Tender is a night that loves, and lays, And lets astray lover’s hands. Leaving As though the sun were brimmed in it To style flesh against ebony. Let The lovers learn they are, again, again Until the dusk sinks in their skin And even then, let them persist To drink the draught. Fears hove in To the cradle which they might lay To bear love’s illusory, listless in spring.
From the morning that Apollo stretched And held Daphne. Her arms were raped By the wooden veins that spurned him in To a tyrant, now meek as kin In lust-ness, hard and suppliant To will bereft from those – his own Cry broke the pallid dawn. His ears Sought voices illuminant. Venturing Into the underworld of himself, in gold As a babe rising to meet the sin.
In Abyssal depths, did stroke his load Though much ascended – nothing gained But loathing himself. Zeus bemused And Leto manifested on the lucid plane Of Apollo’s sight. His knees were wrathed By the edging of the grit, and hovered Above the longing caul. He suffered Through the marking of his mews Until doves, white and pastel skied Un-urged his heaven, limned the sun To colour modes and wine-dark seas And between his fingers, mortal dripped Into the come-coming craft of clay.
Well, I had to go down and see a guy named Mr. Goldsmith A nasty, dirty, double-crossin', back-stabbin' phony I didn't want to have to deal with But I did it for you And all you gave me was a smile Well, I cried for you, now it's your turn to cry awhile I don't carry dead weight, I'm no flash in the pan All right, I'll set you straight, can't you see I'm a union man? I'm lettin' the cat out of the cage, I'm keeping a low profile Well, I cried for you, now it's your turn, you can cry awhile Feel like a fighting rooster, feel better than I ever felt But the Pennsylvania line's in an awful mess and the Denver road is about to melt I went to the church house, every day I go an extra mile Well, I cried for you, now it's your turn, you can cry awhile Last night 'cross the alley there was a pounding on the walls It must have been Don Pasquale makin' a two a.m. booty call To break a trusting heart like mine was just your style Well, I cried for you, now it's your turn to cry awhile I'm on the fringes of the night, fighting back tears that I can't control Some people they ain't human, they got no heart or soul Well, I'm crying to The Lord, I'm tryin' to be meek and mild Yes, I cried for you, now it's your turn, you can cry awhile Well, there's preachers in the pulpits and babies in the cribs I'm longin' for that sweet fat that sticks to your ribs I'm gonna buy me a barrel of whiskey, I'll die before I turn senile Yes, I cried for you, now it's your turn, you can cry awhile Well, you bet on a horse and it ran on the wrong way I always said you'd be sorry and today could be the day I might need a good lawyer, could be your funeral, my trial Well, I cried for you, now it's your turn, you can cry awhile
Robert Hall
Saved
thanks
Luis Smith
>From the morning that Apollo stretched And held Daphne. Her arms were raped By the wooden veins that spurned him in To a tyrant, now meek as kin In lust-ness, hard and suppliant To will bereft from those – his own Cry broke the pallid dawn.
tis nice
Carter Walker
that's one hideous washed up corpse OP
Hunter Roberts
>not appreciating the real-to-life aesthetics of the European people's as painted centuries ago Excuse yourself from this board. I think /v/ is more your speed.
Carson Jackson
I'm no good at critiquing poetry, but I'll critique any prose posted from hereon out
unironically not horrible, the second stanza is a little weaker twoards the end and i feel in the third you do a little too much of these deliberate line breaks in the middle for the sake of enjabment. (still better than 90% of stuff i see here though)
Would love any criticism on the following three sentences i've been playing with today :
How gentle a thing a thought, passing unnoticed through the mind like light beneath the door, giving sway to nothing.
For a moment everything is still and the stars shine defiantly against the blackening sky, suspended in the dark like nails fastening the firmament. Then the fog comes. It rolls into the streets past Grangeville and Twelfth and down past the Christian school with the sign out front advertising God to his disciples with an exclamation point, and down further past the building with no windows where the Jehovah Witnesses congregate five days a week.
That night she could not sleep. She paced back and forth in her room to calm her anxiety, and, seeing as it made no difference, lay in bed and seemed then to pace in her mind, swaying to and fro with the thought of him as the film between two worlds, both vast and unfamiliar.
Oliver Reyes
>In lust-ness,
why not just "in lust"? lust-ness is a no-go bud
otherwise your flow isn't bad but i don't get why you're trying to write like its 1817. there are other ways to Hellenize
>How gentle a thing a thought,
is that second "a" supposed to be an "is"? if it isn't, its distracting. if you're going to break the rules you have to break more of them to get away with it. a single stream-of-consciousness style departure within an otherwise grammatically normal sentence reads like a defect
> passing unnoticed through the mind like light beneath the door,
this part aint bad, although two "the's" in close proximity imparts a long-winded feel
> giving sway to nothing.
this part of the sentence also gives *sway* to nothing. dud
'nothing' is a dangerous word. it can easily have an effect like "i walked outside under boring clouds." if nothing happened then why did i just read this sentence
Cooper Smith
I'm trying to write dialogue for a project, please tell me if it 'works' >"Does suicide mean anything to you? That man just tried to kill himself!" >"So what, now I have to treat him like a saint because he tried to neck himself? He's still a shit bag, just because he got all sad doesn't change the fact that he constantly putting a knife in every one's back! >"He's in desperate need of help!" >"No, he's in desperate need of a better rope.'
Jace Adams
Seems a bit unrealistic, especially the last comment. Maybe you could include some of the asshole statements as dialogue, some as thought?
Michael Miller
Thanks for the perspective, I want to get across a strong hatred towards the mentioned character. I'm not much of a writer, but I want to make good dialogue. Any good resource for that?
Jackson Davis
Rate my triolet:
Nay; I’ll weep in the sun’s arms now-- No more shall I float in love’s shallows; To say the sun has no such vow. . . Nay--I’ll weep in the sun’s arms now, And sink the oars as mine eyes trough, And, in my trek through this blithe lake, No more shall I float in love’s shallows, Nay; I’ll weep in the sun’s arms now. I'd like to critique any classical/traditional poetry that anyone may have.
Jack Adams
I am listening to the perfect song for this
Easton Wilson
Yeah. Awful painting. It's not even painted in period blood. Op is such a pleb. True art is an expression of the sufferings of oppressed women, PoCs and or homosexuals, everything else is trash.
John Nelson
what are you cucks doing get in here
Levi Gonzalez
warning: just read up a little on the form
You're voice feels like it is a bit antiquated, but I'm not sold it is working for the emotive punch you could have in the piece. I think if you wrote in more natural speech this could be more direct, and the form itself might feel less constricting (allowing you to adhere to the rhyme completely, which I don't think is necessary)
The primary grievance I have is with the 'nay' and how almost silly it sound. The other repeated line is p darn good though.
>And sink the oars as mine eyes trough this is hard to parse and not especially rewarding when you do
>trek the use of swimming/rowing/walking simultaneously is interesting, and I think I would find a way to push this even harder if you could.
finally, don't be afraid to enjamb dude. i really did like the piece p well though, I just think you'd benefit more from me bitching
pic-related's a sonnet (Vanilla, I know, but I most write in free verse or my own forms)
Title is bad,
>And lets astray lover’s hands you mean led?
>love’s illusory, listless
the alliteration is grating
>In Abyssal depths this kind of purply language feels boring. depths by itself would work just fine
>wine-dark seas
at least use wine-dark on something besides the Ocean if your gonna allude to Homer like that. too on the nose.
Josiah Perry
Sample first paragraph: With the immediacy of a shut off faucet, the street din mellowed out as he closed and locked the heavy door behind him. He entered into the dimly lit foyer, the stench of yeast on his lips. Solemnly and slowly he hung his dreary coat, and having it secured, grazed his hand across it. Rough, dry, bumpy with lint. This was no way to present himself. He had been lucky enough to be invited to such a distinguished event and yet he still disappointed. Appearance is everything; that is the law of business and even life itself. The old mantra of the company. What does it matter to feel, mortally? He looked about the wide display of lined coats, possessed by full figures of men and women elsewhere, and lamented the fact that he was neither professional nor as suave as his peers. He envisioned them now, underneath the strung levitating lanterns’ urine leer, brows shaded and giving way gleaming perfect teeth, grinning at some obscure joke told in such elegant accents, their forms intermingling until they became indistinguishable and eternal. No, he was neither professional nor suave and he could not fake it. A woman should've dressed him, but he had no wife and he could not live with his mother at such an age.
>memegereau turboplebs get mad someone says their shit is shit and truly, it's cute one of you starts the same old whataboutism about period blood, yes, your knowledge of visual history amounts to period blood paintings and degenerated academicism, that's why you like what you like
Ryan Harris
Rhythm is tough on my inner conscious
Aaron Hughes
rather diffuse and sluggish. lots of articles, prepositions and pronouns, so it becomes hard to forgive the repetition of nouns. the latter isn't necessarily a no-go, but it doesnt feel like much happened by the time i reach the end. something about day and night, and the sky, and color (or lack of color). your adjectives seldom do much to add texture - 'nightworn' 'steelborn' 'reborn' feels plodding, like filler - there isn't enough sensuality to this language, not enough density. last line is a dud.
on the plus the structure's good and you seem to have a good ear for enjambments.
Easton Rodriguez
Yeah, I've been getting that alot. Too many adjectives?
Isaiah Collins
Excellent post
Joshua James
Yeah and adverbs. I'm also not really prose writer so don't take my word. It just seems, from a reader's POV, really unnatural
Anthony Bailey
you have a great ear dude, almost every sentence charges with an anglo saxon gallop, like middle english poetry. maybe you should be writing verse
cause as it stands it kinda reads like dostoevsky acquired an inexplicable chaucerian accent after a bizarre epileptic brain attack
Noah Butler
>To drink the draught.
This kills the rhythm. You need to work hard to get it back for the "Fears hove" part. It's too abrupt.
Otherwise pretty good. Some of the enjambment just confuses the rhythm where you have obvious full stops.
Elijah Rogers
I don't know how to take this.
Aiden Jenkins
I gave the first couple pages a read over. You have potential if you do what you're doing once in awhile when you have a particularly strong comparison, metaphor, or image. Tighten that shit up.
Aiden Turner
...
Andrew Cruz
Yeah finish it senpai
Adrian Foster
I know this probably isn't very good, but it was mostly just a practice in blank verse. So critique about the meter and such is much appreciated
Jacob Cook
I can't because it's just the same mistake over and over again. You're too loose with your words, you want to cram every cool word you can into it and you don't care how many past progressives you use. What you don't realize yet is that your prose actually takes away from your story. I could make a hundred suggestions to tighten it up, as I had started to but I have my own work to worry about and I'd get pissed watching you pick and choose which of my advice to take.
Gavin Kelly
Stylistic difference? I did take a lot of your advice but I'm unsure what you want from me. I'm guessing you want me to cut?
Hudson Perry
I'll think about it. I would say the abundance of your flourishes hurts readability. You introduced the point of his narration, about the woman, at the right moment to keep me reading but you continued to obscure things by getting a little too fancy. I don't need bare bones but sometimes making a sentence or a thought sound shorter or read shorter will be better.
Austin Turner
Oh and I understand when you're too 'close' to the writing, been looking at it too long, you're thinking all those descriptions in the exact way you wrote them are essential. But They're not
Jordan Green
I understand what you mean. The original draft had way shorter sentences and I compounded alot of those sentences. Also I realized I used "as if" way too fucking much. I can show you the original draft but it's really rough.
Landon Jackson
I like it. Mostly the idea is nice. I think you can trim it down to about 4-5 lines though. Try removing most of the proper nouns, especially Yellowstone, that's such a shitty word and the title, along with American Vesuvius, makes it clear enough what you're talking about.
The Count of the Saxon Shore
I am the Count of the Saxon Shore Bound to toil in hopeless war Upon the sand with shield and spear Awaiting death in helpless fear
Until the end, that fateful day I must protect the Roman way The women strong, the children tall Soon all we feel Britannia fall
For now appear the demons' sails The women weep, the children wail I muster arms against the tide Let my poor fate the gods decide
When vict'ry sings her precious song If time and nature proves she wrong I'll raise my voice and cry once more "I am the Count of the Saxon Shore!"
But if in blood I'm doomed to drown I must put low my sorry crown Then strike out West to fight no more Forgotten, the loss of the Saxon Shore
Juan Mitchell
"Soon we all feel Britannia fail" is a bit on the clumsy side.
Logan Gomez
I recommend the naturalists in translation, they basically do what you're aiming to do
Aiden Long
Thanks, can I critique whatever you're working on?
Matthew Thompson
Nice quads Read the first page or two of Germinal online. It's a good example of how to put all that description in while still giving the reader a very concrete visual and not detracting from the story at all. As for me, I'm still doing my own editing, then I'll send it to my friends then I'll let it get memed on. If you ever read about a strange jam, you'll know it's mine.
