin black barrier rail near the empty PlayGround, watching the water scratch itself with waves. It's ashamed of itself, he thought wrongly. He lifted a stone, and with his hand pondered its weight momentarily before releasing it relentless to a shifting sea.

Well this is a poem which I wrote in 2011 and just found it again.


Open window
blind.
Closed forever
six feet under

this kinda of thing defies critique, some good imagery/little bits: fling up parade, lego blood, freedom identification, smoking space shuttles.

I would maybe remove "another" from the first line, unless you want to purposely clog it up.

"wake with cake" is too easy.

and should it be "on" the bloosom pie night or is that something you get in?

pretty good nonsense overall

Even alone in his room he danced like people watched, but even with all those eyes on his mind he could enjoy the music, and if he drank enough and smoked enough he enjoyed it more because of them, if he closed his eyes and from a stage looked down and watched them dance to the music that from scratch he mixed in a shock surprise appearance at the club they were at in the triumphant return of a mysterious weirdo who they knew once and tolerated but never really understood, who they now gasped and whispered and pointed at and danced for and laughed in wonder and delight in the presence of such a rich and tender outpour of beauty from what they were sure was such an ugly and awkward soul.

I forced myself to read past the first half and the second half was brilliant. You could get away with completely cutting the first half I think. It really, really drags.

Thermobaric bombs blew up the Mosa nature preserve. Presidential edicts downloaded into a new stream. Record beachings of whale analogs were recorded. A space elevator maintenance vehicle fell off. NorCon increased echip production and duels. Rock and Roll’s rod pool reached new heights. Skyscraper lights went red. Market value of City space futures dropped. Autonomous tanks fought police cars for charging stations. The body of the Vice President was burned. The gov district was declared a no-fly zone. Teskeegee natives migrated through nano solar fields. Allusive and Polysemic Expressions, a Gship, rode into the universe, spreading indecipherable alien language viruses. Earth watched with indifference as more universes came into view.

The first and only marine division was firing wildly into the bank of the Taipan. A strip of oil stained sand was saturated with smoke shells and 40 millimeter grenades, as landing craft careened into the shore. Marines ingressed down major city thoroughfares. This had resulted in zero blue force casualties and running total of 34 cars destroyed.

There's some good stuff there but it seems like a bit of a hodge-podge. For example, the first two sentences sound like they happen quickly, I'm expecting the rest of the paragraph to be about a war, then it's suddenly about whales, which is slow, then the oddly banal "fell off". It goes on like that. Keep ironing it all out and you'll have something.

Understood, in context this is a middle chapter's starting paragraph, so its trying to cover whole setting in set time and recalling past events. But order can change for better flow. How's this?

>Thermobaric bombs blew up the Mosa nature preserve. Presidential edicts downloaded into a new stream. Autonomous tanks fought police cars for charging stations. The gov district was declared a no-fly zone. The Vice President’s body was burned. Rock and Roll’s rod pool reached new heights.

thanks brah, nah it's like "in the night" so it makes sense, as much as it can make sense or whatever.

cut the cliched last line and it'll be stronger (although Closed forever is strafing near the same axe)

I think it's overwritten honestly, you can afford to cut out the extraneous stuff

He lays on his bed, listening to Fela Kuti, the record his Daddy bought him. The rhythm jitters out of the speaker, hypnotic. He has a whole heap of records now cuz his Daddy always brings him a couple when he comes round, which isn’t often, maybe once a month. Always artists that Taylor ain’t ever heard of before: First it was Kuti, then Sun Ra, then Pharoah Sanders, then Labi Siffre, Lonnie Liston Smith, Thelonious Monk, and so on. Each record like a slice of the cosmos pressed on wax, transporting him to places far beyond the rust-coloured streets and the sweltering, swollen cities, and up past the clouds and the blue of the sky. His Daddy only comes to give his Momma a bit of cash, and to see Taylor briefly; his Momma never wants the money though, at least she says she don’t, but his Daddy insists every time, taking the notes from his wallet and putting ‘em down on the table. He’s a wise looking man, Taylor’s Daddy; always knocks on Taylor’s door, three light knocks, and when Taylor opens it he’s always got a smile on his face, big gleaming teeth shining, and he never looks any older, not in all the years Taylor’s been on this earth, and he stands there a moment staring down at Taylor, before presenting him with this month’s collection of records. Taylor always scans through ‘em, inspecting each one. They always have these covers with a man on the front, instrument in hand, some of ‘em all colourful and psychedelic, some just a picture, all of ‘em looking serious and cool and wise; men who look a bit like Taylor’s Daddy. And every time he says ‘don’t tell your Momma’ and smiles an even wider smile, and rubs a hand through Taylor’s hair. And then he walks out again and closes the door. Taylor don’t play the records straight away, he places them softly and carefully on his bed and goes to the window and opens it up as far as it will go so it scrapes the metal grill surrounding it, and he sticks his head out to look into the sizzling street, the baking sun hanging overhead, to watch his Daddy walk out the house to his car, his Momma’s voice carrying from the doorway after him: ‘you ain’t gonna keep coming here, you ain’t no father’ she says, and Taylor can smell the musty funky smell of weed as it drifts up through his window from the spliff his Momma’s just lit, and his Father don’t look back as he slams the car door with a ringing thud and then leaves, the car’s engine rumbling as he pulls away. ‘Listen naw’ Taylor’s Momma always says, ‘Yo Father ain’t a good man. Maybe you think he is cus he comes round here all nice and dresses all smart but let me tell you he ain’t shit. He ain’t raised you, I raised you. He give us money cus that’s the least that he should do for us.’ She says this as she lights another spliff. ‘Yo Father’s a loser, you understanding me, nigga?’

I appreciate your comment. I reworked it based on some of your edits and you're right, it reads much, much better. I'll show you.


Every time it rains the puddle fills with worms, a hundred grey bodies submerged, wrinkling, nestled in a sunken brood. Every time it rains it's exactly at that spot, along the sidewalk where the water on the road drains like shit. I can see the spot from my smoking chair on the balcony. I've become so familiar with it. If it's raining, I see it four or five times a day; more if I've been drinking beer.

I live in the city. Most of the time I'll see somebody look at the worms and then I'll never see them again. These people move like pink salmon corpses bumping into river rocks. They don't come back because that's not how rivers work. Others move like blood through my heart. I see them almost every day.

There's one man. His skin is beech bark. The man stops and looks at the puddle of worms when it rains. He looks harder than anyone else. He squats beside the puddle, turns to look if anyone's watching and then he reaches out his hand and dips it, fishes it though the water, his baleine fingers filtering from side to side, conducting the worms in some bubbly requiem. I imagine that all the worms are dead. I imagine the man's hand leading their ghosts in some tender melody. They sing like happy eunuchs. You can hear how happy singing makes them, now that their mouths aren't full of dirt.

Damn, creeped me out because I just was listening to Fela Kuti for the first time in a while.Not only that, but Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders, Thelonius Monk --- wtf man, how do you know me, except I''m not black

Pretty good passage, I feel a great sense (which it's hard to put in words) as if it could be very good as a part of something larger, it has a great sense of a beginning or a part of a large novel with a lot of different viewpoint.s

I really love this. Both the narrator and the Filipino remind me of myself as being an observer, how both in their own way pause for appreciation and contemplation in the simple goings on of things. I also really love rain and the worms give me nostalgia of pulling them off the sidewalk to save them from boots.
If this were a book I'd never put it down.

Now I don't like the ending as much here; it's lost the mood. The man seems less appreciative and more of a weirdo, and the narrator switches from feeling what the man is feeling to plainly describing his actions.
I don't know I don't usually critique.

>My scribbles
There is beauty in sporadic love; bursts of affection for its own sake. To be carnivorous, devouring the flesh that separates you from them. To trace the journey of hips and thighs with wanting fingers, clasping hands embracing shared vulnerability, entangled breaths within sheets, and witnessing the crawling of light upon their rising chest when the night has exhausted itself. To live so amorphous in abandonment of identity and ego solely for the sake of pleasure; to surrender constructed values and indulge for a moment, just a moment, a single moment of death.

Will you Follow...
The gospel of planets long dead?

Will you Scare...
The heart hidden underneath my bed?

Will you Watch...
The psychiatrist eat your head?