/lit/ - Literature

Show, don't tell. There are many elements of this situation you don't have to tell us, but do anyway, keep it sparse, edit stuff out.

Also only crap gets published and the Earth will die in 5 billion years to what's the point anyway?

>>10986973
Thanks. Could you specify which parts you think I didn't have to tell? This way I know what to edit out and what to avoid when writing in the future. Thanks a lot!

>>10986964
What an interesting work of... fiction.

no need to make another critique thread when there´s two up already

>>10986993
Kek. That's what I was thinking.

If OP wants to be published he'll need to find a subject that others want to read about.

>>10986977
>teddybear, imagining the teddy bears stubby arms
*its stubby arms*
Just one easy example.

>>10987108
Makes sense. I've been looking over it since you commented this as well and found several more, you were right. It looks much better with these changes.

>>10986973
>>10986993
>>10987079
>>10987108
I don't mean to fish for a compliment here but do you think, based on this piece, and understanding that this is one of the first things I wrote after a little practice, that I have any shred of talent as a writer?

>>10987248
There is no innate talent for writing. It's 99% continuing to write and hone your craft. You can write coherent sentences, which is more than many people in the critique threads here can do. But this is just three paragraphs, there's no way anyone can tell you whether you're gonna "make it" or not

>>10987248
It's not bad. How this would work on full lwngth and how story and themes play out in the full work is of xourse at least as importamt

La cuve

Il est, il est sur terre une infernale cuve,
On la nomme Paris ; c'est une large étuve,
Une fosse de pierre aux immenses contours
Qu'une eau jaune et terreuse enferme à triples tours
C'est un volcan fumeux et toujours en haleine
Qui remue à longs flots de la matière humaine ;
Un précipice ouvert à la corruption,
Où la fange descend de toute nation,
Et qui de temps en temps, plein d'une vase immonde,
Soulevant ses bouillons, déborde sur le monde.

Là, dans ce trou boueux, le timide soleil
Vient poser rarement un pied blanc et vermeil ;
Là, les bourdonnements nuit et jour dans la brume
Montent sur la cité comme une vaste écume ;
Là, personne ne dort, là, toujours le cerveau
Travaille, et, comme l'arc, tend son rude cordeau.
On y vit un sur trois, on y meurt de débauche ;
Jamais, le front huilé, la mort ne vous y fauche,
Car les saints monuments ne restent dans ce lieu
Que pour dire : Autrefois il existait un Dieu.

Là, tant d'autels debout ont roulé de leurs bases,
Tant d'astres on

>>10987248
You have no confidence and therefore no hope.

>>10986964
Grace carried an empty bowl into the kitchen, where her mother was preparing dinner. The sweet smell of sweet potatoes, the whoosh of the gas burner, the bubbling of butter. Outside the wind blew, and in the grey outside a steady rain fell. Grace stood next to her mother in silence, and then lifted the bowl toward her.
“Can I help?” She asked. “I have a bowl.”
Her mother was peeling an onion over the sink.
“What’s a goddamn bowl gonna do, Grace?”
“You can put things in it. Scraps, onions, water.”
“No, you can’t. Fuck off, dear.”
Grace lowered the bowl to her hip, huffed, thought why do they hate me? and hurried upstairs.
She slumped down her bed. The smell was stronger up there, the appetizing scents rising with heat. She breathed it in, imagined some household of servants below toiling away in the kitchen, for her and her only. Her and her wealthy, intelligent husband. Her and her cats and books. Her and anyone but them.
“Jews,” she whispered, and went to sleep.

>>10986964
Just a little scribble I worked on, I tried to listen to some of the advice that I got the last time I posted and worked more on the flow and syllable count. Baby's first poetry.
>I want to go running
>I want to be so stunning
>With my muscles shining
>I know it is shallow
>But if it's for a hallow
>Image or even two
>Let me a be a shooting star

>>10988228
definitely babby's first. it's definitely hard to know what separates The Waste Land from whatever contemporary stuff gets pumped out of the gutters of the academy nowadays without taking a course on it, and that means diving into the gutters yourself...

poetry is really hard to teach or critique. the important thing is to learn what kinds of poetry are out there already. you're definitely familiar with formal poetry, the kind that cares about syllables and feet, and you've made an attempt at that I think? so the things to pay attention to are the patterns. less important that you rhyme, more important that you understand what you're writing in the same way that any poet would read it.

I'll take your first two lines as an example.

"I want to go running" isn't just five words, or six syllables. it's also a set of emphasis. an english speaker (or at least I) will naturally emphasize i WANT to GO run ING. your second line has a totally different set of emphases. it has a different number of syllables, so there's no way that it could match the first, but it also has emphasis on STUN, which is your rhyme in the first place. if these two lines don't match their rhyming syllable, then the reader doesn't easily draw the connection. ('ing' is the last syllable of both lines, but it's not really a rhyme. stun and run rhyme, 'ing' and 'ing' is repetition. (yes, self-rhyme is a thing, but don't mess with that until later.))

and looking formally at the structure as a whole, other than the two 'I want to' at the beginning and the tries at rhyming, there's not much connecting the poetry together.

I think instead of worrying about the structure too much you should try to focus on the emotion. technical stuff like feet and rhyme is a big barrier to beginner writers that mostly just trips them up before they get a good grasp on it. you can rework stuff to find the perfect word later, the important part of writing is to get stuff down on paper first.

>>10988785
Wow, thank you a lot for the long advice. I would really love to try writing poetry in Croatian however my vocabulary and grammar is so poor in it, however in English despite having the technical knowledge (or at least I would like to believe) I don't have the speakers flow or true understanding of the feel which is why I often struggle with humor when talking to English speaking folk.

>>10988228
Worked on it a bit to make it more expressive and tighten the syllables up
>I want my feet running with the train track
>with shining sweat drops dropping down my back
>for the good village girls in dresses
>to be caught undressing at the sight
>of a restless boy with big muscles
All I wrote for now, but holy shit it took a lot of effort

>>10986964
Your writing is ok, to short to really form an opinion.
>He awoke moments later, alarmed by the foreign white noise of complete silence.
Alarmed by a noise = ok
Alarmed by a noise of complete silence = garbage
Sentences should be filled with stuff that matters.

He logged on to his computer. When the desktop popped up he hovered over to the taskbar and opened up google chrome. I'm fine by the way. The computer might show its world to me. It doesn't make sense to me. But it's alright now. It's my kind of computer. I'm down on my hands and knees deep into moms spaghetti. The German Schwarzwald has got that shitty erosion once a year. A black stream of shit will fall in a downward motion downwards and pushed out into a stream of fluids that we have been calling the Donau since Europe is a thing. Now that we are talking about shit we might also start with that immigrant problem we have. The chap with the brown skin and the big dick. The Arian girl with her blue eyes blond hair, a milkmaid. There she is, being culturally enriched by the chap. A spectacle of supernormality in front of me. Aren't they meant to be together?

>>10989236
yeah, just keep at it. write in whatever language you want, some of the greatest writers wrote in their third or fourth language. keep all the stuff you write somewhere easily accessible, like a notebook, and when you read it again a day or two later, you can see how to improve it. read a lot of poetry in the style that you like, too.

the new one is also a lot more poetic, I like it more. the lines get shorter as you come to the end, and that sort of gives a suspended feeling

>>10986964
>mfw can't post my poems in critique threads because they're in Romanian

I have been working on this piece of shit for way too long. Please help me to make the next thing better. I tried posting this in the old thread but it died.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AiX8XiQY8sHY6OPDR5_iz0uEnmNkA4HUU7LXf1nNd7s/edit?usp=sharing

I don't know if you guys remember me, but our Violas Illustrated book is getting released next month, /lit/.

In the mean time, we made another book (pic). An erotica featuring 3 different stories about lesbian love with tons of melodrama. We already sent it for publication and we could use some critics for it before we receive the results of the evaluation.
Anyone wanna give it a read?

>https://sigilworks.wordpress.com/2018/01/14/beloved-portrait-of-hers/
2 stories are still lacking illustrations if you don't mind

>>10989323
God awful

>>10991646
>She is a master who fall prey to the beauty of her own works
*falls
You switched tense from earlier in the paragraph. This could easily be changed to. "She was a master who sometimes fell prey to the beauty of her own works."

>While she is disappointed at being interrupted, a smile crossed her lips
Past and present tense in a single sentence. Watch out, bro.

>I heard a small gasp followed by a delighted word “Oh wait, I haven’t dressed myself yet.”
A delighted word? There are multiple words in the dialogue here. Is only one of them said in a delighted tone of voice? If so, which one?

>She greeted me with attire that is damp from a rushed dressing
Tense switching and "from a rushed dressing" is awkward. Maybe "from getting dressed in a rush" would go better here.

In conclusion, you've gotta get your tenses sorted out.

Shat this out yesterday. Tear me a new one.

The hands of women
softly pressed upon
each other

Skin
melding like cloud banks
making space for rounded cells

bricks of wind
God's mortar binding them
together

as though to stay put
or to disintegrate
would mean the same

the hands of women
with black and red
and brown and grey
nail polish

like eyes set
upon everlasting necks
reaching out to for water
for pencils
for each other

the hands of women
tender stalks with sweet-smelling branches
acid fruit lingers on the leaves
and I sit beneath them
waiting for the juices to dissolve me
completely

Shat this out yesterday. Tear me a new one.

The hands of women
softly pressed upon
each other

Skin
melding like cloud banks
making space for rounded cells

bricks of wind
God's mortar binding them
together

as though to stay put
or to disintegrate
would mean the same

the hands of women
with black and red
and brown and grey
nail polish

like eyes set
upon everlasting necks
reaching out for water
for pencils
for each other

the hands of women
tender stalks with sweet-smelling branches
acid fruit lingers on the leaves
and I sit beneath them
waiting for the juices to dissolve me
completely

>>10992389
Can you not make it rhyme?

>>10993967
Do you want it to rhyme or are there rhymes there that I haven't notice and you're asking me to correct?

I wrote it as free verse, didn't want it to rhyme

Like ships in the night we called to each other, over the wideness of our going and all remembrance, and into the other thing, the sweet thing, at times, when breathing got to be a little tiresome, and love couldn’t find us in the garden paths. Be strong my soul. You were made for the cold, and lighted windows past all curfew, one man alone with the well of his heart. I walk because I was born, round sweet fires the color of streetlights, round so many beautiful mouths I belt my tenpenny song, body of a lighter self drowsing on white shores nameless. Where waves like daybreak sang me to wakefulness, and I beheld a silence, star-like. It doesn’t matter. Life’s a bitch until you die. Let me tell you. One Sunday you’ll wake up shouting I’m Not Afraid (and out of the corner of my eye I saw you, dancing).

Never in the life of Agamemnon
Had rivers ate their young
Now streets crash and burn
And those the great Gods
Who needed to eat their children
To sustain. Now heaven is upon us
And the skies draw signs.

Cursed is the house of Israel
Cursed is the house of Druze
Let the debts squander the
Livers of beasts, let the debts
Understand their wrongs set
Before truths unnerved,
Goodness reigns in the lust
Of man's self same self,
Need not we, he who once walked
Crumpled under foot paths,
That jews once stained
Let them see with eyes perversely
Enveloped with flesh supple
And supplicate me now

Last Friday, I was attended with the others in my office - what proved to be a shallow sort of meeting, in which all was expected to pull a smile and not pass up Margorie’s cake bites.
Esprit des corps or something. Tenements of teamwork? With some striving between, I thought to myself.
Wasn’t long before her tray was empty that we had to stand around and pretend like we didn’t all want to go home and catch whatever was on. Some of the older women with their procedurals, I trust, now pedalling to their DVR. An anchor with perfect teeth. Put her to sleep, Joe. Then hands, gently - The boss-man takes me out of it -
“We enjoyed it very much, Marj.”
She does a bob of sorts. I can’t tell if she’s embarrassed or it’s the makeup.
Put her to sleep with your murdertales, that jaw of yours won’t keep him . . .
He won’t let me. Putz around.
“Well
He sweeps some crumbs from his pink poplin, dug from the gut where a thousand cakes must lie.
I know I enjoyed it.”
He laughs. That’s our cue. We laugh. And the mnemonic joint in the pamphlet on his desk, with the standing woman over the sitting man, Just settling some files, Nance, goes over smoothly. Light resistance.
A man fishes the keys in his pocket. They round like hawks - Normally, this conference room - pushed from the open and unwalled office, shoved into the boss’ sinus - makes for HR reviews . . . Lots of pamphlets . . . They send us like infantrymen to clients. How many conference rooms have I known? Taupe . . . blending in . . .
Someone says my name.
I don’t appreciate to be taken out of my inner life. Sometimes, even I -
“Klein.”
A short, fat man has a hand on me.
“This is sore, huh?”
“What?”
“I said, This Is Sore, Huh?”
I almost laugh, his repeating huh.
“Oh, yeah. Sure.”
He’ll go away. In the end, remove his hand . . . Eyeing . . . Now, this means I’ll have to nod when I pass him. Something I can’t handle. Christ, if he mentions barbecue . . .
I don’t care to bitch with others. That’s the conversation . . . Our whole topic - sports radio to parenting.
“Klein?”
“Yeah.”
“You catch that Pats game?”
“Yeah. Was something.”

>>10994435
Reads like some esoteric line. Like the idea but if you're trying to go within any sort of guideline I'd metre.

>>10994737

I felt unwell, and had decided to ease it out on the sofa. - God knows, the hours gone.
By the fluorescent lights - I could make out . . . two female shapes - Not just by light, but by gossip; by light the motions joined in. What were they yammering about? The hand motions, typical - Mating birds, I thought. - If I was thinking at all.
“It’s awful isn’t it?”
“Yes, it’s terrible. But that’s what happens. You’re not meant to step out . . . and like that? . . . with both children?”
Who again? . . . Someone they know? . . . Celebrity? . . . I suppose it didn’t matter. What made the difference - that they discussed this all within earshot . . .
I think I’d seen them before. Yes? Two middleaged women, closer than phonecords? . . . A celebrity, then.
They were wearing large orangepeel gowns now; sliding from the top cushion, down bottom, to the floor. They looked like exotic birds . . . Perched on my branch, my head, and my sofa . . .
Maybe an hour had passed. They were still there? I say, doubting in the long blur from the couch across the secretarial desk -
The boss is chatting with a young blonde secretary. What likes, little known - Sometimes, they surprise you. From such and such university . . . Is he fucking her? No, clearly not. He wants to, though . . . She knows it . . . Promoted, no blowjob necessary. Give him eyes, wear a skirt. Something, something -
Surveying . . . I can’t get a hold of myself. I couldn’t, I mean - that Friday.

>>10990414
post them bro

>>10994737
>>10994743
This is a comedy

As above,
So below --
or so the saying goes.
I don't know quite who says that,
but I have to wonder:
why not as before,
so from now?
Looking out on the black bay, it's tough
to see the blue of the day.
But, look hard enough,
and you'll still see those little ripples from the wind.
The Neptune fabric.
The details, not the color, is what matters.
Time, too, doesn't matter:
what matters, now, is that we remember the beauty of our past days
and in passion, in revelry,
in Love --
memorialize it every night.
Let it keep living.

the anger of quiet slaves

The walled-off cobblestone of castle steep beyond cloudwisp and stars cast long shadows to drift across the molder fields. Fingerbones snapped backward, those slovenly peasants who till blood soil for their betters. Quiet, to whisper in soft voices the conscious echo wardrum beating to brake Kingly neck for that newfound rebellion: fostered animosity with hatred harbored dark heart, the lowly: risen to smash fine like wanton whores those walled cobblestones to rancid rubble, rabble with torch and pitchfork set kindle and pitch to burn those grand homes sheltered now no-longer. Anger-lit backdrop black smoke to bubble k-nightly skyward so the stars are blotted and the cloudwisps turned black.

-- Hang the King! they shout. Hang that living effigy bound scrawny scrawling neck to hoist up the High Post, that he may watch the world built on the backs of slaves be burnt nigh asunder!

And eyes— those eyes made like gold and coal cold disdain for his lessers— examine the flame from that topped High Post, hemp rope wrapped to red-line throat and purple lips; left the flies to feast rot maggots from his opulent visage, that the flies alone become new Kings

https://pastebin.com/nh4RgBdQ

blz repsond it's a warhammer fantasy character description

>>10986964
>Peter quickly hid his homework in case Mom found it and tried to rip up his books again while telling him he’ll never amount to anything.
I really don't like the end of that sentence it's very awkward, learning how to not make things sound like this is a step towards good writing. "while telling him he'll never amount to anything" just doesn't work with the rest of the action in that sentence. I think it's because the first part of the sentence is very active and continuous and the latter part is so restricted to just a moment. If you want it to be better maybe say something like "insulting him" or "verballing abusing him" (no need to be too specific). Let me know what you speak

Cars belonged to the evening as it fell beside the town and all its drive-throughs. A miasma of earth and tar began to rise in the air with the drizzle. It was a long and welcome wet season that had by now learned to settle. It savoured the relief of the people, must have sensed their aesthetic fancies: midnights released a sudden downpour, letting them wake in bed and listen; winds blew the rain in the same shape of spirals conceptualised on weather radars; it came down from the north in the afternoon just like all the fathers said it would; and in the waking hours of the night it rained at a canter to keep them company, they watched thin sheets of water run the surface of the road, drinking the yellow light of the street lamps, braying mists from palm trees in the gusts that came and went.

Homes sank beneath tall weeds. Push bikes were left lying out in the rain. Water dominated the conversation. Local crime came in at a close second. They said it was all the fault of that ice business. It had single mothers firmly in its grip. Didn’t help that no one ever got punished for it either. Especially those little black ones. In a suburb built up by warehouses made for industry and auto-repairs, where old Queenslanders rotted, men and women loitered outside shopping centres in board shorts and spaghetti strapped singlets. Rubber tyres slid on the wet bitumen. Groups of teenagers crossed the road slowly even when headlights came up behind them. Old men wrote the newspaper that weekend. “Harsher punishments! Greg B., Kirwan”. A house went up in a massive fire. It burned in the face of the rain. They said it was lucky no one lived there but it was probably set by someone. The shape of two empty storeys stood still the day after, the smell of ash was strong in the moisture, all the refuse sank into the mud and blackness ran in the gutters out the front.

Writing isn't for you, op. Have you tried therapy?

>>10997533
Why should anyone critique this? Who reads it but you?

>>10999175
True, but a general critique would be good desu. What about this:

He didn’t dig in his spurs. Muscle memory had done it for him. Here he was, riding a flurry of hooves, pursued by a dozen or so behind. They were calling him. He couldn’t tell if they were jeers, roars or pleas. All sounds merged into one. Rattling backwood cobbles. Whinnying steeds. The thump of his racing heart competed with the stallion’s beneath. Instinct had overpowered agency, booting aside passion and reason for control. He was lucky it had. This was the first time he’d been crept upon. Other attempts on him had been foiled - his keen senses discerning them a league away. Only a few moments of blissful rest gave them their chance. Never again, he swore.

Was he in Stirland? Ostermark? Possession made the mind cloudy. Time warped. The chase could’ve lasted hours, or minutes. Night’s shroud only made things worse. He was funneled in. Grim pines blurred into a perpetually closing taper, looking as if to swallow him whole. On and on they stretched, their depths barely pierced by the light of assailant torches behind. Glimpses back revealed little. Shadows hid beneath peaked sallets. The closest’s breastplate shone brightest, its linseed-blackened surface bearing painted livery of some sort. When he first turned his head, he thought it might be the Bastards’ grouse. The next, a cockatrice. Another peek, the growling maw of a bear. Each time shadows contorted the emblem and rendered it anew. Regardless, they’d be hired men, arrayed by some local opportunist seeking favor with his half-brothers.

Sense began to return. He could feel focus restored, clarity washing over him as he assessed his situation. The enemy had lost their momentum. Cheap rounceys were no match for his courser’s pedigree, all gusto exerted on the slip. Their benefactor’s avarice had cost them the advantage. Horst was happy to exploit it. Dull spikes goaded Funsel’s flanks, driving the beast into an enraged gallop. Snorting, huffing, biting, the horse bolted, its ebon coat beginning to meld into increasing blackness as it outpaced its inferiors. A blessed crossroads surfaced from the gloom. Horst’s speed gave little chance to decide the way. He didn’t need to. Reprieve from the closest call to ending his liberty was enough - a reluctant praise given to Ranalt escaped his lips. Blitzing on an unknown course, the horse and rider made good their escape. Soon the hunting party’s cacophony lessened, their frustrated yells gradually melting away.

https://youngadultfrictionblog.wordpress.com/2018/04/01/best-bet-worst-ex/

>>10989236
I tried expanding it a bit. By far the last verse was the hardest to write and I have a feeling the meta commentary doesn't really add anything.
>I want my feet running with the train track
>With shining sweat drops dropping down my back
>For the good village girls in dresses
>To be caught undressing at the sight
>Of a restless boy with big muscles

>I know that it is shallow
>But if just for a hallow
>image or hell- even two
>Inbetween the flicker
>Of your slippery finger
>-on your Instagram feed, let me be
>The boy of the hair of
>Glowing summer time wheat-...

>Oh okay, I get it, I've gone on
>Long enough now- you get it too
>Behind these loans called
>Poems, you can see clearly
>That under the skin I wish
>Was not mine, bones are breaking
>Trembling, and also shaking
>What can I say
>The inside is just as weak
>I don't let my appearances deceive

>>11000462
prefer this one. It flows nicer.

>>11001324
>>I want to go running
>>I want my feet running with the train track
>>I want to go
>>I want my feet
the first poem as a whole was garbage but the first line there was better than this one. Take your thumb and use it to cover up all the unread lines, see how it changes the poem. I'm not saying you should use the original line verbatim though.

>>11001869
>unread lines
words, I mean, in the line as you read it, and in the rest of the lines for that matter

>>11001879
I read this post at least ten times and I'm still not sure what you meant.

Haven't written for a while, wanted to share. Comments welcome.

https://pastebin.com/9D7nzuHz

At least the pedo thread is dead. What a cross-trolling, shit-posting disaster meta-vomit radioactive waste dump that one turned into. At least this one is back to god old fashioned novice verse scribble and introspection overload posing as fiction is GREAT! going nowhere slobber fiction, like God intended. To the guy who posted the Dad passage, sorry you didn't get any bites, better luck next time. To the bot that responded to the question about stories, your code doesn't even recognize capitalization - the last question is a story by Asimov, made of meat is an award winning story originally appearing in Omni magazine, and if you don't know hills like white elephants, you deserve to die here.

>>11004232
Who cares?

>>10990414
Ia bagă, boss. Sunt numai ochi, urechi și șervețele umede (pentru când o să mă cac pe mine citindu-ți creațiile).

i wasn't there
during wwii
but some trusted sources
illuminated me
thanks uncle michael
for the birthday money
it was really nice
i haven't read milton
just the criticism
by graves
who i hold on a very high perch
lots of love
to you and yours
from connor

read my short story you fucks!
It's in italian tho

>>11004875
I only understood after party and screaming for Mommy. Is this a story about a grand trek to the kitchen for tendies?

>>11004906
This is fun. Ok, I know you can't understand it, but do you think it's well written?

>>11004917
Let's see, some loser named Luigi gets salty at Mr. Frei for banging his mom and plays video games to cope. Did I miss anything? I'd probably read it

West wind through treetops
what a sacrilege to speak
let the birds do it

say salivate, not drool

please read my indulgent shit. tell me what if anything is good. r8 my prose. Tell me what to drop. I would never publish this.

Greyhound terminals exist outside of time. If in search of an authentic urban experience yet limited to a minor metropolitan area, your local Greyhound terminal is a reliable bet. Every terminal is the same terminal. Grey and more grey and background noise brands. The space within strikes you as derelict, up to the air, stale from chronic respiration by the heavy lunged itinerant. The place is sore, like many buildings never fully vacated, the lively dull hum of architecture not allowed to stretch out.
This is the true Greyhound brand; many temples, concrete, forgotten, and numinous, coursing with the constancy of a vast webbed system, a whirlpool of metal and people volleyed cross-country and ratcheting their way down long dark highways.
A man in the terminal of Sangria, New Mexico, heart of downtown, for a simple there-and-back trip, a personal matter. He has never taken a trip which was not a personal matter. The people in here are either in fear or the cause of it. Not that the fearful's fear is legitimate or called-for; it is the shameful fear those with wakeful lives tend to hold for people who wander and never stay, dirty, dreaming, hungry. Seen as a hazard, an unfortunate and unavoidable side-effect of so many concentrated lives. Features on the city's wretched urban face.
Incoming, he doesn't intend to spend much time absorbing the building's stained inbetweens. A quick trip to the restroom and he heads for the front, and on his way out a younger guy sort of dogs behind him, asking something about is he a "traveler" too, and at first it seems he's just addressing the general space, but no he's addressing him, jovial, about how if he only had some bud to smoke, prying, likely reading possession in the man's character or step, correctly. Whether mad and untrustworthy or harmless and eccentric is hard to tell but he's not troubled when the harasser's distracted by someone more willing to pay attention.
Outside the temperature drops and the air is slick, the city washed a murky old blue. Most of the buildings here are defined by their decrepitude, serving an unknown purpose if any at all anymore. He pauses outside to breathe it all in, give it a spiraling glance and see the locality, unmaintained asphalt and steel, ornate colossi jutting. And a woman outside the Greyhound, she mistakes this commotion for a sort of naïve newcomer awe, and Get out while you still can she warms him, laughing. Cynical wisdom from an urban sage. Smiling he tells her that he's no stranger to this town, a revolution of nostalgia. She just smiles tight-lipped as he turns towards the bus stop. He steps up on board and clunks slowly towards lower buildings.

>>11006129
Opening is over authoritive and dull.

>Greyhound terminals exist outside of time.

Greyhounds terminals exist with their own mind, their own time frame, with traffic pomp and sublime.

Idk, but it's currently to choppy, and doesn't carry to the next verse, in thought.

>>11006194
Yeah true. I was trying to come up with something better but kept overwriting it.

>>11006386
It's okay to over write if you descend back slowly into your pose.

The taste is all the same. The blood in your mouth and up your teeth and choking down your throat is all the same. Day in and day out the blood dripping down your nose from your sliced thighs to your pricked fingers to your stabbed paunch, it all feels the same. Your violated self and the self in your conscience screaming out, to get out, both feel the same thing. The rage you feel when your tied up, choked up, spat on, shat on, feels the same. It never stops, wont stop, shouldnt stop, it cant stop, and if it did stop, what would you feel? It wouldnt feel the same, would it?

>>11003288
don't look at the whole sentence at once, progress like you're reading something you haven't read before

>>10997303
>As above,
>So below --
>or so the saying goes.
Absolutely perfect, love this intro a lot!.

>I don't know quite who says that,
>but I have to wonder:
>why not as before, // replace "as" with "like" and it will sound better, imho.
>so from now? // I would remove this line. It doesn't make grammatical sense and ruins the psuedo-rhythm you've built with the previous stanza.

>Looking out on the black bay, it's tough // I would rewrite this first line to something like "Look out upon the black bay" to pull the reader/listener in towards the poem and get them involved. The command form will give this excerpt much more power to the poem.
>to see the blue of the day.
>But, look hard enough,
>and you'll still see those little ripples from the wind. // remove "still".

>The Neptune fabric. // Remove "the".
>The details, not the color, is what matters. // Remove "the"
>Time, too, doesn't matter:
>what matters, now, is that we remember the beauty of our past days

("The" is a word that is often overused in poetry. You don't need to include it most of the time, unless its used to keep rhythm. Even then, one would be cautious to include it. I recommend all new poets check for instances of words like "the" within their poems and scrutinize them harshly.)

>and in passion, in revelry, // Remove "and". Its an awkward word to start a line with.
>in Love -- // remove capitalization.
>memorialize it every night.
>Let it keep living.

Don't capitalize words randomly. You're not Dickinson.

'Good poem. Needs some polish. 7.8/10

>>10989323
>Alarmed by a noise of complete silence = garbage
Not OP but it made sense to me, he's trying to say that there are no sounds but the white noise that you might hear in the middle of nowhere or in a sound proof vault. Your suggested change removes that aspect, rather than make it better.

>>10986964
Youre too on the nose, too willing to give away what should be held back, and you are rushing. There is no sense of trying to set a scene. You can really tell that you dont want the story to stay here and just want to get keep moving on because you already know the plot. But we dont.

>Mom’s screams filled every square inch of the house. It’s happening again, I hope she’s not mad at *me* this time

Already no breathing room. There should be some description, some pacing, between "house." and "It's happening again", and between "It's happening again" and "*me*".

You should make use wonder, make us anticipate what is going on. Even if you decide that you cant, that this story right here needs a faster introduction, the pacing needs to be improved. You would need to make it feel breathless, or chopped up to create some effect on the reader.

You need to cut out the *me*, thats below even a novice.

>Peter quickly hid his homework in case Mom found it and tried to rip up his books again while telling him he’ll never amount to anything.

This is better. It has a rhythm, things are happening and it isnt so focused on DO YOU FEEL THE EDGE?? and actually lets the scene do something. However by the end it already is getting bad again

>he'll never amount to anything
too generic. If your writing was better than this would be fine because it is a character saying it, but no, you cant do that yet. Everything is too weak and generic, and this isnt helping. Read some Carver. Salinger, or Hemingway. See how they can make dialogue stick, even when its something simple and common.

>He quickly took two Ibuprofen in anticipation of a stress headache and assumed a position that was now instinctual from Mom’s countless tantrums:

Again, far too on the nose. Far too quick. Far too edgy. You need to present these things, not just shove it down our throats.

>curled up on his bed, gripping his teddybear, facing the wall.
This is okay since the boy sounded older from tacking pills, but then it has a bit of a reveal that he is much younger, or far more sheltered.

>like a dog conditioned to drool at a whistle
No. Shut up. Just fuck off.

>Mom opened Peter’s door, screamed for a few seconds, looked for something to smash - a toy or something - but there were no toys left to smash. She looked at Peter’s trembling back, stormed out and slammed the door. Vibrations of smashing objects and loud foot steps shook Peter like bombs. He stifled his own whimpers into the teddybear's head. He missed Daddy. Like always in these situations,

Better. Meh.

> Peter thought of Daddy’s death in the war,
You forgot to mention how the mother likes to do heroin and fucks men while screaming how much better they are than my child's dead father

>Peter closed his eyes hard as if trying to wake up from a nightmare. His eyelids slowly gave out and he fell asleep.

This is not how people fall to sleep.

tldr
>>10986973
Show, dont tell
Keep writing

Come to the desert for sex with me. You know which one ;)

https://pastebin.com/04s3iVNq

Our skies are filled with oily strains
that run from goth to sapphire.
I wreck its paint with moods:
but scorches kill, and cool designs its ornaments through setting dew
The sun is cruel, and clouds are kind.

>>10998317
>A miasma of earth and tar began to rise in the air with the drizzle. It was a long and welcome wet season that had by now learned to settle
A "drizzle" is not strong enough weather to produce that effect, dust will only rise during at least thunderstorms

>>11006129
You've lost me in your first four sentences. The setting is boring, the prose is boring. I'll keep on though.
Damn this reads like you're a tourist. How often have you rode the greyhound? They're hardly all like this. Fuck man the one in ABQ is actually pretty interesting looking if you care for that NM flair. It's a trap, to write about things like this, when you don't even have any love for the space or people you want to right about. This is what I love about writing or trying to occupy some sort of mind and space--it's hard and takes time.
Your prose is obsessed with this sort of passing through; it's surface and weak. The naivete of you leaks out of every letter dripping.

Keep on writing though ito, I know it was just practice.

>she warms him, laughing

>>11006942
The whole world's violated by Sin. Get over yourself. Like me, so obviously so virtuous.
>Can't stop won't stop: the bad boy story
You a bad boy anon?

Location – Elysian fields/Wanderer W11 Kübelwagen

Narrator – Lauretta/Alice/the nubile Yogini Gerti Giggles from the 2nd Spy Kids flick

Decamerone

Giorno I – Brahmin – Χρυσό

Prathama Adhyaya

In the midst of two men, a manchild and a lobotomised Kennedy I approached the pages of my text. In the automobile were Herrn Heinrich Himmler at the wheel, recent Commerce postgraduate Mister Braddington, me on his lap reading what his Vaishya soul could never understand, Master Elliot Rodger leafing through Strindberg and Miss Rosemary Kennedy staring out the window in lobotomised confusion. I poked my head through the head rest and focussed my eyes on Rosemary.

>>11009272
Giorno III & IV – Dilat – Σkατά

Piglet

Rosemary was strapped to the bed. The doctor brought a screwdriver from an adjacent table, pointed it at her skull and begun to drill. She writhed underneath the pain of the machine. At some point the doctor stopped drilling and removed the apparatus from her skull. Little incision. Who would have thought it would have lead to this.

>>11009277
Giorno II – Brahmin – Χρυσό

Sankhya Yoga

Then I snapped Master Elliot Rodger‘s Strindberg closed and swung over on to his lap which he did not appreciate. I decided to tell the story of each of those in the automobile and not stop until I had reached the end.

>>11009283
Giorno V & VI – Shudra – Σιδήρου

Ἑπτὰ ἐπὶ Θήβας – Santa Barbara – Endgame - Καπανεύς

Τυδεύς

He sat resting against the wall of his dormitory room. In the cupboard were some deceased folk. He raised himself and left the room. He whispered the name of some girl to himself and repeated it many times. He had an obsession with some fair haired otherworldly creature which had revealed herself to him in his childhood. This was the creature he needed to destroy. He whispered an allusion to a moth eaten myth, seated himself in his BMW and drove, soon finding himself outside a kiosk.

Ἐτέοkλος

The members of the police force approached him as he stared at his blood bedecked right hand. They were to him an organisation lead by a matriarchy whose doctrine had clouded the dharma of the Occident and plunged it in to anarchy. As they lifted him from the car by the arms all he was filled with was defiant rage against Jove. His shirt was torn where the bullet had penetrated and with it his carefully calculated handsomeness.

Ἰππομέδοντος

He was placed in a small cold room. He did not weep nor writhe in regret- His only thoughts were on his failure to remove more of the wretched sex from this world. The image that had preoccupied him in the past- Of some naked teen with fair tresses beckoning him forth- No longer affected him- Out of nothingness grew a darkly coloured genius whose logos was mere destruction- Mere bloodshed against an unjust group of others. He crossed the room and was brought out of it. On the other end he found himself in Elysian fields. On the top of a Kubelwagen sat a nubile yogini practicing meditation while an older girl stared at a strand of her hair in confusion.

>>11009285
Giorno VII & VIII – Vaishya – Χάλkινο

He placed the glass upon the counter and looked over at his girl- Neotenous and shy. She could not stand to look at the man for too long and often stared in to space in boredom. He would purposefully place his large hands upon her body often which unsettled her but she ultimately dealt with it. At some point she grabbed his arm which he then countered with a quick and violent slap on her wrist which put her in her place. There was something reminiscent of the subproletarian in him- Lack of intelligence- Athleticism- Pugnacity- but without the trappings of relative poverty. The same could not be said for her but her ultimate lust to be raised out of or remain in the warm bath of some artificial sense of luxury was too strong- There of course had been many frail boys who were much more intelligent who she had brutally rejected for this- In trickery and secrecy for this. She stared often at the bespectacled and boyish child that had so embarassingly confessed his affections and she ultimately felt nothing for in her heart she knew nothing of the inner workings of a frail boy which in the end were of such heightened complexity in comparison to that of a silly girl that to even delve in to it is a matter for experts which she certainly was not. He took her chin and began to slobber against her blood filled lips which writhed in awkward convulsions underneath the activity as she stared at the frail boy across the room and no tear fell- Only the continued humming of a mechanical apparatus could be heard.

>>11009288
Giorno IX & FINAL – Kshatriya – Ασημένια

Gudrun Complex

AGRONOMY- There was a time when that is what defined him and not young athletic men in black outfits- Indeed there was even a time when part time jobs on chicken farms defined him not unlike his leader‘s forays in to the world of vagrancy- Indeed living under a bridge for some time- To understand the reality of Bacchanalian society you need to step back from it for some time- Be at the bottom- How long had he stood there feeding the chickens until he finally decided to join that oft criticised and ridiculed party, concerning himself with books on the occult so diligently? Oera Linda. Whoops! He rested himself against a tree and removed an image of his teenage daughter from his pocket. He then began to fornicate himself furiously- He was extremely unattractive as was his wife which lead him to wonder but also enjoy his daughter‘s radiant beauty. Gudrun- The name filled his phantasmagoria as his phallus began to bleed from overuse. He could not ejaculate out of pain and so returned the photograph to his pocket- This had been a ritual for some time now and as he practiced self fornication he felt a growth of some terrible fungus within his soul- Clouding the trajectory of civilisation which he now decided and he did not care- He simply did not care.

-

The car drove further in to the otherworld of Elysian fields as Rosemary peeked her head from the side of the automobile and I looked once again in to my text awaiting the next ten days and four new visitors.

Feel the pain, feel the joy, of a man who was still a boy

>>11009260
Ive ridden the Greyhound a lot and all I've encountered have been essentially unstable soulless buildings but I get what you're saying. The naivete remark was kinda harsh. This bit was supposed to be about passing through - it is one thing specifically.

And the warms was an obvious typo.

I think I need to find a good story I care enough to write and write it, personally.

Do you guys like my song

As a child I used to close my eyes,
And try to imagine what you'd look like.
A pale light in my dark imagination,
Sometimes you'd appear without any effort,
To keep me company and whisper things to me.
I knew one day I'd meet you in the real world.

I looked for you everywhere, in every pretty face.
But I was sad every time - I knew it wasn't you.
My heart got colder, used to disappointment:
Reality's desert wanderer, looking for a dream.
But then . . . an oasis of reality - a face,
A face so strange, yet so familiar.

I can't say I fell in love at first sight.
At first, I did not recognise you;
Until the scales fell from my eyes,
And your real identity was revealed . . .
I did not love you at first sight, but long before.
When I was a boy and first began to dream -
That's when I fell in love with you.

Still, I'm sorry I did not recognise you immediately.
I'd forgotten who you were because I'd forgotten who I was,
But now I know . . . thanks to you.
You are the reality God pulled out of my dream,
You are the dream that makes real this reality.
But you are more real than any of my old dreams,
That's why I call you my "Oldest Friend" and "First Companion."
This is a mystery I cannot describe, not even in poetry.

>>11009260
>you a bad boy anon?
i spent 2 minutes typing up a shitpost in word if that makes me a mad lad

All the people doing the same thing gained momentum. Earth’s streams put pressure against each other. The oil contract set the price of crude to 0.04 credits a barrel. Social credit scores plummeted. Intrigue began in the NorCon. Worldenders and insurgents moved through City as AI laid off the bureaucracy. Parties downtown vortexed and intensified. Walkers white knuckling bags between shopping experiences. President Russell was paraphrased saying that they were now in a struggle between self-esteem and justice. IS declared everything legal by executing the judiciary. The Minister of Defense was at sea.
Glous opened his eyes and unstuck his face from the damp spot on couch upholstery. His body shed numbness. Legs hanging over the edge of a loveseat, a sheet over bare torso. There was a table in front of him, covered in rolls of plastic bills, bottles, plates and pill jars. The night before was gone. Malmyn, was sleeping on a couch under a brown fur. He closed his eyes feeling each heart beat in behind them.
Video memories of him speeding from a meeting, putting another bar into mouth with one hand, the other was holding his jar, the car was driving. There were two cash orders in his Delivery Franchise history. One after Malmyn had called him. He accidently picked up, a rich voice filling the car cabin, “how are you?”
Gluos’ head was on the steering wheel as he waited for her smile to die, “working.”
She was still smiling, “what do you do again? Anyways, I found some beautiful houses...”
The rest of night was blank in his memory and phone records. Currently it was late afternoon and he was now located in Guia town, southern center of the City.
Malmyn muttered from under her covers, “you came right after I called.”
Gluos grunted and tried to get up, he saw manicured fingers move from under the covers and point at the table, “and gave me enough cash for two down payments,” looking over the table she continued, “but, I called you last night, telling you about this house, and you got here right after with this bag of bills and said you found them.”

A Fisherman Meets A Mermaid


Dewy sunrise gleams strumming high
Through the olive treetops
Mottle wooly clumps of chill brume
And give glint to raindrops.

Beneath the murk, a muted lake.
A fisherman's still wand
Is held above the moss green pool,
Absorbed by the blue dawn.

Slick through the lake thick dark curls bounce
Mistaken for some pest
They rise and pose a sable femme
He blushed at her mauve breasts.

It was my first semester here. My surroundings were becoming more familiar, but I had still not become fully comfortable at my new college. I was beginning to recognize faces across campus, I knew my way around, but there was still a feeling of unease and homesickness, a feeling of not fully belonging. I felt like an impostor, like I was pretending to be a student, and people were expecting me to be a student, but the role was false.

I walked into the campus library, thinking about the essay that I needed to write, with these feelings still lingering in the background. I had chosen not to buy the textbook for this course. They're available to read at the campus library, so why bother? I looked around the shelves, the textbooks weren't in any obvious location, so I walked towards the front desk. A couple of other students were in front of me queued up for something that didn't seem to be particularly interesting. The idleness resurfaced my feelings of unfamiliarity, I pulled out my phone, not to do anything with it, just as a way to fritter away some tension. After a couple of minutes the students in front of me had finished with their business. I slinked up to the desk.

I suddenly took notice of the woman working at the desk. She appeared to be in her late twenties, I couldn't tell if she was another student. I observed her smart, nerdy glasses. Her soft, light hair curtained onto her shoulders, and framed her face. Her face had a dignified quality to it, and exuded a quiet confidence and intelligence.

"Excuse me", I said meekly. The woman at the desk said nothing, but acknowledged me with her face. "Do you have the textbook for Women's Studies 111?" She let out a slight smirk, and then moved her eyes for a couple of seconds to show that she was recalling something. "Yeah. We have a couple of copies. The professor told us to keep some on reserve." She paused for a second. "Do you want to read it here, or do you want to take it out?" I nervously replied, "I'll take it out, I guess." She grabbed a book from a shelf on the wall, and placed it down in front of me. "Okay. Bring it back in two weeks. November 24th." I let out a smile. "Thanks, this will help with my essay." She quickly and curiously asked me what my essay was about. "It's about intersectionality and gender identity", I said. "Oh, okay. I majored in gender studies." I let out a quick positive affirmation. She continued, "I graduated a few years ago, I started working in the library as a student, but when I finished my degree, they let me work here full time." I affirmed what she said with a few "yeahs", and "okays".

>>11011528
F yeah

>>11009221
I appreciate this, especially the line by line analysis. Thanks a lot.

>>10987737
i'm not reading your shitty surrender language lol

>>10987737

This is beautiful and makes me want to pay more attention in French class

>>11010406
Yeah but that typo didn't expose its genitals to you before you posted it, did it? You just threw it away at me without looking at its balls. Practice. I wish you cared too. There's so much care in this thread, shit I don't even begin to try to understand, yet your balls are just hanging in my face.
It's naive man, I don't know what to tell you. I'm naive too. Passing through places sucks, try something else, yeah. Care, for God's sake, care.

I was thinking about the March of the Living trip I did when I graduated high-school, and remembered a crazy half-baked plan we had to escape from our teachers and stay in Israel. So I wrote the following. Might make it a whole story. Tear me a new one.

A pile of burnt passports on a street in Jerusalem, when its late at night and no one hears the embers crushed beneath the kids’ shoes. Breeze pushes off the documents, they’re gone. Parked by the tour bus they have stolen, precipitating a hangover, they open three more bottles and pass them around. One of the boys fishes a joint from his pocket, tosses it to a girl. They dance with no music. They fuck with no respite. Their teachers and guardians are asleep in the hostel, thirty miles north of here. Come morning they will be searched for, they will be hunted. But now the sky is purple and orange awash with the glow of the Jewish quarter, the sad, empty wall in the distance, a cat murky ascending from the sewage openings. The children, the high school seniors from different countries called together by a heritage they don’t care about, they watched the last few flames consume their identities. Argentina, Panamá, snuck between them, Americans, and Brazilians. They speak in English and half of them know Hebrew, while the Americans are left outside when the rest whisper in Spanish to each other. In the warm night they become lethargic, they’ve smoked too much, they drank too much. A lanky, long-haired boy from Buenos Aires stumbles into the bus, on an acid comedown, can only see the blue glow of the overhead lights. At the wheel, the former driver, a Panamanian kid who’s drunker than anyone else, lays asleep. In the back Melanie lays splayed on Camila’s lap, Yae’s head resting at her thighs. The acid broken kid watches them, sees a strange pyramid of half-undressed women, stoned and laughing, caressing each other in interrupted silence, obscured. The kid trips on my feet. I am lying face down, straight in the middle of the bus, in the ground, feeling my skin weigh me down as I struggle to hold my cheap camera. He turns to me, sitting up, rubbing his face. “Che, tipo uno no ve a donde va, ¿no?,” he says, frustrated that the dying colors and bouncing circles were in the way. I tell him to calm down, and reach into my pocket. “Pilla,” and I produce a downer, and break it off in half. I hand it to him. “Pa que duerma,” I say, and we both take it. He lays back in his seat, melting. I go back to my camera, to documenting all the near-sleeping girls. Melanie. Melu, as they all call her.

Any Swedes in here that would mind sharing some critique?

Nordic brethren from lesser countries also accepted.

I can't piss if you're
watching me
I just
can't

>>11013488
Booooooooring

>>11011557
Kinda cyberpunk by numbers. Avoid vague shit like "the City."

My Name Is Priscilla. That's what I am bumping this with. Put it in quotes, the internet is getting big. I hear.

Leaning against mah car, the gas being pumped in with a slurp, Ah saw a couple and a pair of little kidlets. The Sun was blazing hot right about nah so Ah wiped my brow to take a second look attem. Fella was big, bigger than me nah, with a blue cap on. Similar cap to mine, wrong color though. Wifey o' his was as big as him, yelling at him or summert. Not too fond of women like that, mahself, but not too many can really choose thare lot in life, ya know?

Kids thare, always tragic to see 'em, eyes absorbed bah an electronic device, ne'er takin' eyes off it. No reaction thah, no smile or laughter or any of the little things kids do here and there to remind us why we bother with 'em. The older one got a phone instead, slurping on some coke or other.

No too much of purveyor of these sorts mahself, so Ah left soon then. Still stuck in mah memory now though, like all the rest.

>>11013488
three main issues, in order of importance: (a) nothing interesting happens, (b) sentences arent efficient, (c) too many adverbs

(a) is a really common issue for these threads. probably cos we're all young and havent done much other than sit at computers and read.

(b): you have extraneous words, basically. read hemingway. some examples, not exhaustive:
>My surroundings were becoming more familiar, but I had still not become fully comfortable at my new college.
My surroundings were becoming familiar, but I was not yet comfortable.
>feeling of unease
unease
>A couple of other students were in front of me queued up for
A couple students queued ahead of me for (maybe 'few' is better than 'couple', idk)

(c): adverbs tend to break 'show don't tell'. instead of saying 'I said meekly', you should show some characterisation or idiosyncrasy that implies the narrator is saying it meekly e.g. 'I said, looking at my laces.' Adverbs arent inherently bad, but when you use them to the degree you do in your final paragraph, you dont leave enough to the reader's imagination - i guess im just rewording 'show dont tell' now lol. basically you dont want the reader to have to retcon their mental image because you've *meekly* picked a random adverb.
also, dont be afraid to just do 'I said' without a descriptor. if the characterisation is good, then most your dialogue should be like that.

(d) u write 'blah blah let out [emotive thing]' three times in the last paragraph
>>11014366
best thing ive read in a crit thread in ages. the images are so cool. i love the pyramid of girls.
'Breeze pushes off the documents...' probably ought to be 'A breeze blows the documents...' - i think you're avoiding having two consecutive sentences starting with 'A'? you could get around that by starting the first sentences with 'There's a pile...'
first sentence: 'its' should be 'it's'
>'thirty miles north of here'
thirty miles north
>'... the Jewish quarter, the sad, empty wall in...'
the comma before 'the sad' is ambiguous. could be read like 'the sad' is its own clause describing the jewish quarter. 'quarter' should be followed by either a semi-colon or a full-stop, i think.
>Argentina, Panamá, snuck between them, Americans, and Brazilians.
im not sure i understand this sentence. is it intentional that you go from country names to denizen names? if 'snuck between them' refers to Panama (it's ambiguous, could refer to Americans) then the punctuation should be like 'Argentina; Panama, snuck between them; Americans; and Brazilians' depending somewhat on whether you believe in the oxford semicolon
>in the ground
on the ground (unless he's literally in the ground and im drastically misreading something)
https://medium.com/@NonoEss/smiles-in-loops-or-whatever-better-title-i-retcon-later-8e61f92705b3

>>11016831
The gas was leaning against mah car?

How do I get better?

I'm writing a book. It's a bit like C&P except instead of killing a girl he becomes friends with her. Is that okay?

>>10986964
First time writing poetry in years, so pls no bully
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Today on the porch I met a bee
Its wings beat hard the springtime breeze.
Without altercation it dove for my thigh,
And drove in its barb, leaving it to die.

I’ll admit I took a second, to shout and swear
But after the pain had left me dumbly sitting there
I found the corpse of the little bee sat upon the stone
I wondered for the sin which I needed atone.

Had I provoked the wrath of the now dead knight,
Was I the target for which it set its sight?
Perhaps by folly its light extinguished,
A meeting of chances undistinguished.

Or maybe action without need,
A thought too morbid for creatures so quaint,
The thought of the little bee pleading to be freed
Succumbing to the doom of blackness taint.

The hollow shell stood as wood,
A twisted sea pine, bent and broken
It made itself far from understood
But I knew that I was mere token.

any Hunganons here to give a bit of a feedback? the second serious poem I ever made

>>11017543
I really like it. Both its format and its imagery. Only criticism I would have is that the "shout and swear" line bothers me, because I like poetry to be somewhat calm and serious in order to have a proper weight.

>>11012686
Really loved the language you used. The format wasn't strict enough for me though, very good one anyways.

>>11017831

Could you explain what you mean by "format wasn't strict enough". Is it because of the inconsistent meter?

>>11015883

this is good in spite of the whole postmodern "alt lit" schtick going on

>>11017831

Good job, Anon. My Hungarian isn't perfect but I enjoyed it.

>>11012686
This is self evidently good, I have an aversion to a lot of amateur romantic/natural poetry since it always seems to fall short into cliche or hyperbole - yours didn't and I like the other guy liked your language.

I post on reddits critique boards a lot but man, not to be arrogant, but they only seem to wanna discuss the most inoffensive mild mannered shit, it's not just me so many poems I've read there that I thought were original just get fully ignored and uncritiqued, anyway here's one of mine:

(Be gentle or cruel, my neuroses wavers)

Throat clearing in the Dungeon

So uncertain?
That's new to no one
except you again
throat clearing in the Dungeon.


Aren't I a muse?
Soul scrimmage
or some other shit
they say makes a poet?

See my tusk mince words
and reel back through my pupils
spewing yolk.


Who sees themselves?
No, really.
Who fashions the suit
they scuffle through,
as it glides flesh
and grinds.
Just how self-hemmed men have to hate it.

No!
Never eschew for crowds!
Shoo unctious acts
It's suicide of small orders
corrision will work its slow wick

A change will do
of mind's matters!

Ok I am a common man
Alright
Slink in that prickly quilt
Hopes to achieve?!
Who cares for that?!
The harness plunges
as you push for nimbus
Oh such childish things.


No man, what about the big L?
The need for or needing to gain?
A service or surrender?
Go worship that thought fucker
Not coming.

I'll recircuit, make truce with nature!
Of all things I'm known by her, and mother
I'll rush to the bushes
romance the rocks
Transcend it all!

You go do you mind munchkin'
I hope you grow ass rash
whose pimples pupils
learn to laugh at you
Grow teeth and scissor into you.
till you're found frothing shit mured skin.
Naked and spayed bush meat -

Alright!

I'll go globe trottting, find myself,
how can the lost locate the lost?
I'll steal a passport and renew!
I'll flare my face and find one too!

The point's well past the pendulum
and time won't tell you till you're gone
So bloody hurry up and
have your goddamn mind make the same.

Ok, I'll make it through the mire
All's not terminal
I'll pack my ways
and strum on through

To where? Who knows!
Journey's start blue!
I'll kill you first and work on through!

>>11017853
I really don't like non-rhyming lines, they break the music of poems. Also the 8-6-8-6 syllable is a bit weird along that becauwe it kind of weakens the rythm, for me at least.

>>11017888
Thanks! Do you happen to have Hungarian parents?

>>11017914
>they break the music
Not the same guy but there can still be music/rhythm just more subtle imo

>>10986964

> every square inch

no. this is the descriptive part, you use some common adage. Are you writing for idiots?

>>Mom screamed and the house awoke in terror. My blood froze and what curse did awaken this sleeping omen I knew not. Quickly I sought refuge for my crossword workbook, another scream, Mother will be coming soon to shred all my work I thought to myself, to tear through my progress, to leave me with nothing on a lonely night again. A laugh. Two small blue pills from her cabinet allowed me to cope and I did what usually do; lock the door, curl in bed, grip Pooh and imagine my heavy breathing belonged to his soft yellow bear fur. Petrified, I cried like a baby animal. The horror he hid from approached in waves of smashing, crashing, giggles and screams, fear teary eyed dampening his clothed lifeless stuffed animal.

thats off the cuff mofo your welcome now write like you actually enjoy reading and not like "HUR HUR IMA WRITEERRRRR"

religious necrophiliac

Drudge up dripping fecal stench, the sorry salvation of hollow beasts; craven call and carnivorous to fleeting dead. The Mourning Mary beckoned, that she was the Strumpet of Somers, whom had been drawn up from the sludge and muck of gold-gilded Saint Pancras, that being a carnal place crass cross-stitch of torn flesh swollen mud-caked and waterlogged, and become a Saint herself christened with the dried custard fluids of Holier Men. Her makeup smeared so plain, the chewed face, once prettiest of nickel-and-dime painted: grotesque to smashed eyeball run gelatin rivulets of the River Cleavage-- a Martyr for the Beggars and Sinners, whom would lick the rigor nips red-to-raw, to feast on her Earthy Delights with bugs whom made her carcass home

>>11017543
I agree with the hungarian guy with the 'shout and swear' since the tone here seems to be going for the somber, I disagree that being calm and serious is needed for proper weight though and in truth I don't know whether that's how I'd measure your poem. It's pedantic and pompous (not criticising you for this desu) and feels more comedic, at least to me, this feels like an LSD overthought. 'Doom of blackness' feels redundant to me, you've already spoken about wrath and dead knights, when we get to 'doom' it feels exhausted. I also find the last stanza's placement off, and feel it would be appropriate to go right after killing the bee, its immediately reflective but comes too late to be as effective to me. Other than, I liked it, good work.
>>11015883
Lol you got me
>>11011341
>pale light in my dark imagination
Super boring desu, heard something like this a billion times and the implication is ever so slightly cringeworthy but I'm sure sincere.
>used to disappointment
feels unnecessary, you've shown it all with 'heart got colder' -- 'got' feels awkward, grew maybe? 'my heart fell cold'?
>Reality's
I am personally not a fan of hearing about 'reality' much in poetry, or flimsy metaphysical invocations, the following desert part just doesn't work and you tell once again with 'looking for a dream' people would've got this in the first part.
You then repeat 'reality...oasis' and I expect most people start groaning here, its a poor metaphor oand whatever its reaching for falls flat. The ending feels sophomoric in the worst way, like dreamy indulgent stare-in-distance mumblecore, sorry but this needs to be rewritten keenly and more of an ear for edge and precision.

Postin:
I am a particular woman
A boundless shade – no -
beady queen
I can’t decide
I am all things I think.

Why can't my breasts grope for the air,
I’m clean and sexless like a child
I’ll wrap the pair in cling film;
It neatly guards me.

As for my arse I’ll have it squared then
stuff the pores with mildew,
that’ll show the lechers
I grow my own scum.

Now as a statuette,
I’ll sink my head in clay
and leave it there
perhaps a week or more
all art is murder after all.

I will at last then be my own,
in bold conquest,
diverting gaze.
Don’t tell me I’m a lady
I’m a deviant cum
sexless shade.

>>11018041

This is an interesting tone to take. I like your diction a lot although it overall feels err pretentious isn't exactly the right word but there's something about it that feels egotistical. Like, you know you're a good writer but you write as if you're better than you are if that makes sense. It's good to use high register language don't get me wrong and you're certainly not bad at it and the issue I take certainly wont strike everyone but I guess it's worth taken into consideration? It just seems to take itself more seriously than it deserves. However it is still good don't get me wrong.

>>11018041

(same guy from the first reply)

All that being said about the slight pretentiousness. For whatever reason you seem like the kind of poet I'd want to be friends with haha. I don't usually find many good writers in here but you do have potential and it'd be cool to work with people like you. I wrote
>>11012686 btw. Anyway cheers, keep it up.

>>11018186
Oh lad i already posted my thoughts the poem before my post is also mine just wanted to critique more, thanks man like I said I really liked your poem, also think you have potential and you managed to hit the note Ive seen so many others miss

>>11018216
Whoops not the one before, the navel gazinvg throat clearing one.

>>11018175
Man nope I fully get you. I've had these thoughts about myself too, this ones a few months old, and I the further I go back in my catalogue the more verbose and contrived shit starts to sound. I don't know I try and be as organic as possible but sometimes can't help my snark, honestly think it could be my biggest hurdle but am trying to 'improve' it without forcing too much. Thanks for picking it up though I've reflected on that exact thought.

>>11018186
You know what, if you're game, let's do it, any way I can contact you?

>>11018302

Oh ok perfect ya I didn't want to come off as harsh I'mg lad we're on the same page. I think you'll get there man honestly it's just a matter of being as self aware as possible and giving yourself sharp criticism and all that. Gotta find that balance between a human and approachable voice while using powerful diction and syntax.

>>11018322
Nah it's cool, here's one of my emails if you wanna work together sometime :stratabug@gmail.com

>>11018341
Work together + critique, starting to fear posting stuff here now if I ever wanna submit one day

>>11017898
>evidently good

???

Well if you call something good, it's because it's been evidenced to you as such. Adding four-syllable words doesn't increase your perceived competence anon.

As for you poem:

>no
>never eschew for crowds
>shoo unctuous acts
>corrision will work its slow wick
>as you push for nimbus

Do you mean corrosion or collision? Anyway, the whole thing lacks a compelling structure, imagery, or themes. And it seems you've done what you did with your previous comment: which is to say awkwardly force in words to appear a certain way, thinking they'll carry the weight of the work

sorry to be harsh, but truth is the only antidote to sucking

>>11018895
Ok anon I think I needed that, thanks t b h

I'm a fool, forever gnawing on the pacifying erasure of loneliness. Oh Beth, my betrothed, I'm sorry, I've never been with my loneliness more.

>>10986964
A scream fills space, not a surface area. So every cubic inch.

>>11018895
Just adding a bit I think I got way too disgressive without an interesting throughline, like a really hormonal blog. Think this could be the problem alongside overly full wording. Sorry just writing out to try and lock down my errors.

>>10986964
No hope. It's not even Dan Brown

>>10988180
Good

>>11018915
>>11018964
For sure. Just keep putting stuff out and you'll continue to improve. DGE.

>>11017869
i don't even know what those things are!

Got a couple of character descriptions I'm not feeling confident about at all.
https://pastebin.com/K8Rz0mzb
https://pastebin.com/n6hzptNR
Please expound upon the many ways in which they are shit.

>>11020048
Fuck all of that shit off. Who would want to read all that?

>A plain face, maybe handsome if weren't for an unusally large chin. He had dark hair and dark eyes. His clothes were all a few sizes too large.

That's all you need. King says that imagination starts with the writer and finishes with the reader.

The bridge along the street of X was a favourite spot of many residents and visitors alike. The magnificent architecture and brass statues that lined the bridge are what often kept it bustling with life, even during the middle of the day. On especially sunny days during summer, the river flowing beneath would glisten, reflecting the sun as though the water was covered by a sheet of polished glass. Yet this illusion was broken by the men working and fishing under this bridge, on the wide stone pathways that lay beneath. During the night, however, those whom would frequent it did so knowing that it was rife with crime and dodgy dealing; a home to seekers of thrills, gambling, extortion and murder. Something of such beauty tainted with darkness can never truly be called beautiful.

Not too far from this bridge, which was almost at the centre of the city, connecting the old shopping district to the new, much larger shopping quarter, lay the train station. This station was another location that would see many faces coming and going each day. In this station there worked a young man, who seemed to be in his early twenties, a fresh-faced youth, smeared with dirt under his eyes and littering his clothes; chasing another passenger to take their luggage and store it in the first-class compartment. This is how the young man earned his wages. Due to the nature of his work, and the numerous amounts of luggage he would lift and store gave him a rather sturdy structure, placing more muscle on his bones than the typical young Frenchman of his age. His broad shoulders would often be an appreciated sight for the upper-class ladies travelling on this line, allowing him to receive generous tips he would gratefully receive.

>>11017363
>[Ah was] leaning against mah car

I can't manage to speak to you.
Is it because I love you too much,
Or because I don't love you enough?
Either way I am distraught.
I bought you a pretty antique.
By the time I have the courage to give it you,
I'll have kissed it a thousand times.

>>11020925
Cute. :)

>>11020273
Although I agree that less is more, isn't that reducing it a bit too much?

>>10986964

>>10988785
I disagree, the emphasis is i WANT to GO RUNN-ing

>>11018945
Bump.

Thoughts on the sentence.

I wrote this in my free time and might expand on it or something

The Pilot

-The pilot sees the whole world from above
-The pilot sees the whole world, but only from above
-There are billions of people on the world beneath the pilot
-The pilot sees none of the billions of people on the world beneath the pilot
-There are 37 billion acres of land beneath the pilot
-The pilot does not step foot on any of the billions of acres beneath the pilot
-The people of the world live all over the land beneath the pilot
-The people of the world speak thousands of languages beneath the pilot
-The pilot speaks none of these languages
The pilot doesn't need to, the pilot speaks to none of these people anyway:

>>10986964
This is really good

>>10987737
Bounjour, Barbier

>>11021132
You can almost never reduce it too much. What does it matter what he looks like? People will imagine what they want anyway.

Use your narrative for more important things.

Beneath the covers, Caroline shivered. Her skin was cold to the touch. Trip got out of bed and closed the window. A gray cold rain of northern Europe wet the gray cobblestones below.

Caroline wrapped herself in the quilt and joined him at the window. She put her chin on his shoulder and spoke into his ear.

“You used to dream only of me.”

He smiled at her reflection in the windowpane. "When you were the only thing I could ever want."

She dug her chin into his shoulder. Caroline opened the quilt and put her arms around him, enclosing him in the folds. Her skin was warm now. She stroked his naked back with the length of her own body. Trip turned inside the quilt and put his arms around her. The lamplight shone directly on her face. The had lived together for twenty years.

Back in bed she turned off the lamp and drew close to him. He could smell her skin, her soap and the recent odor of sex. Wood smoke lingered in her hair from the fireplace in their cabin room in the mountains. She loved all sorts of friendly flames: candles, fireplaces, matches.

He remembered their first date in France, when she stood on one of the bridges over the Seine and pulled paper matches from a book she took from the restaurant that he had picked and she had hated. She held each match tight against the strike strip with one finger pressed against the roof of her other palm and flicked it out into the air, where it flared alight and flew down in an arc to drown in the waters of the least scenic river in France. "Your fingers must be completely dry or the match will stick and you will get burned," she had said.

She turned on the lamp again. "You are going away aren't you," she said now.

"There must be something in the world to want besides another woman," he said.

"You don't dream about me anymore."

"I don't dream about love anymore. I have it. I think we dream of things we yearn for."

"I had a dream about American ice cream recently. You may be on to something."

Later he got out of bed, and took an envelope out of his coat pocket and crossed the room, walking softly over the thick white carpet. In the mirror, he could see her sleeping face. He opened her purse and placed the envelope inside. Then, just as she had most feared, he left without saying good-bye, locking the door behind him.

On the street, a black Citroen's engine started and turned on its headlights. A man stepped from the shadows of an alley and raised a newspaper in his right hand. The Citroen lurched from the curb and accelerated toward Trip.

He looked back and up to see Caroline looking down at him from their window.

>>10987248
Le talent est un fantôme, oubliez-le ou il n'apparaîtra pas

>>11023246
There's a limit to beige prose. If you write with that philosophy, then you may as well only write a single page summary of your story and let your readers imagine up good writing.

Hear me.
Propelling out sound.
Being the quake.
Everything that resonates.
Their composures broken up.
Fallen out of orders.
Your plans out of whack.
Fuck all going this route.
Forced-off because of such challenges.
This human cannot do them here.
That relies upon the layout.
Room produced for it to access.
A section acutely available to this.
That is fostering it the heaviest.
Amassing the least deterrence.
Ready for no other's circumstances.
Confined to this spectrum.
Banded to its magnitude.
The result of its superiority.
Its increase.
More which is pooled with it.
Adapted into affiliating.
Secured into a side.
Accredited by the defender.

Please friends help...


Once I breathed from rose lacquered, boundless airs,
And came to a breath wondrous, and so rare,
Yet, gusts then robbed this ether of its fare.
Once robbed, I gazed upon that ether's death,
And clutched my lonely, last rose lacquered breath,
Propelling it to engulf my lungs' breadth,
Impelling it to fill my very heart,
So that it would from my blood never part,
And so it would from my lips not depart.
Yet, soon my lungs began to abrogate,
And then began my throat to palpitate,
Compelling my heart to ever so ache.
From the aches my face began to tremble,
And tears dropped which I tried to dissemble,
But my lips began to disassemble
And from them I ejected oil,
The purulence of a breath which spoiled,
Being shown that to waste went my toil!
Yet alas, this breath shall wander elsewhere
And though never will its stench leave the air
I shall follow the wind to leave despair.

>>11000462
https://pastebin.com/Xxsn7CGx

I've added more to it, almost done

>>11023764
King would like to explain the limits of beige prose in terms of the number of zeroes that follow the "4" in his default contract. So far, that limit is six. Which means you are right. And it also means you are arguing for the comfort of your diapers because pants are too much work.

>>11001324
The writer of this back again with another attempt at poetry. Here's the first verse I came up with.
>Someone poking fun can feel so piercing to the skin
>Rocks thrown, however, on the playground are nothing new
>I cried to my mommy, she then looked me in the eye
>then wiped off my tear and said everything would be fine
>However, mother, the day before you knew struck noon
>Look! I'm a big boy who walks on his very own two's
>It's too late to go home now, I have had my time there
>It was nice knowing you but- doubt you really care
>However now without anywhere to go- I sit
>and count sheep, hoping that it might help me fall asleep

>>11023901
Nice appeal to popularity, shit-for-brains.

>>11023790
Is this about pooping?

>>11023974
Nice appeal to nobody. Think of all the people employed by the tendies industry who can sleep tonight secure in the knowledge that they have one more customer for the life of his mommy.

>>11023974
>I came here for hugs
>Buh, buh, I reject market forces, I write for the desk drawer because art
>Fuck popularity
>WHY DON'T YOU LIKE ME

>>11024041
>implying I'd ever post my own writing here

>>11024072
>implying damage control is another form of pretending to be retarded

>>10992389
I like if instinctually on the fact that it interested me in one read through and didn’t quite ‘make sense’ easily, so it looks like it took time/has some depth.

Keep going

>>10992389
>mortar
imagined the wrong kind first readthrough

>upon everlasting necks
not just "on"?

>acid fruit lingers on the leaves
I spoke this stanza out loud a couple times and it feels like there's enjambment in the middle

>>11023969
>Someone poking fun can feel so piercing to the skin
the first time I read this line I read it as

>Someone poking fun can feel [that way by] piercing to the skin
akin to, "If you like to feel happy, you can feel so by doing the following:". The "to" not being a "through" was what clarified it. I see why you want the S sound in there though.

>then wiped off my tear
wiped off my tear

towards the end I just start seeing the page

Memory

Excuse me sir do you know where my indigo wendigo goes
I do not know where my indigo wendigo went
I do not know if my indigo wendigo is here
I do not know if my indigo wendigo is there
I do now know where my indigo wendigo goes

Excuse me sir do you know where my indigo wendigo goes
I do not know where my indigo wendigo went
I hear my indigo wendigo howl and talk
I see my indigo wendigo try to beat the clock
I do not know where my indigo wendigo goes

Excuse me sir do you know where my indigo wendigo goes
I do not know where my indigo wendigo goes
I have not felt my indigo wendigo for years
My indigo wendigo feeds on lies and lives off fear
I gave him happiness and he used to rejoice
Now he regrets accepting my choice
I do not where my indigo wendigo goes

>>11023860
Make it not rhyme every line. It feels very forced. I understand what you are going for but it just doesn't seem genuine
.>>11023628
The recent odor of sex should be replaced with "and the sweat upon her. Also add both their names a tiny bit more. Also the art about the book confuses me. re read it and try to imagine it from someone who is stupider and is lacking alot of context that you might have. Also the part about the date should be elongated into a full chapter and seems to out of place. Also your style of detail almost seems to want to be a Hemingway form of it but lacks real substance. Try to either go all the way or for a more simplistic approach.

my love it burned so very deep
until one fateful day
the spark that burned
the passion yearned
had all but gone away

i don't know why
nor did i cry
yet still the change it shakes me
perhaps my thoughts and feelings wrought
are all but temporary

>>11012686
really good damn

>>11024210
What exactly do you mean by that last statement?

>>10986973
>Also only crap gets published and the Earth will die in 5 billion years to what's the point anyway.
This guy gets it. FPBP.

>>10987248
Talent is a genetic lottery, the important thing in life is courage.

>>11024968
Hilarious

>>11026003
>>11026003
lol u 2

https://pastebin.com/SU3L1zM3

Go ahead, tear me apart you fucking assholes.

>>11025133
>courage
>not genetically determinable

>>10986964
>Mom’s screams flooded the house, becoming entangled within its foundation.
>--It’s happening again, I hope she’s not mad at *me* this time
>Peter had to dispose of the body, and fast (fallow fields of learning: blank homework sheets),--should Mom find it this time, she *will* suceed in shredding his precious reading material this time, as she berates him with haruspexy of unending NEETdom and eternal social damnation from the entrails of his JANSPORT carapace. He engulped two Ibuprofen in anticipation of a clusterbomb-of-a-headache, and assumed the foetal position now instinctual from untold paroxysms of muscular mothering: an anthropid mollusck, curled upon his bed, gripping his teddybear Bruce Willis like a rifle, forhead against the wall. Every time Peter assumed this position, like the saliva draining out of the surgically mutliated canine of a Pavlovian trained dog on command, the ocular dams securing his eyes erupted: critical failure. The shrieking Nephilim banshee announced itself well in advance, smashing closer and closer to Peter’s door with the indelible certainty of not qualifying for Rapture on Judgement Day. He began crying harder and harder into the teddybear, imagining the teddy bear's stubby arms embracing him.

>Mom opened Peter’s door, bellowed for a few seconds, looking frenetically for something to smash - a toy, some treasured idol of comfort - but there were no toys left to smash. She then looked at Peter’s wimpering, supplicant backside, and stormed out as fast as she had arrived, slamming the door behind her. The dull report of exploding objects thrown against the wall like artillery, and thunderous foot steps hollowed out shellshocked Peter like bombs. He stifled his whimpering in the teddybear's head, eyes bulging from the pressure. He wished Bruce Willis was his Dad, every time this happened. Peter thought of his father's death in the war, whether it was quick and painless; whether it hurt; whether it was agony, torture . . . all of the violence he dreamnt of visiting upon his mother right now, force that would seal her in a tomb, silent and unaware. He clenched his eyes shut, attempting to brute force his consciousness above and away from this through sheer will. His eyelids slowly gave out and he fell asleep.
>He awoke moments later after what felt like blissful eternity, distressed by the white noise of unnatural silence. He clutched at his bear: nothing, nowhere. The teddybear rolled out of his arms. The house darkened,-- it was unusually quiet, the walls and floors no longer droning with the night's earlier chaos. Was Mom finished? It’s not ever this quick. He heard light and hollow pop of plastic flutter to his room, gently bouncing off the tile floor of Mom’s bathroom. Peter picked his head up cautiously and noticed his 250-count Ibuprofen container was missing. Guilt and shame tightened around his neck, and he took back everything he had thought or done before tonight.

TOPLOADER LABYRINTH
>We read our semaphores over night oceans, our heliographs cut across wilderness departures in remembrance of the moment,-- there, when aspiration wore down, where love couldn’t flag us down in the strange heath of garden paths. Hark, my soul: Ye were constructed for the cold, and thine light engendered passageways through Time's endless gates, singular, at one with the fathoms of the heart's deepest wells. Wander, for thou art born, round the streetlight amber with so many feather-light moths, ululate thy tenpenny song, thou subtler body dowsing for white shores unknown, where daybreak serenades thee to wakefulness in waves, and thou hast beheld in silence, the mute radiance of Venus before the moon's setting. It matters not. Life is a harlot before one's death. Give me leave to tell you this: Sunday thou willst awaken, shouting "I FEAR NOT ANYTHING!" -- and out the corner of mine eye I see you, dancing in the moonlight.

>>10992389
Not bad, some alternatives:
>LILITH AND EVE

>The hands of women
>softly pressed upon
>each other

>skin
>melded like cloud banks
>making space for blue cells

>miasmic zephyr masonry
>divne aether mortar
>binds them

>as though to endure
>or to corrupt
>would entail
>one and the same

>the hands of women
>with black and red
>and brown and grey
>polished nails

>like eyes fixed
>upon everlasting necks
>reaching out to sea
>for unknown continents
>for one another

>the hands of women
>tendrils climbing sweet-smelling branches
>mordant fruit lingering on the vine

>here I lie beneath
>and await the citrus
>to dissolve me
>completely

>>11006129
>unmaintained asphalt and steel, ornate colossi jutting. And a woman outside the Greyhound, she mistakes this commotion for a sort of naïve newcomer awe, and Get out while you still can she warms him, laughing. Cynical wisdom from an urban sage. Smiling he tells her that he's no stranger to this town, a revolution of nostalgia. She just smiles tight-lipped as he turns towards the bus stop. He steps up on board and clunks slowly towards lower buildings.
This is all lazy, do it again. The rest peaks interest. The Blade Runner Borges-Burroughs Tlon Greyhound terminal in Fallout concept good. Punctuation unimaginative/-utilized. Target should be magical noir Robbe-Grillet reshoots Eraserhead/Touch of Evil mashup in the Twilight Zone

>A quick trip to the restroom and he heads for the front, and on his way out a younger guy sort of dogs behind him, asking something about is he a "traveler" too, and at first it seems he's just addressing the general space, but no [he's addressing him, jovial, about how if he only had some bud to smoke, prying, likely reading possession in the man's character or step, correctly.] Whether mad and untrustworthy or harmless and eccentric is hard to tell but he's not troubled when the harasser's distracted by someone more willing to pay attention.
Too meta. More sparse. Eraserhead. Bracketed bit particularly, tone feedback jumping tracks.

Paragraph 2
In Rod Sterling's voice:
>The heart of downtown, Sangria, New Mexico: a man in the Greyhound terminal for a simple there-and-back stands there, waiting. He is not on business. There has never been a time when his trip was not a personal matter. In here, people are either in fear-- or the cause of it ...
>Features on the city's wretched urban face.
phrenology (architecture), Charles Bonnet Syndrome (monstrous variation of face blindness: inhabitants or city itself)
>[Arrivals], he doesn't intend to spend much time absorbing the building's stained inbetweens.
Suggestive of the restroom's state of sanitation in the next line. Good.
>A quick trip . . . in the man's character or step...
Economize everything inbetween to give more space to make the solicitation more implicitly egregious, or characterize the environment it's prolix.
>drops[,] the air acrid, an oil slick in suspension drowning everything with the implied threat of thermobaric holocaust. The city [a]wash(ed) in (a) murky (old) blue, its buildings marked by their decrepitude, hanging-on without hope to their architects miscarried designs for them, abandoned by time.
>He braces himself to inhale the aerosolized acid reflux of the city air to catch a glimpse of of this benighted metropolitan tartarus for titans, trapped in these cursed gothic corruptions of steel and glass colossi.
>[DEPARTURE: ___________ ]
Some Lovecraft/Bloodborne in there with the setting characterization. The terminals are key. Is the guy on personal business trapped/looped? Silent Hill. Man and the woman are failing to recollect?

>>10994182 My bad, for you: >>11027336

>>11011341
Reads like something better in the original, translated. Suggestions:
>In my youth, I would close my eyes
>And imagine who you were
>A soft light emerges in my solitude
>To keep me company, whispering
>"One day we'll meet in daylight."

>Everyday, everywhere, I searched for you
>In every face, and I was sad it wasn't you
>My heart slowed, my disaffection grew:
>Dead to the world, lost in the desert.
>But then . . . your face, an oasis
>In daylight, -- you flood my world in bliss.


>>11015883
I know you're
looking at it
make eye contact
already

If you don't
shake it
you'll piss-spittle
yourself.

>>11022833
>the Pilot
Trying to get away from people, but doesn't want to land, ever. Would like to just keep going, rolling horizons. Or up into space. Or crash straight through the center of the earth and be crushed by gravity into a black hole, annihilating everything.

>>11018945
Bump

>>11026845
main reason you havent got responses is that it's in a pastebin - that one extra click is enough for the avg. 4chan NEET to bail. second reason is that you're a better writer than i'd say like 90% of the people that post in these threads, so a lot of would-be critics don't feel confident enough to go for it.

It's good. it reminds me of the script sections in IJ. "(The crowd goes fucking nuts)" was very funny. Biggest issue, i think, is that the debate is initially not interesting, especially Peter's first paragraph. (Also, do debate moderators not butt in to stop swearing?) I think the 'x enters stage right/left' thing is really clunky if you use it twice. Apostrophe missing: 'to subtly check that its working.' In the dialogue I think you're a little inconsistent with whether it's like "realistic" dialogue (with verbal tics, self-correction, etc.) or that novelistic Hal Incandenza style where people casually use 'trans-generational suffering' in conversation. I guess it makes sense for Peter's character, if he's meant to be some bright angsty autist, but maybe for the girl's character the tics/errors could come out more often when she's not going off what she's prepared? I'd have to re-read it to make this advice better, but i cba rn.

>>11020412
you can give the same, if not more, info in like half the amount of text. and the descriptions arent good enough for the extra text to be worth it. other people may have different tastes though. i mostly read PoMo shit so i like things pretty beige.
economisations:
>magnificent architecture
i think magnificent breaks show-dont-tell really hard here, probably cos of its length
>during the middle of the day
around noon
>on especially sunny days during summer
on summer days
>those whom would frequent it did so knowing...
those passing did so knowing... (sidenote: it's 'who', not 'whom')
>Something of such beauty tainted with darkness can never truly be called beautiful.
why though? i unsure if it's actually bad or if im too ironically-detached. might be cos of the word 'tainted'. also, there are a lot of aphorisms regarding flaws being beautfiul (e.g. perfect in your imperfection)
>Not too far from this bridge, which was almost at the centre of the city,
Not far from this bridge, which was near the city centre,
>new, much larger shopping quarter
either 'new much larger shopping quarter' (this is what i would write, if i wrote about stuff like this), or 'new, much larger, shopping quarter'
>fresh-faced youth
cliche
>smeared with dirt under his eyes and littering his clothes
grammar is ambiguous. seems weird that dirt both litters and smears.
>numerous amounts
amounts
>rather sturdy structure
'rather' is fatuous - you're afraid of making a point. but desu i'd rewrite the whole sentence just so you dont have to say 'sturdy structure' rofl
>typical young Frenchman of his age
'typical young Frenchman', or 'Frenchman of his age', tautological otherwise

and now im hitting the character limit woopee

>>11017091
>>11028789
these are my crits. im gonna repost my earlier submission cos no one responded. it's too personal to show IRL friends but i spent way too long on it to have no one read it or crit it lmao

https://medium.com/@NonoEss/smiles-in-loops-or-whatever-better-title-i-retcon-later-8e61f92705b3

19 April 2018

Dear Dardiary, I hadn't wake up on such a beautiful morning since time immemorial.
Where does all that people go? I see them walking and then disappearing into the alleys. And where does the tree go? Its branches grow in a thousand different directions.
I hear the sound of tram growing and then losing itself into the infinite.

>>10986973
>Show don't tell

He wasn't a logger or a carpenter. He didn't cut down trees, build houses or bridges, or anything else worth any significant effort, anything that'd be there when he was gone. After he, all covered in sweat, had stopped caring about it. There were only a handful of times that he could even remember when he had bothered to hammer a nail into the wall. He'd been hanging up art prints in their apartment. And he did so crookedly, halfhazardly, just to get it over with, to get the damn picture hung, and to hell with the results, they'd be good enough. It'd look straight enough from a distance, from across the room at least. And that's when you really look at a picture, when you're standing there from across the room. Nobody's looking at them straight on, up close with rapt attention like they were at a gallery. That was a recurring theme in his life, just getting it over with. Just good enough. Taking care of his responsibilities quickly and without much thought, so he could get just back to it. Back to living, back to simply existing, he supposed. Maybe he was simply going to stare off into the ever growing, darkening clouds around the peripherals of his sight, or maybe to barely skimming clickbait news articles on the New York Times. Why bother, it's all Trump anyhow, love him or hate him. It's all Trump anyhow. To eating junk, more and more as of late, gummi bears and tortilla chips, if he was really going to be honest with himself. It's all just gummi bears, tart as lemon, chewy like rubber, he thought, glancing down at his potbelly. To yawning a little too impactfully and to lying on the couch in a tangle with his wife, watching cooking videos and not talking much to eachother after the kid is asleep. To smoking pot (just a hit or two) and drinking beer, maybe after that they could stand themselves and indeed even eachother, or at least it's an excuse to be quiet and to look inward. But, for now, he wasn't that introspective, what's the point, really? Why shouldn't we all just. Get it over with. He'd never tell anyone that his life boiled down to just finishing quickly and waiting quietly for the end, never tell his wife, surely not his daugher, that beatiful little shining thing, singing nonsense songs to no one but three year old self and shreiking giddily but with the barest hint of fright when he'd hunch his back and dangle his arms and lurch towards her, playing the monster. I'm going to get you, I'm going to eat you up. Oh you better be scared you 'lil thing of mine.

>>11028789
>It's good. it reminds me of the script sections in IJ. "(The crowd goes fucking nuts)" was very funny. Biggest issue, i think, is that the debate is initially not interesting, especially Peter's first paragraph. (Also, do debate moderators not butt in to stop swearing?) I think the 'x enters stage right/left' thing is really clunky if you use it twice. Apostrophe missing: 'to subtly check that its working.' In the dialogue I think you're a little inconsistent with whether it's like "realistic" dialogue (with verbal tics, self-correction, etc.) or that novelistic Hal Incandenza style where people casually use 'trans-generational suffering' in conversation. I guess it makes sense for Peter's character, if he's meant to be some bright angsty autist, but maybe for the girl's character the tics/errors could come out more often when she's not going off what she's prepared? I'd have to re-read it to make this advice better, but i cba rn.


Anon, I have hd the worst couple days, and your thughtful response picked me the fuck up. thankyou.

Can you tell me what you're referring to be IJ? I'd love to check it out. And you make a really good point about the inconsistencies in the dialogue. Goddamn this was a nice surprise. Enjoy that (you), friend

>>11028946
IJ is Infinite Jest dude you absolute newfag. It's got very long script sections in it, describing a puppet show iirc, that do a similar thing to yours, where it starts out a little boring but, by that lac of meaning, develops into having more meaning

My memory may be fuzzy though. I read it 3 yrs ago

I'm glad u liked my response.

>>11028985
>acting like not having spent much time here is a bad thing
what are you doing man

This short man, Ernesto, he met this guy one day, Jennifer, out in the plaza. Though it wasn’t a meeting, it was obliteration, doom. Jennifer walked out in the sun with a bag of boots of beaten ostrich, good money spent good, and Ernesto tried. He came down from a plaza pony wall, Ernesto did, with a beam and a fat, and in his walk out of the beaten boot bag farm, Jennifer too came down to this meeting so to say as it seemed. And as it seemed, or as he tried, Ernesto was nice, friendly. Sincere, insincere--Jennifer was not a goo man, never was; did not appreciate gestures, looked through people to floors and red anger; he busted his chin over Ernesto in that silence. Ernesto tried again; Ernesto had been trying with guys there for a lot of the day. The sun gave a beat down on their necks in orange movie violence. Why Jennifer gave that guy the time, why men wanted men: both had the same answer to him. So Ernesto had tried in Jennifer’s silence in two part nicity, and so Ernesto had became an alien baby man all bottled up and worried looking; it became foreign war fast, true to its confusion and misunderstandings. What had he, Ernesto, done wrong, he was just being nice and friendly; why did he, Jennifer, mock him in such deafening silence, in such catatonic maybe-overture. Jennifer gave way, gave in, opened up his box of secrets and burning rocks; he told Ernesto, his head hanging from a sigh, “I don’t wanna talk to you, that’s why I held my tongue, I told you in that way that I don’t want to speak. I’m not interested, I don’t want what you have for sale, I don’t want your cock, I don’t want to talk, man, it’s not supposed to be so hard. I was kind enough to tell you this, to sit here and wait for something different, something else maybe, but you’re just not getting it. Maybe I don’t get it, I don’t know, I just want to go to my car and go home. I’m sorry, just, please.” With a bat Ernesto sent himself out of his head to that faraway place where realities extinguish from their burning passions and make way for trains and boats and drifting boxes filled with things, good things, bad things, things to replace things of ash. But coal fires burn long and impossibly intense, just as people burn passionately loud and scared.

some hot stuff I'm working on new album, check it on sound cloud F.A.M.
WARIN GOLD CHAINS
MY NAME GOLDCHAINS
DONT TALK SHIT
WHEN YOU IN RANGE

>>11029532
irony is uncool now sorry

>>11029532
SASQUATCH, GODZILLA, KING KONG, LOCH NESS
GOBLIN, GHOUL, A ZOMBIE WITH NO CONSCIENCE

>>11026845
Buy the ticket, take the ride, I suppose. I hate to advocate pregnant women taking drugs, alcohol, being severely beaten, or riding roller coasters, your mom being case in point. Maybe you pass as having normal mental capabilities, but you don't fool me.

Worse, worse, worse, until the density of real, true, capital w Worst overcomes the hope you wrote anything worthwhile.

Then the Edge—there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know the relief of the white that remains at the end of your page—they have all quit critiquing and I can't recommend anyone new have a glance.

And look, everyone in your life is guilty for letting you cradle this little fluff of confidence allowing you to present us with your dirty trash. It's not all on you, but final sin is your stupidity.

>>11029545
When i understood what these words meant my heart sank.
You need to be more sensitive to other peoples feelings.

lick my gun
fishbowl eyes
the curse of good luck

She licked my gun
four long years away
and looked right at me,
eyes fishbowls full of life
and I plummeted to the ground,
like a slaughtered possum.
The live-wire's current streamed by IV
charging my motor and defendent
in no time flat(line).
La vita é bella, she told me
not yet as my wife, but a girl
who didn't know how the curse
of good luck had plagued me
throughout the frictionless years
causing us to collide and ricochet
maybe never reuniting again this life
for the first time in time—yet
destiny is my name, cheesily: dharma.

She licked my gun
four long years away
and looked right at me,
eyes fishbowls full of life
and I plummeted to the ground,
like a slaughtered possum.
The live-wire's current streamed by IV
charging my motor and defendent
in no time flat, till the flatline gap.
La vita é bella, she told me
as my one true homecoming
not yet as my wife, but a girl
who didn't know how the curse
of good luck had plagued me
throughout the frictionless years
causing us to collide and ricochet
maybe never reuniting again
for the first time in time—yet
a Yogi called me Dharma,
and the road's next curve
still hides the nearest destination
that smells like roses, something blue,
and something else, not quite new,
yet not quite old: maybe it's you
(I really hope you're cheesy too).

Here's some shitty end-of-the-night poetry

Fire in the ashtray. Dumb, dumb fire. Shouldn't have sharpened my pencil into it. I find it better feeling lonely, sometimes. But tonight he's sleeping in the top bunk. So right now, I'm not so lonely. I should kill myself. But he's sleeping in the top bunk and he'll be awake in some few hours. I guess I'll write some more, and sharpen my pencil into the ashtray some more, and smoke another cigarette or something. It's not enough to keep me warm, but it'll do for tonight.

>>11030240
i didn't read all of this but it's really good

>>11030071
sorry man, ill try to be more sensitive, im just acting out

We passed around the winding stair
And I gazed at your fair countenance
But the visage was obscured
By the black, immovable pipe between us

And you rose above me
To the land of smiling angels
And me pulled down
Into the deviled homeworld of dogs

I could see the edge of your crimson smile
Your perfect smile
Which I could not criticize
Which I could not touch

And I think you smile still
As you look down at your herd
As you look down at your dogs

>>11030435
I fucking hate this board

>>11030338
well thanks angie, i appreciate the 3/5 vote of confidence

>>11030445
i actually have a boyfriend so...yikes

>>11030457
well i hope he has a drinking problem that you constantly excuse him for because you know just how good he really is on the inside despite the several times now its been that he's just gotten a tiny bit too physical during drunken late-night arguments which you've hardly even noticed because the envelope keeps getting pushed only slightly each time and to tell the truth you kind of deserved it until one day in the living room he shoves you towards the table and you trip over a shoe on the ground and hit your neck on the edge breaking it like million dollar baby turning you into nothing more than just another statistic, you stupid bitch. also you forgot the tripname faggot

>>11030476
i'm actually single and a guy. But this thing happens too much and it's sad. Bitches be shopping

>>11030481
Funny thing about bitches shopping: apparently the tendency to spend hours picking out products from the store (any store) is an evolutionary vestige from our hunter/gatherer days. Women, as gathers, required the ability to spend hours discerning between various plants and fungi, and thus: shopping, in most of its forms, is akin to modern-day foraging.

>>11030502
how did you get such a sharp wit? Idk how to work on something like that.

>>11030512
oh thank you kindly uhhh advice, sure, sure, i have advice, something like: people are mental whetstones (of various grades/grit-size), the more you interact with them, the sharper your wit (in this case your tongue, at least if its made of silver)

but seriously the truest wit is authenticity

Anyone still here?
-
Upon waking the tendrils Evan noticed creeping out of the corners of his walls began to silther above his head. He had fallen asleep twenty five minutes to midnight and upon checking his phone saw he had only slept a total of fifty-five minutes. Not even an hour.

The tendrils - seemingly shadows in a more corporeal configuration - were just as silent as their shades against the eternal light of the television, which his girlfriend kept on throughout the day in order to keep some antagonizing silence at bay which Evan never felt until hours like these. He knew they were harmless at least in the physical sense. In all of his twenty-three years of seeing this phenomenon follow him no matter where he slept he had never been assaulted by them, save for the spiralling attempts to rid himself of seeing them at all, which were as consistently fruitless as they were consistently repeated.

>>11030442
>>11030512
wtf you think he's witty and not me? wtf...

>>11030732
dude are you being jealous of an anonymous dude's opinion of another anonymous dude in relation to you yet another anonymous dude?

anyway—any opinions about irony or sincerity, whether ironic or sincere, are now ironically sincerely uncool

>>11030715
#2

A clear lubricated liquid dripped from the spaces on the ceiling where the curls slathered amongst the drywall. The television's light, an epileptic seizure of changing colors on the wall, reflected harshly off the liquid sheen and spiked directly into Evan's eyes. Even worse still, he felt his body incapable of breathing on its own. The most he could do to remedy this situation was to momentarily place a hand over his stomach to ensure his manual in-and-outs of oxygen were enough to put his body back on track. His eyes felt dry, and in a brash desperation he lept out of bed as quietly as he could and switched off the television.


He laid back in bed absorbed in pure darkness. He kept up his practice of manual breathing, but it only seemed to make him more aware of his heart, slamming against his ribcage like a dilettante writer obnoxiously pounding at the keys of his laptop in some coffee shop, in some quiet cry out to the world he was indeed living and worthy of this fact. Although Evan could manually control his breathing patterns there wasn't much he could do to control the frantic rhythm of his heart. His eyelids jammed themselves closed, and he began whimpering out near-silent curses to himself to try and bring his mind to an ordered rest.


His girlfriend awoke seconds later and murmured something about the television being off.

Giddiness sworn into the Havana Club
wears sequined trousers, zebra fur,
and tap-dances to tunes no longer played
by the pied-pipers in the school band
or baritone subway performers named Dino Noir—
she rolls her body behind the velvet curtain
sewn of iron rusted from exposure to platelets
secretly googling your name, crossing fingers quietly.
The stars never actually cross, or rarely,
except in binary systems, the dizzying waltz
of gravity pulling the great ones forever together
as asteroidal belts restrict the pregnant belly
of a future neglected by the seamstresses fate,
that is until now, when the time is—so ripe the fruit!
Hope, that nectarine stuff of the gods, dealt sparingly
like Ernie on corner breaking your moms back
ignorant to the tortuous beauty he helps to create.
So, for some reason, his finger sits on the S,
softly singing her name like Eden's serpent
in divine beckon, sold out as sin, eternally grateful:
sighing so bittersweetly, simply, amor fati.

>>11030765
im always jealous of an anonymous, he's cool and likes cool things, i want to be just like him
now he's got this cool angie dude chick saying how witty he is? and how i make him want to die? cuts deep boss

but now that we've got all the bases covered i want to just throw my hat in the ring and say opinions about irony or sincerity, whether ironic or sincere, are actually pretty cool

late fragment by anon

>>11030021

>not a single specific critique

It may take some time for me to recover from your excellent shitposting, friend

>>11030803

I really like this, like

writing verse = taking a piss

Equally satisfying, equally necessary, equally embarassing

>>11028821
I owe you an honest response. Herewere my notes as I was reading:


I like how the narration starts - narrator is semiconscious. feels like how i read a story, especially at the beginning.

Why are these people unfamiliar with concepts of directions in space?

In your dialogue, I think you could use some "-" in place of all the "…"
I like dialogue that represents the imperfections of how humans actually talk, but while an ellipses seems appropriate in some instances, like " ‘Fuck off. TWA Assessm… Why the fuck would you… What?’ It seems kinda outta place in instances like, ‘Some groups are doing like one senten… one word, even.’

I think ‘Some groups are doing like one senten- one word, even' would make more sense when you read it out loud

This is good, though. You write vividly. I haven't read all of it. If I think of more significant advice, I'll post again, but otherwise I'm just going to read and enjoy. Cheers!

>>11030240
This is almost supreme. Nice descriptions. Fishbowl eyes, Yogi Sharma, it really achieved this odd slightly sophisticated, slightly urban tone of a teenage kid who's unsure of the future and just lost some stability maybe?

Idk. Some parts flew over my head.

>>10986964
>Mom’s screams filled every square inch of the house.
Clickbait.

Stopped reading there.

>>10988180
>Grace carried an empty bowl into the kitchen, where her mother was preparing dinner.
I can't imagine anything I could possibly care about less.

Stopped reading there.

>>11032234
This is me.

https://pastebin.com/ZSsC66M0

>>11032234
Thanks! And I agree, there's definitely a few parts that need to be ironed out and tweaked. Will do so for next CT.

You are off toward the distant Townplace went
Tired from your Shovelin’ but willfully a-foot
5 wrinkle’d dollars for the Whore that smell’d of old
Ashes ain’t fond o’ flame

I stroll’d through your Townhall once or twice
Virgins ’round a Candidate dress too nice
A Mistress of a President could never be a-shame’d!
Ashes ain’t fond o’ flame——!

Green, green's the color of the grass.
Blue, blue's the color of the sky.
Yellow, yellow's the color of her hair.

>>11032421
What was the reason for the dated diction?

Your neck is a mystery,
And I don't even know what kind of mystery it is . . .
Your lips are a promise,
Some promise that was made when I was a boy . . .
Your eyes are reminders,
But I can't say what they're reminding me of . . .

Your neck is a mystery,
And I don't even know what kind of mystery it is . . .
Your lips are a promise,
Some promise that was made when I was a boy . . .
Your eyes are reminders,
But I can't say what they're reminding me of . . .
Your hair is a dream,
My oldest dream I thought I had forgotten.

>>11031837
bru i didn't think about it like that... i was just taking a piss and wrote that... Damn

Darling, I know we are many miles apart,
You know I can't embrace you as I would like,
Can't whisper the words you'd like to hear.
But listen, go outside tonight, and look at the moon,
And know that I am looking up at the same moon.
Let's share this silent company together - you, me, and the stars.

>>11032716

:o

>>11021137
Not bad

quick sketch

The harshest job to endure, I would think, is to be the man who illustrates the backs of cereal boxes.
I saw the back of the box of cornflakes this morning at breakfast — a panoply of words in crisp black, clever typography, gushing from the mouth of a cartoon man, words that not even the most bored and poor child will ever read. There were other pictures there as well that I didn’t quite realize were there, but what stuck with me was the little cartoon man with a curl of aggregate hair lopped over his forehead and holding a spoon — a microphone — a glossy megachurch barker singing the hymn of the second-most-boring cereal on earth, a cereal whose role in the pantheon is to wait for Raisin Bran to die so that its will be the bowl and the milk and the glory forever and ever.
It was the store brand, so even more a reflection of our collective sins. Roman, not Greek, certainly not what troglodytes in the Urals or Caucasus play-acted in their guttural creoles as they huddled around small fires.
I do not envy the Virgil who takes these down and gives them their temporary permanence. He must struggle to keep his mind, yes, because he knows that his work will be consciously received by nobody, but he also works as sanity’s gatekeeper. He is painting the chapel’s dome. With his inks and labors, he gives those who feed the impression that a holy mother watches over them, eager to around-arm them and convince them they are safe and loved. Because of his inks and labors, we will never have to find out what happens when a man goes to pour his children’s cereal and looks at a white or pale taupe box that says “PUFFED RICE CEREAL” in 300-point Arial.
I want to run but the cartoon man on the box won’t let me.
Somewhere, Virgil smiles. Perhaps mine is the first life he has touched.

>>11032302
Bump

>>11031878
thank so much man. i'll implement the dialogue stuff. holy fuck is it hard to get a crit in these threads - my giving to receiving ratio is like 8:1 rofl

the direction stuff is cos the Tube in London very distinctly splits stations into Westbound and Eastbound platforms (or Northbound and Southbound), but nobody uses compass points in 2018 so they become names more than anything else. the characters are parodying a prior argument (that i have witnessed IRL a few times) about whether to take a west/east-bound train. and then a space metaphor comes in cos i had a simile about Saturn. i'll try to make it clearer.

thanks again


>>11032877
i think what you're saying is interesting but it could be put across more clearly.

most significant bad habit i noticed is overuse of pussy modifiers (i dont know if there's a real term for it) like 'quite', 'just', 'may', 'though' (so many meanings for this word lol: i mean like the use in "I’m afraid though that it will wane too"), 'tend to [verb]' and 'essentially'. they show a lack of confidence in what you're saying. i'm not saying DON'T use these words, just use them less.

the tense switch after the first two sentences is really fucking weird. i dont see how you could do it accidentally so i guess it's intentional. i think if you want to mix past and present like that then you have to make your character's temporal locality very clear. a switch as abrupt as that is very confusing. i also think it should be 'had become empty' rather than 'became empty', because i guess it happened prior to him waking?

one of either 'raising' or 'rousing' should not be gerund

i didnt realise the captain and the sailor were the same person until my second reading

>lost out at sea nowhere to steer
missing a 'with' after sea, maybe? weird otherwise

>searching till night where
'when', surely?

>let go, even amongst
should start a new sentence for even

the description of the ship struggling should be shorter. the reader gets the idea.

> but me, I’m the tape player.
i think the comma should be an em dash

>you become so tired of the stimuli of the world that you really treat and enter the world with monotony and it gives you banality
this should be rewritten to be pithier. it at least needs some punctuation.

>exciting filled with adventure
colon or comma after exciting. i would colon

>1’s and 0’s. Binary banality.
definitely colon

>then someone hands you a magical pair of goggles that never catch fog dirt or grease with which to see the mine and you realize that the act of cleaning the goggles provided you this meaning and goal of trying to mine using a pair of dirty goggles
i think u need anaphora to make a clause of this length not sound awful. splitting into 2 or 3 sentences might be better tho. the meaning is strong enough to not need a gimmick

>crisis script
that's sick

im not gonna do the rest

We're the blemish in the mirror,
burning the retinal screens,
daytime matinee: har-dee-har-har,
the murder cackles spewing phlegm
at the rom-com turned slasher,
the greatest in dying memory.
They said, in the writer's room,
that the plot proved logically sound, internally,
like Dolby remixing Motown hits on the fly,
but that a real-world background'd be unfeasibly,
all fealty sworn to suspended disbelief.
Ok, I said, lost in the thrush of smudges,
but does the closed-system open up
to itself, or to a froward funhouse reflection,
that the carnie's quietly acknowledge as Oz,
the sheriff 'round these parts, partly,
and property manager of the nationally park
known as Corpus Mundi, the sizzling self.

Harrumph—! As we go.

We're the blemish in the mirror,
burning the retinal screens,
daytime matinee: har-dee-har-har,
the murder cackles spewing phlegm
at the rom-com turned slasher,
the greatest in dying memory.
They said, in the writer's room,
that the plot proved logically sound, internally,
like Dolby remixing Motown hits on the fly,
but that a real-world background'd be unfeasible,
all fealty sworn to suspended disbelief.
Ok, I said, lost in the thrush of smudges,
but does the closed-system open up
to itself, or to a froward funhouse reflection
that the carnie's quietly acknowledge as Oz,
the sheriff 'round these parts, partly,
the property manager of the national park
known as Corpus Mundi, the sizzling self,
a contemptible smile of a disguise.

Harrumph—! As we go.

Here it's about the bars in England. I started it a few minutes ago on my phone if you want to know

wellll we're off to
the bar, the music,
that strange birdsong,
nightingale bird plus one
i don't recognise,
drowns out the conversation
we all keep trying at
while photos are took
and girls are vying
at boys to don't be so rude.
a long wait for a fast drink,
deeper deeper deeper you sink,
the man with madness in his hands,
a lady offering a danse.
it's take take take.
you couldn't bare
to hear the people shout and swear
but the closer you get
the less you see
the lotus-eating allegory.
it is what it is
was will and should be;
unhealthy night air,
perfume, masks, fake hair.
o the worlds a muddle.
this is no place for truth,
nor poetry or politic, forsooth.
come, go and say no more
leave beauty at the door.

>>11006129
Stop trying to be profound. Unless you're Shakespeare or Joyce its highly unlikely you have anything to 'say,' particularly about bus stations.

Write a narrative with characters in it. This advice applies to much of the posts in this thread.

>>11033730
>drowns out the conversation
we all keep trying at
while photos are took
and girls are vying

Are taken*
Also i dont think 'vying' is the word youre looking for here. Do you mean something like asking or hoping?

A gentlemans gentleman, I'd read
Upon so many pages of Wodehouse
I'd chuckle knowingly, a joke well got, right-ho!
Context and timing, somehow I'd missed
The whole bloody thing, and lost the jist
A gentlemans gentleman is a manservant
And not a cutesy diminutive, for a members member

>>11033762
No no it's all right, think of the slant rhyme I could have used there

while photos are took
and girls are vying
at boys to

you know?
I was telling myself not to be rude

>>11033789
eat more fish

It comes to crash, reality
Years built, artisan, well done
So I say—it’s my own cash really
“Pay it forward, like always, my son”

Looked out a window, down low, below the cliffs
Couldn’t see home, weather’s grim for a climb

Question myself, sure, I shoot it
A bastion, holes for cannons, ready
It’ll be steady, no doubt, expandable
We’ve got forts up north, I don’t worry

A hike felt nice, don’t have to talk
Jagged rocks hung above me, thought little of it though

“Hey kid, how you doing”
Take off my shoes, dig like clockwork
“Good” Hands high doubled up
Take your clothes off, knee jerked

Canyons between neighborhoods just for us
A playground hidden from everyone else

>>11034059
I dont know if you should take this as a compliment, but I barely know enough english to type down this comment and I liked it

>>11034547
I'll take it

>>11033344
Crisis script? Why is that sick? Sick as in good, twisted, or bad?

Thanks, I'm happy you find the content interesting. I have very little familiarity with writing as an artform, like syntax, sentence structure, and grammar; you seem to be much more knowledgable. I appreciate your feedback and am going to try to apply it.

Is there anything I should keep on doing, or anything I did well, my "strengths" I guess?

>>11035030
sick as in good :D

i think it's so much harder to specifically point out strengths than it is for weaknesses. when something's good it's usually a pretty vague feeling

i think you're good at directly talking about abstract concepts. you're also good at starting your sentences in a variety of ways, though the topic matter here makes that easier. the main way you differ from a lot of the people in these threads is that you arent afraid to try to make points that could be construed as pretentious, which is a good thing.

>>11033730
i love this

Hey, first time writing here. This is what I got. Please say how shitty it fucking is, but it was the best I could do even though there is a lot of revisions to be made. Tell me what you think. Any comment is appreciated.

https://pastebin.com/JsMaC3n1

>>11033730
>>11036101

>>10986964
Distance issues. No need to flag thought as thought if you’re deep in characters POV, makes thought language unnecessary. Compare I hope it’s not me, pete thought vs Pete hoped it wasn’t him.

>>10986964
Anyone wanna listen to my poem?
It's about a British supermarket, and not to be taken too seriously:
https://vocaroo.com/i/s0KPES606jtP

Israel
I've been trying to force my head through the concrete.
Chipping away at the wall with my skull
Till the little flakes of bloodied brick-dust heap around my feet.
But I keep plugging away, hoping to make a dent.
You are the little light that cracks my world asunder.
Peeping through the gaps in the mortar.
And I will keep plugging away till I'm drowning in your glow.
because either it's through there to you or in here alone.

>>11036021
Awesome thanks a lot man, I've been working really hard at trying to write something more profound and zealous, so I'm glad to see I am improving.

I tried reading your story on medium, and it really went above my head. I wish I could offer you more than that, but I don't think I could help you. I'm sorry lol.

A particularly hot day in April,
The sun setting, the birds quieting,
Today I have accomplished nothing.
I have not walked among the flowers,
But sat boiling in my parent's house,
Anxious to know when she'll love me.

>>11037519
>>11035030

This is me

>>11033344

I've reread your post, and I found your story to be chaotic (to add to the drunkenness?) with great vivid (psychedelic?) descriptions. I'm a little confused as to the lemniscate/8/infinite/mobius strip/finite symbolism, was it a part of the fondness for Delaney? Also the ending had me a little confused too, but that may be due to me and now the quality of the writing itself, perhaps your writing is suited for a more skilled reader.

Overall, you display some mastery over writing— for how long have you been writing, and where/how did you learn to write? Any schooling involved?

Bump

Time passes as the lights slowly dims to a dull glow, minds suddenly realizing the time of night and thoughts screeching to a halt, demanding reprisal to the time wasted on pointless activities. But what was there to do? Give in to sleep that ended too quickly, and work that dragged on too long? It all ended up the same, days that lasted in all the wrong ways. Fleeting moments overshadowed by countless worries.
It’s a funny thought that such worries were a luxury of the fortunate, a trouble that bothered none but the ones with no troubles. It’s Ironic in its own way, an oxymoron describing the problems and lack of motivation of the modern world, the same issue that brought down empires of the past and would destroy many more in the future.
And here it was again, affecting the life and mind of a single individual amongst many, wasting away alone despite being surrounded by those who understood and want, but are blind to, each other. Where solidarity falls raises melancholy, and where melancholy ascends so too does apathy. And apathy thrives more so than any other feeling, slowly taking control of men. It steals from them their time; all the fleeting good times, the chasing bad times, and the lonely spare time.

I will critique at least two other pieces in separate posts after this one.

dead things crawling in the cracks of mind
young men drafted to a psychic war

towering over us - prophecies
biological war, mental disease

crimes of war alchemical bomb
heart and spines these weapons tore

no breath left - anymore
mind destroyed by weapons of war

terrors gone - since primeval time
dead things crawling in the cracks of mind

Psychic war - prophecies
legions of men - and mental disease

books of boys spitting out bullets
nuking children with atomic pulpits

psychic bombs - fractured my mind
little lambs and cyanide

laughing over us - cosmic decay
so we pray - take it away

Psychic war - scarlet whore
end of time - end my mind

>>10986964
This is reasonable. Some of the text is a bit verbose and can be more concise.

>>10988180
This is too short to critique really.

>>10988228
Ultimately this is too generic to be impactful. Using specific symbols relevant to your local culture often has more impact. Compare "he is Satan himself" to "he is evil."

I guess some possible comparisons you might consider among others are: celebrities in general, Elvis, the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe. Don't worry a huge amount about being dated. Most people aren't going to read your poetry in 5 years anyway.

>>10989236
This is better because it has a specific concept of sexual lust which has more impact.

>>10992389
At first I thought it was going to be some random blank verse garbage but actually it is pretty good. But I don't see the need for the unnecessary enjambments: "Skin melding like cloud banks making space for rounded cells" flows well as one line.

>>11037018
It's reasonable but I don't know it just doesn't have much impact. If you're already doing a religious poem you might want to reference the bible more.

>>11034059
I read the first line stressed as:

It COMES to CRASH - REaLIty
Years BUILT, arTISan, WELL done
So I say—it's MY own CASH - REally

There's parts where you need to add pauses for breath.

>>11039706
Criticism for this part. I might do more a bit later.

>>11039778
>There's parts where you need to add pauses for breath.
You don't pause for commas? I'm unsure if you're speaking in the generic you, or if you mean You you, as in me.

>working on a short story all weekend
>go through the second/third draft on Sunday morning
>realise the whole premise of the story is trite bullshit
>realise it's literally just >mydiarydesu fan fic
>realise all of the candid phrasing by the narrator is just cringey self-inserts
>abandon story
>get fast food
>play the Witcher 3

Fuck this shit I hate it. All writing brings me is failure and misery.

>>11040040
What was the Short Story about?

>>11017091
thanks for the critique dude, it's the first time i've done any fiction writing since school, it's good to know what i'm doing wrong

>>11037018
The language is too casual for how dramatic I feel the message is. For instance:
>But I keep plugging away
Plugging is such an inane word, and you use it twice; bashing would even be more acceptable despite its obviousness. The redundancy of
>force my head
and
>with my skull
feels pretty lazy as well. I like the imagery very much though, so maybe a rewrite would do you a favor.

>>11037716
Bleh this took you 5 minutes and you had your cock in your hand the whole time.

>>11039617
Typical 4chan in samey, boring prose. I don't want to be specific in critique because it's obvious you didn't try.

>>11039706
Nice rhythm, nice everything.
>no breath left - anymore
Fucking candy. Weakest part to me was
>psychic bombs - fractured my mind
>little lambs and cyanide
I'd like it more maybe like
>psychic bombs fractured my mind
>little lambs - and cyanide
Just the way I read it though

>>11040048
Based off of the last month I spent with my girlfriend before we broke up. Basically we just lived in mutual disdain for one another, too afraid to end the whole thing, partly out of habit, partly because we had been together for 8 years since high school.

The idea is that the story would focus more on unhealthy habits and behaviours we condition for ourselves and how the lower you steep into unhappy routine the more you just start to act like a real cunt basically. At one point I remember we were both just unhappy little goblins living together in a cave and being hateful to each other.

Instead it just ended up being a fucking cringey story about babbies first break up.

>>11040040
I know the feel, when looking back at old screeplays I'm amazed at the level of self projection thrown in my characters mouths.

Anyone wanna listen/feedback on my Ode to Tesco's? It's a brit supermarket and not meant to be taken too seriously - I'd also parrot another anon in reccomending naturalreaders (You can use premium voices for 30 mins + sneakily record for offline use) as a way to hear your poetry from another's voice:

Anyway here it is:
https://vocaroo.com/i/s0A8SE5tPnAp
Script:
https://pastebin.com/pb5qrHxv

>>11040040
>play the Witcher 3

my nigga I'm on my second playthrough atm on Death March and the early Velen quests are fucking me up -- how the hell am I supposed to fight 3 alghouls when they jump so fast and so far and I die in one shot??

>>11039617
exactly what >>11040072 said.

There is this pervasive, boring, repetitive and dull style that pervades every single critique thread that I can't stand. Usually about some existential idea or some frank look at being a loser or whatever, and just follows the same prose beats.

>>11017543
this is nice

>>11025040
any more?

>>11032819
read cereal boxes and 'virgil' and stopped reading. this board is autistic.

>>11039706
reminds me of jedi mind trick's first album.

Heaven brings forth innumerable things to nurture man.
Man has nothing good with which to recompense Heaven.
Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill

Canyons wear some wind, some snow
Put on nice jackets, these canyons do
We slide down logs, smoke grass, talk
Screams come, times change, we live

He dedicates a word to this woman
Never met her, then I did, and said alright
She spun carpet in her hand saying
And he wanted to suicide, that boy

I carpeted my tile, I washed my hair
On canyons, those canyons, I went
Tortured the spike bushes in jeans
Trouble comes, people die, I get that

Shoes look old--ash suede, painted thick
He cantered out on hands instead
Gallup after him, they says, gallup out
I don't gallup, I don't keep, I gavel

Yellow strings, grey man, I love you
I'll yellow man my way, I'll show you
Grey man, he's out there, come find him
Come find him, I'm gavelling, I'm gavelling

Then we go out, yellow man, we go
Canyons shed skin, shed coats, go
Go in deep, grey man, tell him then
He hears then, those voices, so soft

He comes with She, She a whore
She slides death out from a hand
Canyon says, “Alone is ok,” he
Grey king, yellow king, we lose

Love forms a hand, love cries itself
It wipes its own tears, it gives birth
Canyon, those canyons, they fill
With love, and love, and love

>>10997375
I believe this is a joke but I will respond to you anyway. You overload sentences with words and try to make it 'tight' by removing common/essential words. The effect? It tends to read like a very purple screenplay. Prime example of this is the "Quiet, to whisper" part. That kind of writing would be found in a screenplay aiming to cut out all unnecessary verbs for the sake of a quick and easy read. It conflicts with the other overblown aspects of your writing.

>>11040761
>"Penguinville was not a physical place and yet here it was, manifest, in the parking lot of Hillcrest High School."

Is it strange that I've put "manifest" between commas? I normally wouldn't do it, but I want there to be a sort of mental pause that forces the reader to focus on that particular word. I'm not sure whether I'm wrong in the technical sense, however.

>>11041021
Do it however you want. It's all style mate.

Although this book purports to be the biography of the venerable Maestro, I must confess to you, dear reader, that I know very little of his life. During the course of our wanderings and misadventures I was afforded only rare vantages of his past. He was a maelstrom which one scoured for the faint flitting of hummingbird wings, a suit of well varnished armor whose immaculate defenses were interrupted by only the most infinitesimal of cracks. If one blinked one was sure to miss them; and young as I was during my apprenticeship with the Maestro, I can only wonder what tantalizing traces of his inner world went beyond my limited powers of perception. He spoke, it seemed to me, as if his mouth was full of milk and honey: his words were sometimes intoxicating, frequently light, intermittently profound, and always delightful. Some of the things that he said might stick in one’s mind for days, some for years; yet other things, like flowing milk, had a way of seeping through the seams without detection, leaving only the barest suggestion that they had ever been there. This, I suspect, was the crux of his genius—a sort of artful deflection. And yet he did leave, like a painter who secrets his own likeness in a chapel frieze, fragments of himself behind, though some were only visible with the aid of a mirror. For that reason I think after all that he was indeed a human man (and sometimes woman), not some djinn that had escaped from its bottle and loosed its mystery upon the world.

>>11041795
There are therefore few particulars that I can provide you with, dear reader, of the Maestro’s early life. The year of his birth, the region or province in which he was reared, his father’s trade, the foundational developments of his youth (save for one which I shall enumerate in due course)—all these I do not know, nor do I believe does anybody who yet lives, nor I think do the dead. God knows, bien sûr, and I shall be sure to pose the question to him when next we meet. For the nonce, however, the reader must be satisfied with knowing that the Maestro was indeed Italian, though even this of course I cannot claim with absolute surety. He spoke French like a dauphin, English like a sailor, Spanish like an inquisitor, German like a mercenary, Dutch like a cheesemaker, Turkish like a sultan; but his Italian might have convinced even the most incredulous of Sicilian grandmothers. He spoke like an Italian; he gesticulated like an Italian; he walked like an Italian; he laughed like an Italian; he danced like an Italian; indeed, he smelled like an Italian. How he duped the Vicomte Popo, chief of all the grandes nez of Europe! How the venerable Vicomte, with his nose of miraculous perspicacity, did not smell upon the Maestro the baking plains of Tuscany, the gelid winds of the Dolomites, the sparkling galleries of the Adriatic, the pines of Rome! All of this he bore on the nape of his neck and in the flashing brilliance of his eyes. And yet he was a man who could, in a trice, become a gypsy, an emperor, a harlequin, an infidel, a whore—and so this too, I think, might been some manner of sorcery.

>>11041795
>>11041797
I liked the funeral procession part better. The narrator is directly addressing an imagined or meta-narrational "reader" so that you can get this first-person memory-smeared kind of unreliable reality so that magically realistic things can happen. I think Life of Pi did it most recently with success. I guess if you need me to be "dear" then I want to know why. The risk is that this "dear reader" gimmick puts you back in the dust motes with Poe and Conrad. If it takes place in a past century, it would lighten the freight of the style to know that early on. Of "Vicomte Popo" I find one obscure reference from 1579, which would make sense, but a marker of some kind would add confidence to that. You are sustaining it, but it carries a lot of baggage. For example, when Nabokov does this in Envy, he tells us right away /why/ it is so important to tell this story, and the motivation involves the reader in the mystery.

"How does this direct address to me hope to manipulate me within the narrative program?" is the question I am thinking toward out loud.

>>11041795
>>11041797
>>11043017
...beyond the obvious that you want to excite curiosity. How does the existence of this mysterious figure bear directly upon the "dear reader?" Should "dear reader" be on the lookout for some phenomenon, or for a reincarnation? Are there ripples of cause and effect that continue to emanate into the world from his goings and doings? I am seeking the hooky thing that updates this from straight period magical realism that makes it relevant to 2018. Like playing Sherlock Holmes in Name of the Rose. Is the Maestro going to parallel the life of some historical figure who is currently relevant? Does his "dupe" result in the current configuration of the modern European Union by some labyrinthine sequence of events? Like the super-powered Renaissance Forest Gump of Europe?

I am not making myself clear. I want a hint at what the big picture is. What is at stake.

>>11043017
>when Nabokov does this in Envy
Despair. Envy was Yuri Olesha. I must getting senile.

>>11040122
>>11040072
>>11039617
Fair enough, appreciated I suppose. Would you mind telling me what you think of this? It's one that I suppose carries a lot of the same themes, though I think it's more narrative and has some potential.

It's funny when you wake up in the morning, I think. Your mind races to countless thoughts and ideas that slowly flood your mind as conciousness meets you. Perhaps you had a wonderful dream, perhaps some terrible nightmare that shook you in the night. The last thing that would ever hit you, though, is the realization of expiration dates. I don't mean this in the sense that you'd find in a grocery story, but rather in life in general. We are all born with expiration dates. In October of 2017 most people shared the same one. It was several weeks out, now, and racing towards them ever faster. The news of it hadn't hit yet, but there was a gut feeling in everyone. Call it a case of introspection hitting in unison against all humanity. The entire globe, it seemed, had retired momentarily into oneness, into singularity of the self. It lasted only a day, but it was a beautiful day.
People called off work, refused to leave their house, and simply contemplated it all. There was no making up, there were no apologies, there were no arguements or debates or any other sort of conflict; There was only calmness.
And of all the beauty going on in the world at that moment, sitting by himself in bed, Theodore sat in simple reflection. He had grown in relative innocence most his life, surrounded by modest wealth and joy. That had shattered later on as he become a young adult and he had secluded himself. He had on occausions found love and joy during this time, but had lost it as quick as it had come. None of that really mattered though.

>>11045032
Theodore was a sad man, though on the outside it seemed quite the opposite. He would build himself up and find a way to go through life only to be beaten down over some simple off-handed remark. Each time he found himself staring into the mirror. His eyes were big and brown and, as he berated himself as foolish, hopless, and unlovable, he watched them die. It had become a routine, one he adopted when he was a younger man, and it seemed to calm him. Perhaps it was just making him colder, but he felt better at the end of the day nonetheless. Today he just stared and smiled.
Everything seemed so simple, so doable, so clear. He had never once in his life felt like he did in this moment. Teddy went to sleep happy that night, the first time he had in years, and he woke the next day to the stagnation he had felt before. It was raining outside, the pitter-patter had breached his window and rang gently into his room. It was 0640 and his alarm would go off in 5 minutes, leaving no time to try and close his eyes. He violently turned the thing off and got up.

It's the introduction to a short story I've been attempting to put together, I'd like a brutally honest opinion on if it's worth anything. I feel like I haven't written anything good in half a year, which is really unfortunate, and I want to see if I'm correct in that thought.

>>11039706
This is inconceivably grandiose and overwrought for what is an extremely shallow and tired topic. Reeks of My Adolescent's First Poetry.

D minus. Back to the notebook.

>>11045032
Don't listen to them, this is sikh.

>>11045032
>>11045042
>I'd like a brutally honest opinion on if it's worth anything

Okay man. It's bad. Are you 19? 20? New to writing? I don't want to just be mean to you. But the beats your following are the same beats every young male wants to talk about. As I read this I get the feeling that you're trying to "do literature", here is you attempt to branch out into something "serious".

>It's funny when you wake up in the morning, I think. Your mind races to countless thoughts and ideas that slowly flood your mind as conciousness meets you. Perhaps you had a wonderful dream, perhaps some terrible nightmare that shook you in the night. The last thing that would ever hit you, though, is the realization of expiration dates.

Life is temporary.. whoa

>People called off work, refused to leave their house, and simply contemplated it all. There was no making up, there were no apologies, there were no arguements or debates or any other sort of conflict; There was only calmness.

In the grand scheme of things, our petty conflicts really don't mean much... whoa. Also just as a tip you don't need to put a capital after a semi-colon.

>He would build himself up and find a way to go through life only to be beaten down over some simple off-handed remark. Each time he found himself staring into the mirror. His eyes were big and brown and, as he berated himself as foolish, hopless, and unlovable, he watched them die. It had become a routine, one he adopted when he was a younger man, and it seemed to calm him. Perhaps it was just making him colder, but he felt better at the end of the day nonetheless.

Le misunderstood young man who was coddled but look even he admits to it.

I honestly can't bring myself to write a critique with anymore effort. Because I've seen this exact same excerpt a thousand times in every single critique thread. It's not good and my feelings are that this story does not have the potential you are asking for.

Which is not to say that YOU don't have any potential. I'll be honest it's impossible to tell from what you've shown. There are only two bits of advice I can give you: read more, write more, read more, read, read, read.

Clock ! Going out, are we ? To me, the time you shall show... Thirteen O'clock ? Already ? 13 : a lax number. Nonchalant, I become. Indolent, I become. Cessation, my body demand. Thus, I only desire to think, this hour. I refuse to move. Yet, standing up, I am. Should I go to bed ? I'll let chance decide. If head, I go :
TINK...........................TANK
Coin ! O bastard daughter of Gold, too pitched was the sound that you made while charging, like a garish goat, to the ground ! decorated with an unique square, colored with a monolithic black.

Click on it.

Unearth your absent imagery by performing such gestures that we need.

Because it does this for us when we gesture for this.

Because it is unwaveringly being done.

It really has been fixed.

I really am here to stay.

Here is my life sentence.

I expect this one will be for certain.

Always being what this is being.

It attempting at being its thing.

Changing the thing that this is.

Going to be role-playing as when this thing encounters it.

>>11030803

This is quality. Shared it with my literati friends. We enjoyed it.

One morning my friend and I set out on an escapade to the secret catacombs underneath an abandoned church. A rusty ladder plunged us to a tunnel below so short we had to crawl like blind cave fish. Soon the ground softened into damp, dead earth & we were there. Skulls glowered everywhere in cavities of the wall. To the side a skeleton lay exposed in a tomb. I gazed through its socketed helmet until looking through meant looking back into the self that fear has prevented me from becoming. I wondered if they were a drinker like my mother.

I reaped the following excerpt from my philosophical treatise

Women are naturally savages, they're most basic state is sex-crazed animal, devoid of morals and ambitions. But the natural state of man is a barbarian, but one with honor. Civilization paradoxically makes women cleaner, but men crueler, less caring. We're living in the worst of both worlds right now, the interregnum of the absolutely worst of humanity. The only option is total destruction of civilization, then make our way back up.

Women are a lost cause.

I don't even feel hate anymore, just a loss of hope and a sheer sense of disconnect from everything around me. I stare at the total state of depravity, of being force fed these notions of equality and feminism and I feel nothing, just a cold desire to escape into the wilderness.

I'm working on an occult magic spell to life myself out of depression and loneliness symbolized by the Qlippothic realm of Thaumiel as separation between all things. The main character is also a cyborg with some sort of laser gun and sword because why not? This is the introduction. After this the main character will have to face three trials, etc... I most struggle with the quest part. I don't know how to get across the sensation of an ecstatic vision and prophecy. In a post right after this I will write some criticism of peoples work.

<Refrain at beginning, end and between parts>

he kept a wand and sword - was an iron thing
he was a bandit lord and sought the cup and ring

forgot to Lethe - to lonely Thaumiel
his name was Two and he fought out of Hell

<The Birth>

a mother bore a son - she placed in a box
forgot to Lethe waters - a little lamb lost

and in this crazy place - on the banks of Hell
Two settled in the land of lonely Thaumiel

and in the city of Moloch - they thought Two a gift
a sacrifice to make - to the lord they take

a witch named Madness with a cup and ring
she hid the child's heart in an iron thing

she named the child beast Mark the Second
and raised the child Two - to be her weapon

<The War>

and Moloch made war - with Satan's city
with Two and Madness - two of his army's heads

with sword and wand - ring and cup - not for Hell
their magic spell - was undefeatable

but Satan was unfazed and quickly spun a trap
and wove from truth a net of lies - by omission

I swear by God if you should gain the cup and ring
You will depart from Hell and be my king

By power they possess and beating heart, God bless
your soul should not be mine to keep, I swear

Two stabbed the witch named Madness - and stole her ring
but it fell off Two's finger - and slipped away

and as Two grabbed the cup - Satan snatched it up
and cup in hand he vanished Moloch's men away

<The Quest>

war lost, Two was exiled and turned to banditry
where he assailed souls from all sides

till one day dreaming Two's heart rose up
and sleeping in a cave he had a vision

lost one - oh lost son - please remember this
go seek the ring - find the cup, rise up young son

your heart beats - it sings a song - of where you belong
seek peace and freedom - and listen to your heart

the freedom inside - and where you must find
and inside - the pain is not forever ever on

>>11048829
Also I suppose stealing the ring could be interpreted as incestual abusive foster mother rape but I didn't intend that.

>>11048381
This is bait. But you know I think people are too far to go to one or the other extreme. Women are significantly overhyped but they're not Satan or anything.

>>11047206
This is insipid and I hate it.

>>11040531
Kind of syncopated. It's reasonable. Parts to improve most:

He dedicates a word to this woman
Never met her, then I did, and said alright
She spun carpet in her hand saying
And he wanted to suicide, that boy

Love forms a hand, love cries itself
It wipes its own tears, it gives birth
Canyon, those canyons, they fill
With love, and love, and love

It's also a bit obfuscatory.

>>11032610
This is the most generic love poem ever. Maybe add in some detail specific to yourself and your relationship. What is most meaningful to you: mythology, religion, a specific moment?

>>11033789
It's good but I just really hate fragments like: I don't recognise ____. I know you were using that for a sense of confusion but maybe just save that for a few bits at the climax.

>>11040761
Fair. How would you consider a revision? I have a tenancy to write in my style of thought: that is, disjointed and somewhat esoteric; certainly dramatic, and perhaps, yes, a tad overblown. Conventional verbiage and overused commonality bores me. I loathe the thought of burdening a piece with an excess of 'a' and 'the,' or even 'by' and 'that.' They seem so unnecessary; steel crutches for dull prose. Thesaurus purple is equally crutch-worthy, but I'm not sure that 'purple' for this is an apt descriptor. I've place every word meticulously, to each have a meaning hoisted high unto itself, that they work in tandem to be considered lightly poetic. Then again, I also consider a judge unto the self to be a faulty judge.

>>10988180
This situation is not credible so you cant relate to it. Its clearly an unreal quirky :DDD situation that would fit in a pretentious YA for women. The mother is a charicature and you can see right through the character and into the writers mind, the girl is autistic and annoying for some reason.