Critique Thread

It was an unusually windy day, with great gusty gales threatening to tear from her hands the indelible imprint of an irrevocable diagnosis. She was confronted with possibilities that distinctively characterized in precise terms the nature of a seemingly phenomenological oddity. Of course, more curious was the proclivity for novel diagnostic labels to appear synchronously affixed with pharmaceutical elixirs promising to cure the formerly incurable.

At the time of her diagnosis, Lo had just entered her late twenties, but the disease (she was beginning to suspect) had it's genesis in her earlier teen years.

Constructed fine enough. Words are accurate to their uses. As long as you can keep up the language, the voice is consistent. Watch out for alliteration in prose though, great gusty gales is immersion breaking considering the otherwise consistent voice. Semi interesting, at least, it's written well enough to tolerate further reading to determine if it's going to be something I want to read. But as of now it's not particularly gripping or outstanding as far as 'hooks' go.
Keep it up though man, it's well written.

This is dense. Its language is self-indulgent and takes the reader away from the prose and its essence. If the average reader oscillates between your words and a dictionary too often, he'll likely end up frustrated.

Big words aren't a prerequisite for big emotion, and I think a lot of your lexicon softens the blow of a sick young woman with an incurable disease.

The first sentence packs a punch and pulled me in. I like your writing style, a sort of maximalist prose. But as I said, please don't compromise on emotion to get words in. Your writing flows smoothly, despite its style, and that's not an easy feat to pull off, so keep it up.

And watch the grammar, too. It's vs. its. You cannot afford to make such basic mistakes, especially with your complex verbiage.

Thanks for the constructive feedback! I was uncertain about the great gusty gales as well.

I did want to "hook" so I'll revise. I was actually using Nabokov's writing style for inspiration.

It is dense!! But thanks for the feedback. I wasn't intending to use an emotional appeal throughout the piece, just enough sick lit in the beginning to "hook." The purpose I envisioned was to keep readers guessing (through reminiscent vignettes) about what the ACTUAL disease is. The "disease" itself is not in the DSM; it's a pop culture "syndrome" I planned to "show not tell."

You're great at describing events as they transpire. The fireworks, the divan, the sighing. You don't drag the reader through these details, but you let them swim past the reader. Very well done.

My problem is with Ali. His character is portrayed as the leonine middle Eastern chieftain, an image often seen in media. It's a literary cliche. I hope you can display his sternness in another way. I accept that you are trying to establish a sense of difference between the Occidental and the Oriental, but perhaps you could be a little subtle about it.

I'm a little confused about the genre of it. I see elements of humor have been well placed in short spurts, but I can't discern yet whether I'm supposed to laugh at Anton the goof, or snicker at some comic relief. Perhaps if I read more, I'll understand it.

Finally, don't add ellipses to let the reader know that you're stressing on Anton's past, or whoever he is escaping from. Let your reader pick those details up.

Good dialogue, with well-preserved humor, and smooth reading. Not bad at all.

Thank you for reading. As to the Orientalism, would it lessen the impression if you knew that most of my characters are personified through an animal or fantastical creature? Anton, for example, possesses a lot of birdlike qualities. And when he's injured in the second act, he is sometimes referred to as a mummy on account of his bandages

>how's this for an intro to a short story?

Not bad. You have that style down. Although "A screaming come across..." is a bit of an obvious Pynchon bite.

Not good. The pacing and alliteration are just tiring. It doesn't come across as interesting or fun or worthwhile, just superfluous.

Didn't read the whole thing, but I liked the opening descriptions after he goes back inside. You have some talent for illustrasion, so why not apply that to the characters as well? Less, "Neal did this" and "Neal let this happen" and more present-tense description of the 'event' as it happens? The reader is lacking activity in this.

Within this context, yes the leonine leader bit does work.

Thanks for the clarification. Continue to post if you have more!

Unfortunately, the second part is the best piece of writing in your prose, and it's also the most out of place.

It comes as a wrinkle, a hiccup between a Reservoir Dogs-esque description of men, and a story which begins to pick up pace.

If you can't take it out completely, try to restructure it so it smooths over and doesn't just sit there glaring at the reader, demanding attention and distracting from the story.

As was his habit when suffering stress, Anton tousled what was left of his hair. When he withdrew his hand it came back wisped with grey. Its color was more consequence of grief than his thirty years of age; so he told himself, anyway - that he was still young, that he had a future beyond all of this. But how many days must pass before he can begin anew? How much longer until- “You said the same thing not two weeks ago.”
“All did not go accordingly,” returned Ali, the drum of his voice as taut as could be. “You mustn’t hold me accountable for sea-raids, much less when expecting a voyage across such perilous seas.”
Anton heard the logic, he truly did, but he had come too far to relent. So in a clipped tone he pressed, “That makes the second sea-raid this month. Last time it was Knights of Malta, now who’s responsible?”
“In case you haven’t noticed,” Ali Shah grated in an audible effort of leashing his temper, “this month has not been my most fortunate.” He then gestured beyond the balcony, where the fireworks paid tribute to his nemesis: Al-Babur, known by reputation as Bloodbeard.

Anton paid Ali Shah a consolatory nod of the head, but that was as much as he could spare. Such matters of the Algerian underworld stood apart from his concerns. He was about to say as much when Ali thrust up a placating paw and called:
“Hassan.”
Out of the shadows tramped a rough-featured man who Anton mistook for a statue just moments ago. As Ali’s right-hand kinsman, Hassan was never far from his chieftain’s side - lurking always; an implicit threat.
Chieftain and tribesman conferred momentarily. Anton could only hope that whatever they were discussing applied to his own affairs. Alas, when the exchange ended, Hassan spared Anton not the slightest look. He only turned toward the double doors and left the chamber, exposing his eyepatch on his way out.
Ali pulled a deep breath and swung his body back to the balcony. In a bestial roar that rivaled the fireworks, he exclaimed, “You!” The crowd murmured incoherently. “No, not you! You!” He lashed his arm forward. “Man in the jerkin, avast there! One warning was more than enough. Now you will wish for such a kindness!”
Anton straightened in his seat for a better look. Lightning may as well have forked from Ali’s finger by the way the masses trampled over themselves in their haste to clear its bearing.
The resulting path revealed a sandstone column on which the jerkin-clad culprit had clambered halfway up. When he realized his straits, the man scurried down the column with an athleticism only panic could incite. But despite his surefootedness, he was subdued before his sandaled feet touched the gravel. .
Even from here, Anton recognized Hassan’s strongly-built form hooking onto the culprit’s collar. The one-eyed Kabyle then hurled the offender earthward as though to assist his descent.

(2/?)

You're right, thanks dude.

>Anton paid Ali Shah a consolatory nod of the head, but that was as much as he could spare

This is very concise, clever, and original.

Props.

The closest I ever came to losing my sense of self-awareness was in a New Delhi Metro station. You’re part of a crowd, you are it, you can’t escape it. Randomly arranged together in enclosed spaces, journeying together, walking, sitting, reading, listening to music. Individuality isn’t allowed past the security check. Rajiv Chowk, the central station, where everyone must invariably arrive if they need to go across town, is full of cafés. There’s a café after every entrance, so when you walk in, you enter into a large circular station, and are encircled by cafés. Each café is a franchise of an Indian coffeehouse chain, identical in name, décor, menu – and its crowd.
Anyway. I’m not there yet. The station is built to complement the place it is situated in – Connaught Place, or CP, as the locals call it – a congregation of white, colonial-era buildings built by the British, which form three concentric circles, and are appropriately called: the outer, the middle, and the inner circle. Inside the inner circle is the metro station, and every one of its various exits leads to a certain block of the inner circle.
I do not know which exit corresponds to which block. I also do not know which block I’m supposed to go to. I’ve a name of a lounge, it’s somewhere in the inner circle. 46 degrees Celsius, 3 pm. An old oven heating up, this city, and I felt slightly toasted. I walk briskly from the subway entrance towards the buildings to avoid exposure to the sun. About half an hour or so inside an air-conditioned train cooled my skin enough to allow me to walk a few metres under direct sunlight.
I stick to the shadows, as I walk with a pace that exhibits purpose. “Immigrant Café”. I was early. Good.

This is the opening of my latest book.

***

A week. A month. I gauge the time by hunger cycles. There is no natural light here, only a bright bulb dangling from a flimsy string. The light is dim, brazen, almost orange. I am reminded of her, the nights with dim lights and hushed laughter beneath the covers, the risk of her looming parents like fuel to an already raging fire, the pregnant quiet, the small movements and heavenly gazes. Her pale face, her green eyes, behind them everything there ever was, is, or could be. Did she? Is she? Where? I can't be here if she is there.

It isn't all bad here, locked indoors. There's ample food and water, an HDTV with some DVDs, some books, a safe filled with weapons for if things fall apart Out There. Dad says it's for your safety so it's not against your will, and sometimes I agree.

I'll keep it short:

With the conversation over, the only sound that remained was the quiet, high pitched vibrations of Tom’s cellphone; its bright white screen now blinded her as she stared at the time tick from 11:59 to 12:00 – no howling wolves followed, just the howling of the violent wind through the cracks of the window’s slim sliver of space.

I spent a life in my room;
as a lively corpse in his tomb
A speck of light dispelled my gloom.

At society I am indignant.
Treachery and lies, as the optimist cries.
But to my love lies a commitment.
And to an ideal I am persistent.

There was no foe mightier than that room.
And now I radiated the light.

his* not her

This is bad poetry. A rhyme scheme doesn't change that.

May as well finish the chapter as to give context on Ali's motive

At a signal from their chieftain, two bruisers emerged from the press and dragged the culprit back into obscurity.
More fireworks zipped skyward but all eyes stayed on Ali Shah. The scene did not regain normalcy until the chieftain made it so. “As you were, my guests. Drink and be merry! Or just be merry - lest you chance the same fate as our column-climbing friend.”
A scattered laughter surfaced islets in the crowd. Most resumed watching the overhead explosions.
Anton settled in his seat, eyes back on Ali. “That was rather harsh, no? He was merely a drunkard trying to get a better view.”
“That was no drunkard.” Ali stroked his great mane of a beard. He looked off into the distance with an amber-eyed stare. “’Twas a spy.”
“A spy? You think tonight of all nights Babur would have it out for you?”
“Speak not his name!” Another blast united with Ali’s fury, lending his snarl a hellish aspect. Amidst the flickering aftermath he said, “My halls will remain unsullied by that accursed name so long as I am chief.”
As soon as Anton glanced toward the balcony, Ali answered his unvoiced question, “I know what you’re thinking. I’ll have you know that the Kabyles only partake in this frivolous celebration because anything less would be declared scandal. In truth we mourn… with both eyes open. For tonight of all nights would in fact be when they strike. So if you don’t mind, I have more pressing affairs to attend than the foibles of a wizard. Begone, bother my daughter with your complaints.”
Anton felt the color surge to his face. He brought himself to full height, such as it was. But before he could frame his rage with words, the double doors squeaked open. Through them tromped Hassan and the two bruisers with the drunkard in tow. Drunkard or spy, depending on whom you asked.
“I want no part in this,” murmured Anton as he slipped his way out. The doors closed hard behind him, but he still heard the muffled sounds of human agony as he treaded down the tapestried corridors.

3/3 (of the sub-chapter)

We built towers,
filled our plate
forever.
Creating heaven,
waiting on fate.
Instead, her.

Does the dim light remind the narrator of "her"? It seems so, but it's vague. If it is the case then please be clear. Maybe establish a link between her and the current world the narrator lives in through the use of the light.

If you didn't read it all then you really missed out. Please keep going? There's a reason his actions become stale by the narrator.

Feels crowded with superflous description. Have you heard of "Chekhov's rifle" before? The idea is to stay away from describing or including things in your writing that aren't essential to its meaning.

This one is a little different than usual. My friend wrote this to practice writing a short story, and I really can't see much to tell him other than to read more short stories and start over. This is just one of three pages, but I feel like it might not be necessary to post them all; it's similar quality throughout. Forgive any misspellings or such, he's not the best writer anyway.

Marijuana causes anxiety, and a good chunk of the population finds this unpleasant enough to stay away. But I have too-sure footing as I walk through this world, comforted and padded by trivia, interesting thoughts and a confident ability to gather meaning from all observations. Marijuana disrupts this confidence, causes me to feel small and excited. I’m no longer on a stupid towpath hike that will last days and is monotonously flat. I’m in the wild west. The openness of fields is frightening. The emerging of darkness causes me to search my footing beyond what is reasonable for Copperheads. And the horizon, suddenly open after days of tree-cover, seems to bend infinitely. I imagine the curvature of the earth, the limits of my sight bending to some unseen pinpoint opposite my heels—my personal, private vista vanishing at my very antipodes. I instinctively suspect that all drug useage is immoral, trusting some notion of virgin brain chemistry as our “natural” and correct state. How one reconciles this, a common instinct, with the theoretical framework of Prozac and Lithium, also commonly held, is a question that should be asked more. In any case, cannabis can make the world seem more beautiful, but at the cost of reinforcing the modern idea that consciousness is materially determined. The idea that consciousness is materially determined should give the lie to the equally modern idea that our story is dictated by our choices.

Top tier critique. Thanks user.

My personal opinion: stray away from exclamation points.
You have quite the mouthful in the first three sentences with what is not the most attractive descriptions. "Light banishes darkness..." "Consigning to..." why that word? I dont think the situation is so dire. Reeks of thought and thought is not something you want to toss in too much to the words unless it's part of the work.
Rest isn't bad. Reads like a white-washed Dumas, but Ali seems to be tarzan in some middle east disguise.

Cute piece nonetheless. I appreciate the flexibility of your dialogue.
Thank god. I want the writing to be so. The point of the novel is to write through descriptions of a trauma patient about his senses through various moments of his life as he recalls the, or experiences them. It's hard, admittedly, to be taut and abstract at the same time, but with that in mind do you think the methodology in the writing is made more relevant?
It is supposed to be in a way. Refer to above: every line does count, as does every word. I cannot falsely describe an event or misplace an image the narrator is witnessing. I can't leave out what he saw. Etc. Does this maybe dust up some issue? I'm a hundred or so pages in. Treating it with a lot of craft and care. Initial reaction: Oh wonderful another drug story. Pullulation of cracked writing and "witty" thoughts.
Concluding reaction: Oh wonderful another drug story. Pullulation of cracked writing and "witty" thoughts.

Probably just a me thing though.

Thanks user. I'm actually going for Dumas meets Tarantino so glad to hear it haha

Can you put this into the textbar so I can do an inline critique?

When you have no Asian girlfriend
From China or Japan
And you can't escape that ronery feel
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN

I really like this! I just wonder how long you can keep it up. A whole story? A whole novel?

Like I said, I'm 100~ pages in. The novel shouldn't be more than 250 or so pages

We'll see. Maybe its too gimmicky but I have my ideas.

I'll do the whole thing then. All of this is verbatim.

Young Mikael was not anything like that of his father, Francis, he was brash, arrogant, foolish, but most of all impatient. Mikael’s father on the other hand was a wise and honorable man who reached the rank of Grand Master amongst the Knight’s Council. His father fought against whatever threat came across their lands, he even ended the great war, but alas he paid the greatest of prices in doing so.

Given the circumstance regarding his late father it became apparent that a decision would have to take place by the council. Mikael assumed because of his lineage that he would ascend to take the place of his father once held. However, the council, Lord Vincent Gilroy especially, believed that Mikael was far too irresponsible for the power he would inherit. They denied Mikael the seat of his father, yet they offered him a seat on the council should he show a more mature side of himself.

Mikael was livid at this decision, to the point of challenging the elders of the council to a sparring trial for the seat of his throne. Gilroy warned the boy “Do you think your father would fancy to see you whimpering like a child before us? Yet, here you stand anxious demanding we hand you; who has not even drawn a blade, what your father bled to possess. Have you no respect, boy?” Mikael turned his back to them and cried out “How is it possible that amongst all these men before me lay only sheep?” The council was silence, he said nothing more and stormed out of the chambers.

“Old fools they sit upon glass thrones!” he shouted to himself. Still fuming from the encounter with the council, Mikael decided to visit the local tavern. He performed in his usual contest of drink and boar, but something wasn’t quite right. Perhaps it was the booze he thought, and continued to disregarded it for the meantime. As the hour went by he felt that disturbance again, but this time it tore through him, like a knife through butter. Something wasn’t right, and he knew it.

Mikael stumbled his way through the cobbled city road laughing and stopping every few yards to let out his stomach. By sunfall he reached the Knight’s Sanctum. He
wasn’t quite sure if what he was seeing was accurate, thanks to the booze once again. “The Sanctum!” he yelled as he sobered up, in that moment.

Without hesitating he ran inside the temple, the ornate pillars that once held up the circular spire had collapsed from the ceiling. As he rushed past the courtyard and into the once alluring gardens, which housed a thousand plants both exotic and familiar, he saw now it had become the abode of a bright orange blaze which danced along the line of green, in a way it was quite beautiful he thought, but he chose not to stay and watch, as he knew he had continue onward. He covered his face as he walked through the jungle of flame towards the council chambers. The door was barred in from the other side. Without any other point of entry, Mikael trying not to panic said to himself “what would my father do?” Closing his eyes for a brief moment he reached for his blade. As his hand gripped the sword he drew it from it’s resting place to see the light once more.

Mikael sliced through the barred door and kicked it open. As he approached the inner sanctum he was not prepared for what he saw inside, his former mentors, elders, friends laying dead amongst the blood soaked floor. “Mikael” a voice called out faintly. “Gilroy!” he shouted and rushed over to the man he once thought a foe. He saw the man beneath him clinging to life, scared, but most importantly weak. In this moment Mikael knew he could have everything he desire, but he choose not.

Mikael threw his sword to the floor, and tried to assist Gilroy. However, it was too late. Gilroy with the remainder of his strength spoke to the man he saw before him, no longer a boy. “Mikael, you must find Benedictus, and end this for us all.” he said coughing up blood. “Benedictus?” Mikael said with a confused look upon his mug. “He, had orchestrated a coo against us” he said coughing up even more blood. “But, why? What have we done to deserve this kind of torment?” Mikael said confused, not sure of what to believe anymore. “We merely lived.” he said gasping for air. “What would you have me do?” Mikael said closing his eyes. “What your father would…” he said as the light faded from his body. Mikael lowered Gilroy from his arms unto the floor. Before leaving he picked up his sword amongst the ruins and ran out as the palace, trying to avoid the flames.

Mikael stayed to watch the work of his father and friends burn to ashes. He once thought the world of this place, a beacon of light to those without hope, but now it
serves only as grave for those who shall never be remembered. He pondered to himself though, “would it had ended differently had I been there? Or would I just have been another body amongst the rubble?” Still the feeling of guilt was fresh on his mind like the smell of a pie straight out of the oven. He couldn’t sake the feeling that in some way this was all his fault, but he knew he shouldn’t linger, not when there was one tasked left to finish.

2/3

Mikael questioned what he was about to do. He wanted to punish Benedictus, but not at the cost of his father’s legacy. Few knew that his father even bore a son, as to why he kept that a secret it could be a mix between shame or doubt. However, he didn’t ponder it any further. For he knew in his heart the best way to honor his father was to uphold justice at all costs. That morning two bodies were found in the middle of the plaza together in a pool of dried blood; one in steel armor, the other in silken white and red robes.

(End)

Can I get a second opinion on:

Getting onto the barge was no trouble at all. Navigating the crowd was the problem. Little by little, toehold by toehold, Anton squeezed his way through the press. They were so engrossed with the festivities that they pounded against his body like pestle on mortar. Many an-elbow jabbed into his ribs as they clapped to the rhythm of drums, cymbals, and tambourine amidships. For a moment, Anton considered joining them as to blend in. But he knew that, should the cazador come, all the clapping in the world could not save him.
Some wandering eyes gave him odd looks – likely on account of his scent. Before he entered, Anton applied the last of his Lavender Musk to disguise the stenches he braved to get here. It was one of the few tools he had left after the chase. That, a vial of arsenic, and his wits. And at this moment his wits told him he was still exposed to danger. Domingo the Bloodhound would no doubt sniff him out wherever he stood on deck.
In his search for a hideout, Anton found a gilded canopy that hung invitingly over the barge’s cabin. He jostled past the crowd and made it nearly there before he was brought up short by an upraised forearm. It belonged to a dour-faced doorkeep outfitted in a lilac kaftan. With a twist of the lip and an arch of the brow, the doorkeep prompted, “Who are you?”
At closer glance, Anton noticed an arsenal of shimmery-sharp throwing knives strapped to the doorkeep’s belt. Alarming as this was, he reminded himself that the cazador was the greater danger. The prospect of Inquisitorial captivity cut him far deeper than any edge ever could. So he took courage and said, “I’ve no time for your formalities. They’re expecting me inside!”
A tense interval followed during which neither of the two betrayed his thoughts. If not for the music to displace his focus, Anton would have surely cracked under the pressure. At last, the doorkeep smoothened his features and asked, “Are you the entertainment?”
“That I am,” responded Anton, burying his relief beneath a crooked smile.
“You’re not another blasted snake charmer, are you?”
“No.”
“Minstrel?”
“No.”
“Juggler?”
“Heavens, no.”
“Good,” replied the doorkeeper. “So what does that make you?”
Disinclined to dance with the man’s knives, Anton admitted, “I’m something of a magician.”
The doorkeep nodded stiffly. “Al-Babur will be pleased to hear it.”
Al-Babur. Bloodbeard. The name struck a chord that ran bone-deep. ‘Twas a name that floated its infamy all across the Mediterranean, poisoning the hopes and dreams of seafarers everywhere. A name that belonged to none other than a king of corsairs: a pirate-lord. If even half the stories Fatima told him were true, then Anton faced more than he bargained for – by far.

Mentioning marijuana was a means to beg the question of consciousness. I guess you cant mention you smoke without people immediatly assuming youre a self styled hunter thompson. Oh well, and i suppose its good to know. Thanks for the review.

there's more to this, but its all i could fit in one screenshot without cutting off the second paragraph.

Could you copy and paste in text?

I really like the descriptive text at the beginning. I don't really get the metaphor for how symphony = heart attack and I think it drags on for a bit long trying to make the connection clear. Overall pretty good though.

This is the beginning of my fantasy novel:

A divinely powerful gust of wind and sleet bombarded what was left of a dead tree's trunk, a sturdy one that had survived the test of time under unforgiving circumstances. A teenage boy, exhausted from fighting the elements, walked to the trunk and collapsed beside it, letting it take the brunt of the wind's fury. He was fatally underdressed and on the tail end of a testing journey, something his joints and frostbitten fingers reminded him incessantly. He was so close to the end of this journey that when he peeked his head out from behind the tree trunk he could already see his destination in the sky: the Eye of the storm around which the elements continued their eternal reign of terror.

It had been this way for decades, longer than the boy or either of his parents have been walking on solid ground. Long enough for this godforsaken place to be called the Stormlands, and long enough that a city has been erected in the Eye of this everlasting storm. The location of the storm was as unwavering as its strength, so much so that the people who once lived here had the balls to build a city in the Eye. "Iris", they called it, because that was the name for part of your eye, though the boy didn't know exactly which part.

As for the land outside the Eye, it wasn't exactly abandoned. Though it was once fertile farming land, only after its damnation was its true value discovered. Not ten feet beneath anywhere you stood were Artifacts, pieces of machinery from a time long forgotten. And where there were Artifacts, there were Scavengers.

The boy caught his breath and emerged from behind the trunk. Tepidly, he continued his march over the shallow layer of snow which coated the ground this close to the Eye. The icy wind stabbed at his skin, and the lightning bellowed threats of striking him down, but the boy pushed himself forward.

here's the other half, just didn't want to post a massive wall of text. thanks for actually reading though! its supposed to be an intro to a longer story, potentially a novel although im not quite sure yet.

this one isn't quite as finished as the other i don't think

thanks man, in the second paragraph it hints a little more at him actually being a music teacher at one point in his life, hence the metaphor. although i understand your point, im working on making that feel more natural.

" He was fatally underdressed and on the tail end of a testing journey, something his joints and frostbitten fingers reminded him incessantly." I would suggest a rewrite of this sentence, was difficult to follow and flows a little awkwardly in my opinion. I like a lot of the snow/ice imagery, though. Creating a consistent world for a fantasy setting must be fucking difficult, i can barely write about a character set in a real town lol

Thanks for the help.

Lavender Musk? Is it supposed to be a proper noun? If not, it should be lavender musk.
I'm not sure "prompted" is the right word here. It's a transitive verb, and it doesn't seem to have an object. And while he is looking for a sort of answer to the question, I feel it would be more appropriate for a question where an exact answer is expected.
When you mentioned the music, I would've liked to get a better description. I feel it would've helped in setting the tone, whether it contrasts with the two characters or not.
Overall it seemed pretty interesting. I wasn't sure exactly what was going on sometimes due to a lack of context, but I think that's just because you're writing in an unfamiliar setting.

Lavender Musk is the name of Anton's perfume. One of his hobbies as an alchemist is to make scents only he finds enticing. I see what you mean by my use of "prompted," I've been using it too liberally lately. Would not the instruments have been enough to indicate the kind of mood?
Or do you think I should specify to the point of something to the effect of, "With those instruments, they struck up a jolly sea shanty"

And yeah, this is a fragment of a chapter. It begins after a chase scene between Anton and Domingo the cazador (witch hunter). Anton is on board a pleasure barge trying to hide as best as possible from his pursuer. Here's the second half if it helps establish context:

The doorkeeper cleared a path, but Anton’s feet budged not an inch. What lie in wait for him under the canopy, which now looked like the open jaw of some terrifying devilfish?
He spun from the cabin and made to hustle off the barge; however, his feet were rooted in place by what he beheld. There, in the midst of the multicolored turbans and satin finery, he spied a red-splotched scalp that could only belong to the witch-hunter.
“Where are you going?!” shouted the doorkeep.
“Sorry,” said Anton. He turned around to conceal his face. “I was looking for my…my assistant, but I must’ve lost track of him.”
“Will you need an assistant for your show?”
“No, no. I’ll be able to do it myself.”
Or die trying. He shuddered to think what would happen if he were to disappoint his audience. In his mind’s eye, he scried a black-sailed warship, its prow ornamented with his head. It was with this cheerful thought that he trudged beneath the canopy, out of sight from the witch-hunter, and into the nest of corsairs.

Pulpy sci-fi stuff from something currently called "Something New and Dangerous":

Clustered in the damp regions of the landscape is a disgusting population of earthenware figures all mouthless mumbling and uselessly writhing and fucking. Birds flap mechanically overhead like passing monorail cars. The whole environment is a puppetshow popup and the only goes are goes that give you a charred like pesticide high.
Basted slime meat cures in the oven and strategizes inticing smells toward the patrons of Hell's Circumference. Standard fare, the blubberous cancer replication mutant – take a hunk from the lunk. Excellent protein and all nutrients guaranteed. Some very alien sillouhette is approaching from behind the slick public lamplight and blurry windowface. I am smoking liquid synth hash oil and just baking in the cozy hashhole nook. My ruddy meathand sniffs out a lowball glass of cheap peach wine. I am feeling like a hallucinating hashhead and dismiss the oncoming figure as a product of my habit. The image hold out and I side-eye whoever this great thing is that's coming toward the entrance of the bar. This is a large man, or maybe a tall stretched dog. Vapors continue to pump from the kitchen door porthole. A hungry pang clings to my gut like a toothy remora or like one of those fish that sticks itself with claws to the inside of your urethra. I fight with my my stomach and then look at my gut. I want the full effects of the drugs and decide to stick it out. I strategize my intake. When I remember that I was only a few minutes ago fixated on some disturbance, I look up from my gut and back up and out through the window. Was that only a few minutes ago? or longer?

Tip: don't think too hard on cannabis.

Okay. I had forgotten about the descriptions of the instruments. I guess when you described the silence between the characters being filled by music, it reminded me of a sort of scene that I could imagine in real life or on TV, where everyone is suddenly silent and only the music stays. Though it might be a little difficult to capture in writing.

For this one, it's mostly good. The only thing I wondered about was the doorkeeper's response to Anton's excuse. To me, it seemed flimsy, but he didn't have any real reaction. I'm not sure how it was supposed to come off.

To expand. You are biting off more than you can chew - material bigger than your head. Even if you get a foothold on philosophy of consciousness, epistemology, etc., no one wants to hear disorganized, aphoristic rambling about those topics. The only proper engine for the content you are dealing with would be a philosophical paper. Write about something you know about if you don't genuinely think you can contribute to the philosophy of mind.

Oh fuck off, its an excerpt from a weird piece thats half travel story and half an explanation of why i think we should all go looking for God. I didnt write it (or think it) while high and i DO read philosophy. Its fine to squeeze a bit of phil into anything you want, you genre bound ape.

It even goes on to say that most of us are not philosophers yet we still base our lives on philosophical positions.

>er's response to Anton's excuse. To me, it seemed flimsy, but he didn't have any real reaction. I'm not sure how it was supposed to come off.

Yeah now that I think about it, I could definitely elaborate on that interaction. Thanks user

I think imagistic lyricism counts

soundcloud.com/kolstinguyen/bedroom-rap-feat-dirty-mondo-and-cora-harmonica

if that embeds weird just go to my page

soundcloud.com/kolstinguyen

>hip hop
>moody like winter but stick humid like june 5th
>vocal pop
>guitar n b
>mellow pop rap

i liked the first verse a lot more than the second, the second had too many instances where the rhyme scheme was just abandoned and it really messes with your flow. also, you rhyme a word with itself tooooo many times man. still though its not bad, i like the way you poke fun at your current recording situation, i know the feel

this is really well written

this is not /mu/ but I like the song very much

ANGELUS FOR THE FLATIRON
1902

23-skiddoo is what they mean, and say,
to men who lift their eyes that way, to skirts blown
high from the draft from that space. 5th and Broadway
is no place for a lady to stay. Alone,
in the shade the terra cotta made, is shown
lascivity unleashed. In the here and now,
where the end is nigh, I wandered lonely in
a crowd, and stood underneath the evening prow,

as the looks grew cool, in a Renaissant way,
and foresaw Revelation: my dress had blown
so high (in culture-abandoned artsy sway!),
and arched through the dream, in which Satan had shone,
the sun catalyzed by this architect's own
vision. Creation is the subject that now
occupies his Orpheus, this country, known
for its future. Stand beneath its steely prow

where this Gothos of limestone's illicit ways
make old Gotham's crush so uniquely its own
time and place; watch as this skyscraper parlays
the elegant loneliness of excellence
into Armageddon (I know not of ends-
save this!), and so I pray to the Virgin. How
I do not know, for such psalms have swiftly grown
into chorals of loss, that bequeath their prow

to the morrow, where reason is the final
straw, where women can rush, and not have to show
their best, in a gust, to strangers, whose looks cull
a crowd, glancing underneath this tower's prow.

Bump. Will critique a lot when I'm home

IN LOVE

The only word is Love. It is what binds
things more securely than the o and v,
which are bereft without the l and e
to give them structure, if not grand design.
Nothing is permanent, as Love proves this
so, as well the uselessness of Beauty,
without Love to engage it. Can you see
the parallel? Love is just what it is,
as well is Beauty, which mouths the full o,
which sounds like a u (the short vowel sound),
to become part of the structure that grounds
only what matters to those, in the know,
who see what is loosened by loveless minds
unable to ask: Where did Beauty go?

"IN THE LAND OF WONDERFUL DREAMS"
*Winsor McCay

Can I be Little Nemo in Slumberland,
For a while? Need all I do, then, be dream?
Or, perhaps, just open a window and wait?
The world is a fun place, but so is the mind,
And which is which you may not find over here,
Or there. Where is that boy, or Impie, or Flip?

As you ponder, watch out!- for your bed may flip
Over, turn into a car. In Slumberland
Anything can be anything. You may hear
Shurmurings of night, or murmurings of dream?
You may find you may not enjoy what your mind
May do, or leap to. Dream's a terrible weight

On the moon. You see, often, it will not wait
For engagement- it may just flutter and flip
Through a dream sequence, like a fly through the mind,
On its way, to a shantytown. Slumberland
Has its- there are poor people- even in dream.
But you can escape it. Dream is never here,

Nor now. As a funhouse mirror cannot hear,
Its reflection, neither does dream pass its wait
Alone, or not. If it did, what would be dream?
And what of that rapscallion- mischievous Flip?
Green face and gross lip may fit in Slumberland,
But what of the real, and what waits to be mined?

Is the mined the miner, or the mined the mind?
Sometimes the wind winds its way through that you hear,
And sometimes Little Nemo in Slumberland
Needs to be reminded that the truest weight
Of idea cannot be measured by the flip
Brush-off of dream, even as it dreams adream,

And explodes its own meaning. "Perchance to dream....",
To quote some long dead bard, who should never mind,
Is the credo of the liver, not the flip-
Sided dreamer- "Say, pally, 'dja ever hear
The story of the boy who would sit and wait
For dream?- he died!". Miles shy of Slumberland

the boy flips from his bed, waiting, not to hear,
minding Mother's lament: "Poor Boy, did you dream
that you were Little Nemo in Slumberland?"

NINTH MURDER: FACE OF EVIL
or
A SPIC TAKES ON A NIGGER: YOU DECIDE WHO WILL DIE!
A Ballade

That which consumes us consumes us fully.
I thought this as Joey and I looked on
as an ugly black drug-dealing bully
beat the piss out of yet another Juan
who took it at first, then not, then turned on
a dime to rage, with a blade. Now, dark joys
would be had by all, as we boys looked on
aloner than a girl amongst all boys.

The shadows of forgotten ancestors
looked over our shoulders, and greased our skid
into complicity. We nursed our fears
as the two scumbags did what scumbags did
in such situations. Neither punk fled
for such shit is faggotry, and annoys
even dishonored men, as this. One bled
aloner than a girl amongst all boys.

They both stumbled backward, and held their guts,
with smiles that crafted oblivions,
sickly and demurely. My pal went nuts
with anticipation, like in a trance,
till I shut him up, and explained the dance,
as they gathered themselves, lost to all noise,
till one discovered he had not been lanced
aloner than a girl amongst all boys,

as the other fell dead. He took his chance
and paid. His face now ever in a poise.
Which shit-ass died? You decide! Do your dance
aloner than a girl amongst all boys!

ED GEIN BECOMING
1968

The uncaused moment that is this comma,
is the bough that for, but, a moment sways,
as only its motion relates the day,
beyond the bars that this sonnet infers,

as the mellifluous light of morning,
inters his eyes within this space of time,
without that joy, undeterred by this rhyme,
where he smiles in a way, just seeming,

to hint at a skull, which only relates
to his past, this poem finds so distractive,
unlike that bough which, for a moment, stays,

within its rhythm, or its beginning
to end. And it ends. And then there is life.
And the mellifluous light of evening.

THE PASSINGS

There are years to go before the last perfect day
on Earth. Then the sun will begin to swell, and life
will cease, shorelines will retreat as oceans boil,
and all will glow a barren red and airless gray.
By then I will be shadow, long dead. Now, I live
amid joys and sorrows, with the love of a girl
in a backseat, behind her mommy and daddy,
as they pilgrim to a motel in New Hampshire,

blowing kisses out her window to teenage strays,
drunk in a sportscar, honking and cursing at her
family squareback's pace, as they are full on passing,
as if they are ready to face eternal sleep,

as they leave her family behind on the highway,
that is endless, and endless, and everything.

FROM THE MERCY OF IDIOTS

The nearest star cannot refine the loss you feel.
at her leaving. Night winds cannot bring her echo.
So you trace the slippage of the days which hover
in to this spacetime, once just imagined as real.

Yet life is is much more than cataloging regrets-
Do not squander the night to indulge the day passed!
lose yourself in this now, for if you are not lost
you may never be found; like your since-gone lover

under a star you never knew of, nor imbued.
Choose a world with its ends! Choose a life with shadows!
All else submits to the mercy of idiots,

for your shadow is the proof of your light, and time
but a rnannekin that can never not see you
as it lays in your bed: dark, faceless, without name.

"POETRY ITSELF"
"You are not the poet I love most...."
-Marina Tsvetayeva

There is the feeling beside that which is felt,
as if a great artwork beyond consciousness,
whether gazing a church tower, or being sifted through its panes
like alluvial photons. There in a bowl of opening roses,
made majestic by a slice of sight reflecting
the spoke of sun upon a slab where something dead may lay,
is an abstract of insight grown well within your wreath of verse,
brief episode of touch, still opening endlessly and growing,
self-illumined, silent paladins of the muse,
like nothing that ever was:
I know nothing of life.

Yet handfuls of this distanceness flash subtle signals
kissing gently my eyes, my mind which wilders yet prompts
the words which core, then filter, sweetly a stumble of laughter,
themselves into the subject's smile, removed from thought,
as if you, inflaming the gestures of what may occur within,
as if still seemingly supple to God's will,
the many illusions of its breath:
I know nothing of it.

And then this love- of life, of it, of you-
as if I were what you are, so strangely
itself, like you:
I know nothing of you.

Then, as if newly formed and felt,
unexpectedly.

GEORGE SCHNEIDER PLAYS HANDBALL- 1933

There is no creation I do not feel.
My dad, at sixteen, on a handball court,
hunches to slap the hard rubbery sphere
against the wall. He is not smart enough
to know that he should be miserable.
This lousy place is a Brooklyn schoolyard,
and this time is a luck-forsaken year,
enjoyed by only those few who are tough
enough to forget the moment, but not
the moments, crannying between each crack,
of the black on fist, and those in concrete,
which can only grow. It is for these spots,
that the boys take their aim, that the ball seeks.

There is no feeling I do not create.

GEORGE SCHNEIDER PLAYS HANDBALL- 1933

There is no creation I do not feel.

My dad, at sixteen, on a handball court,
hunches to slap the hard rubbery sphere
against the wall. He is not smart enough
to know that he should be miserable.
This lousy place is a Brooklyn schoolyard,
and this time is a luck-forsaken year,
enjoyed by only those few who are tough
enough to forget the moment, but not
the moments, crannying between each crack,
of the black on fist, and those in concrete,
which can only grow. It is for these spots,
that the boys take their aim, that the ball seeks.

There is no feeling I do not create.

THE BANG OF THE PAPER ON A SCREEN DOOR'S MORNING

Something once owned avoided the morning,
and took to the trees, and opened them full,
to the emptiness of the grown-up world,
where something was filling, something induced,
by a place, a face, a far-off image,
which struck like a gesture [what is softness?],
and hurt like a mirror [what is therein?],
resolved to the light, its ruthless rising,
which stuck to the patterns of everyday
slanting, among those who beamed, among those
who shivered in the nowhere, which quivered
to the astrophysics of eyes and touch,
warming the waking of Truan Ngoc Linh,
who thinks, Don't worry, I only had hope.

HOLY SONNET 3

Sing with your laugh, for I am reminded
of a day when your body was the river
that spun through my veins, split me, and blinded
me to duality. You were my lover,
though you knew it not then. A laugh like yours
is a song that floats through Alpine shadows
that seep through the summer grasses with more
coolness that blooms. Like carnations it grows
a peace which tangles with each inward breath,
the bounty of life at its most undead-
your laugh. Suddenly it is more than a laugh.
It brings me nearer to myself- the choice
of a knife that is brutal, or merely red
in the aftermath refreshness of its voice.

YELLOW AFTERNOON

It was in the earth only
That he was at the bottom of things
And of himself. There he could say
Of this I am, this is the patriarch,
This it is that answers when I ask,
This is the mute, the final sculpture
Around which silence lies on silence.
This repose alike in springtime
And, arbored and bronzed, in autumn.

He said I had this that I could love,
As one loves visible and responsive peace,
As one loves one’s own being,
As one loves that which is the end
And must be loved, as one loves that
Of which one is a part as in a unity,
A unity that is the life one loves,
So that one lives all the lives that comprise it
As the life of the fatal unity of war.

Everything comes to him
From the middle of his field. The odor
Of earth penetrates more deeply than any word.
There he touches his being. There as he is
He is. The thought that he had found all this
Among me, in a woman- she caught his breath-
But he came back as one comes back from the sun
To lie on one's bed in the dark, close to a face
Without eyes or mouth, that looks at one and speaks.

STAIRCASE DESCENDING A NUDE

The longest known that you instant
is lit by the gourdish light of the moon
for a moment. Not a constant

is the motion you slowly swoon
down the body; that which you are, or were
for that moment. As if a dune

you shift, as the grip of a fear
which arouses her petals, and yearning
for love, unknowing it is near

as the painter, who is learning
that he is more than this, and the staircase
that subsumes the painter's churning

to art, which is now the simple ·imprint
of a moment's light, and not of its waste.

ODE ON THE THINGS THEMSELVES

The unseen is the beauty we cannot see,
more glorious than the senses we long to claim,
for in dubiety Old Cathay is set free
as the soul to choose its way, to fiercely declaim
the gilded desires it strives for in vain,
beyond the worldly pulse, its cosmic paradigms,
it moves swiftly through the future's unopened crypt
mouthing syllables of life in sheltered refrain.
And when in course of the night, in subject dreams,
the soul is the studied- yet unseen as unmissed
will the heralds of true sight rightly decry
too the music unheard- as if this penury
of sensuousness is beyond any reply-
the beauty unseen which rocks that to be?

DUCK IN DESCENT

O loath to wonder at its ease,
in mid-flight to skim the pond,
the gallant ave at fifty degrees
with wings peeled back and bill so tense

determines fiercely terminus
approaching as the water calls;
legs together fend resistance,
it seems to panic as it falls

till few flaps fleet of skillful pinion
safely guides it to dominion
of its plight and destiny

within a world so far from land
where all its kind stumble and fuss,
yet here it paddles gleefully.

THE BARBER

The hairs on his fingers
do not curl anymore
like worms. They, too, are old
and arthritic as the fingers
themselves. Yet, together
they hum steel scissors
about many old heads spewing
stories of their war, their action.
And in his two chair shop-
only one of which is ever used-
he mumbles on in foreign tongues,
somehow coherent to his customers,
of his youth- his hazy past
lost amidst the others' vivid tales.
And as The Chairman croons smoothly
in the background a strobed siren streaks
by and off his front window barber pole
yet beaming the noonday glint of sun
so brightly that he closes his eyes,
momentarily, and is back in his village
during the raids. The sun burns
through his eyelids like an incendiary
fire which lighted his parents' cellar,
where he had hidden, from within
and he recalls the shadows of life
lost inside the brilliant glow
of mid-night bombings: the ash,
the noise, the heat, the used-to-be's,
the stench. In the distance of his brain
it is, now, almost comforting. So
when he goes to the window to draw
his shade it is not out of a fear
that he spurns the light, or the kid
shot and bleeding down the block,
but rather the growing apparitions
of evening crawling across the street,
like rodent remembrances canvassing
for fresh flesh, towards his shop
dwarfing ever-smaller to their scurrying
silent thunder:

and it is this simple act,
now, which unleashes the fires of life
from rock on a far away world
six hundred million years from now:
the complex genetic of beginnings
reborn from the simple psychology
of endings; as if invention,
or fear, or the cosmos,
really knows its own course.

THE MOTHMAN
*for John Keel

Here, above,
where fearsome angels cower, the Mothman
glides soundlessly above illusion. The moon
is something that cannot fly, and you cannot see
the moon, below him, as he spreads his terrible wings
his red eyes become the billion-year bloat
of giant stars dying into the useless night of eyes,
yours, folding in to the unremarked of realms.

But when the Mothman
comes, clearly, those who witness him rise above
those realms of plastic and styrofoam. To be human
is to disappoint- so the Mothman never does.
He is the summit of unknown and unbroken expectations,
and the inquisitor who asks: "What is the fallen
in you?" He cannot understand the onlookers
of life, the unmoved at Jericho's tumble.

Up the facades
of inemotion, righter than left, and three winks
from Magonia, he rises, now sounding mechanical,
as if an early helicopter chopping its way
to your comprehension, the full breadth of his wings
spreading, as if to say, "I, too, have form!"
Yet, he has no head, nor mouth, nor nose, nor ears,
just huge glowing eyes in a gray-brown skin.

Then he returns
to earth, leaving the now of your wonder,
as if to instruct the mortal of their poor restraint.
Gently, gently he dares to shaping the odors
of your dreams, disnebulous as your remembrance
of him, filling the emptiness that springtimes do,
at times, distilling your denial into a tear,
singular as a day, but ten times as salty.

Each night he must
dissolve in to a crane, an owl, or a bugaboo
of dismission that underlies comfortability.
But his is not there. He regards it a disease
that the earthbound must overcome. He does
it by looming over the American night, the consensus
universe that you construct. Sometimes, he watches
you as you whistle by the wonder he swallows whole.

If you catch him
looking at you, be very afraid. Not of him,
nor some grim intent, but because his eyes will curve
in to you- hold your eye up to his eye, it is all
blood- a deep placidity no human can share, nor bear,
cool and pure as the scent of a stark dry thing
the wet of an animal's nose remembers, the mist
of a thunderhead's calm, the drum of rain on umbrellas.

Seriously, fuck off.

This. How Jewish can you be? Paste all your shitty slam poetry in a pastebin or something. Christ ..

>he doesn't recognize Wallace Stevens

Not the guy you replied to, I'm the guy he replied to, but I realized right away what was being done. The stupidity of it all is dumping so many recognizable works rather than one or two to be subtle. Fucking bad shitposting.

I didn't read them. Just noticed some fucker taking up half the thread

There are only two poets in there.

I never said how many poets there were, just that they were recognizable.

If I were to write an entire story in this fashion, is it tolerable? This is just the first few lines from their chapter. It's the second chapter, and I have what's before it too if more is needed to determine if it's too liberal.

Lifeless limbs of spruce and maple
dangle
after their recital.
Their clunky
bows
met with no applause
before their vassal thrall--
Or audient I suppose.
The child sits, his hollow stare
filled with little care.
He quickly questions if he may leave,
insisting on very many things
to be done to-day, if it did so please;
and it did.

Released an unbound captive,
the boy runs with joy
down the stone castle hall
with arms sprawled wide
in imaginary flight.