/lit/ - Literature

Slip a thumb
along a phrase
scratched into the stable door:

“The land
is condemned
all the way
from Chesapeake Bay
to Jerusalem.”

Kick off your
barn bed
and hustle back
to the wet edge
clutched by rotten eelgrass.

Breathe that cool evening air.
Aimless fish
bob softly
in sour ammonia.
Approaching gappernippers
hymn below
the ether.

Your shoulder
tips against
a pine-scented trunk,
itching to twitch
and breathe to funk,
as birds settle the boughs
an urge to hanker.

From across the bay, a heavy
crackling thunderneedle
bumps!
Make your beat
skip
a little warped.

Scintillating melodies
of a perching empress
draws in the orbit
of a cornet dive above:

When you're
down and out,

(Not one penny–)

and my friends–

(I haven't any!)

and I felt so low
nobody wants me
'round their door.

Lyrical lament,
burial by percussive clatter
of distant railroads,
old anti-metre of body blows
and vaudeville showcases on Broadway.

Let’s get together and kill Jim Crow today.

>>11205990
You have too many characters, and not enough action.

>>11205990
I wrote this in less than an hour as a stream of consciousness exercise and I never really ironed out the finer touches so I'm sure there's bound to be some iffy bits and whatnot. But hey, live and learn, eh? Just wanted people to get a general feel of my "voice" more than a specific critique, so yeah. Honest feedback is appreciated, and I apologize in advance for the lack of proper indentation. <3

There's a particular road out of Newhaven which most folks forget about. It's jammed inbetween two closely built together old houses and the sun doesn't get in any time of day. I used that road only once, when I didn't want to come back.

I was found crying in the woods later, and ran to hug the first person who found me. Sadly it turned out to be my father, who beat me senseless with a heavy stick he used for walking. He left me in a sprawl and told the others he'd found me that way. That was the first time I learned of dishonesty.

My life afterwards I lied constantly to any who would listen. Who cared for these well trodden streets? Who wanted to bathe in the murky water? Who liked this crumbly bread? I was flying on giant sparrows, bathing in chocolate milk and eating the sweetest thing. This was the first time I learned of awe.

I stopped lying 'round the time the priest found out I'd knocked the statue of Holy William of the graveyard wall and lied of it, he cutmy tongue out. Instead I learned to awe what was around, the slightest raindrop falling off the smallest flower was enough to bring me to tears. The moon I could scarcely look at, it was so beautiful. A traveler once saw me staring at bumbebless, fixated in a trance. He asked if I'd like to come travel with him. It was there I would come to learn of the World.

. The Columbia white guy crooned to her, asking if her bed was
made, if her sweater was on, if she wanted to fuck. She skipped the song, and now he crooned
about playing tennis. She couldn’t take him seriously. No thanks, Ezra. I have work to do. So,
she was left with no other option but to put on Work by Rihanna.
She’d started listening to Vampire Weekend when she went to high school and wanted
attention from the boys that she’d never seen before. Naturally, The Black Keys, Arctic
Monkeys, and alt-J followed. Suddenly she was binge watching Arrested Development and Mad
Men. Bollywood movies took the back burner. She hadn’t been keeping up with the new
Dancehall music; her cousins made fun of her for not knowing the latest Vybz Kartel song. The
only person of color she had a crush on was Zayn Malik from One Direction. In fact, the only
other people she crushed on were straight white men. She refers to this period in her life as “The
Dark Ages”.
If these were her Dark Ages, the times when everyone had the plague and no one could
read, then when were her good times? If you asked her, she’s respond quickly.
“Fifth grade,” she would say. “That was the best year of my life.”
She was sitting at her desk trying to focus on her paper, but the rhythm kept calling out to
her. She found herself dancing in her seat. Her hips bounced every time Rih told her to work.
Soon she was up out of her chair, watching herself in the mirror, making gun signs with her
fingers and doing body rolls. She laughed at how silly it was, and then attempted to start
5

twerking. It wasn’t pretty. She created a playlist of all of her favorite songs to dance to. Jumping
up and down, rolling her hips, the soca songs spoke of peace and happiness. Comedians have
joked about how happy soca is and how much they hate it because of that
She inspected her
waistline in the mirror, making sure it was in time, rolling fluidly while going down to the
ground and coming back up. At parties with her Guyanese family, they used to tell her,
screaming over the deafening bass, “Eh gyal! Yuh can proppa dance!” and she’d laugh.

>>11207833
She tried dance bachata once at a party and failed miserably, so she decided to take up
practicing in heels. This was one of those times. One, two, three, step. One, two, three, step.
Turn, turn, turn, step. One, two, three, step. She smiled giddily as she remembered how she had
learned at a middle school dance, her best friend from the Dominican Republic teaching her the
whole night. She didn’t wear heels back then, of course. Nonetheless, she stumbled among the
sea of students from Mexico, PR, and DR who could already do it flawlessly. DJ 718 played at
every one of their middle school dances, and always made sure to thread a few reggaeton and
bachata songs between the mid-2000s hits. She played Daddy Yankee and screamed the lyrics
just to feel the words in her mouth. Whatever happened between us happened. It just didn’t
sound as good in English. The cafeteria was always dark and stuffy; kids scrambled to buy sodas
and ice creams and popcorn with the five dollars their parents gave them that morning. The air
horns that the DJ managed to disperse throughout every song epitomized her childhood:
hilarious, obnoxious, and fun. It made her think of a warning sound, alerting neighbors when her
and her friends walked onto their block on their way home from school, stomping and pushing
each other into bushes the whole way.

I guess this is as close as I can get to anything with my nonexistent knowledge:

if you really want to
you can change only
one can change you
want to really change

>>11206066
Nah, it’s perfect

>>11205990
>a post longer than a paragraph
>ostentatiously or even modestly makes references to my life
>resonance is for faggots and spics
>tldr the meaningless post that would do nothing but waste my time
>reminds me of putting my hand in my pocket and pretending i had snacks until my puppy caught on

> bark bark bark bark

https://pastebin.com/eByH4zrB

>>11208163
Very fun to read very well written so it seems.

>>11206143
This reminds me of Doctor sleep. It def needs some housekeeping, but a very immersive slice.

Orphans of the nonplussed night,

Defy their godwilled urge;

The winter child of humantide—

Whence the wicked emerge,

Hark! The merry marionettes—

Take their fatal plunge.

Christ!!
I missed the train
Well at least
I wasn't called for

>>11205990
Cringey 20 year old writing. You need to write more. It feels like you're writing to improve your writing, it doesn't feel like a piece of writing meant for consumption. The descriptions are too convoluted to paint a clear picture, they're more like word vom. The story is not playing easily in my mind, what I'm doing more is reading the words to see what little twists you have constructed in your sentences.

It's about a story bro not about complex descriptions.

>>11208244
yuck

>>11208244
Thanks man. Ill take compliments wherever i can get them. If you want ro continue our conversation feel free to email me. Id love to hear from you.

>>11208226
I need this as a ballad in a pub, in like the 1800s
Chopchop

Playful snowfall pitter-pattering along a lull dance-to-grace outside the frosted fenestra; peeking light descending upon cold hardwood and hewn bedspread. Tangled up and shivering is a squat man, his aged visage crooked and leathery; to him a rueful one-eyed crack opening, stretching retina blithe and morbid and accosting itself with the harsh morning glow. He shuts up, thin sheets a thin shield a thin frame, old marrow rusting grate force on cartilage forsaken. He'll mutter obscenities under bitter breath, stained grossly by hard liquor and a destitute fondness for youth.

ive never writen anything as base and depraved as this, even in my teenage years, but I've got gross mop water slushing out the sides of my brain, lately.

“Is that what you want” she yanked him with a vice grip and a penetrating stare “because if we’re friends, I deserve to know. After all this time. Are you trying to fuck me, or are you just trying to fuck me up?”
The shock of it was sincere, almost piteous. “To tell you wouldn’t be fair to any of us.”
His release was more like a shove. Like she had shook a spider off herself. And her resolve had collapsed. But all at once he grabbed her around the waist, and jerked her against his body. He kissed her with pride and the spite of decades.
It was as if she was knocked out. It was as if she was sucked straight up into the center of a cyclone, slack and unconscious. She gasped in a vacuum. In one eventual moment she inhaled through her nose and kissed him back before remembering herself. Then she was angry, just at who she couldn’t decide. She caught his lower lip with her teeth and bit down hard. He pulled away, but she dug her fingers into his scalp, and didn’t let go until she tasted his blood.
A shadow of anger passed over his face so briefly she might have imagined it. It was replaced by a smile he was desperately trying to conceal. The blood colored her lips quite fetchingly, bust she looked shocked with herself. He caught the blood dripping down his own chin with his finger. And regarded her, rightly, as a dangerous animal for just a moment.
He took a step back “So it’s that way?” He asked. She didn’t say anything. She thought of a Dozen things, but nothing would bubble to the surface of her gory lips. He backed out of the room as one would withdraw from a predator, or a queen.
Later, she recalled the blush that took over her entire body, as the defining have characteristic of the experience. Where at first she felt as though she had become an exposed beacon of flushed heat, she later consoled herself that she had made her point. A point, she preyed, and not a challenge.

>>11208241
Oh no oh no no

>>11205990
In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterward the road bare and white except for the leaves.

>>11208313
Not enough. Too much dust and leaves

>>11205990
Her name will not last forever. This is because She was not here in the beginning and I won’t be here at the end. Perhaps you have had the thought that life has no meaning, that god does not exist. Can you make your own meaning? Can you be your own god? Meaning can only exist because there is no meaning. Just as good is evil. Easy is difficult.
Yes, but if that is true, doesn’t that mean that everything has meaning? We are behind cellar doors. Hanging from hooks above the pit. Our skin itches and our eyes water. If what exists is what is in the world. Death does not exist because we can’t experience it.
“Then let us experience death.” We said to the world.
The sky was crimson blue. She danced nude whilst being blown by winter winds. Violet dripped down her legs and painted the snow with post-modern art. Finishing her routine she looked at the stars.
“If only I could be everybody.” She said. “I could fight in wars and profit off it too. I could murder and be murdered. My limbs could be hacked off and I would be raped, I would be in bliss knowing that it was me who did it.”
I looked at her, my eyes burned cold.
“Confused? I would expect that, after all you are wearing clothes.”
“What does me wearing clothes have to do with anything?” I said as she stretched towards the stars.
“When a fire is extinguished does it die?”
“It depends on what you mean by die.”
“Don’t use epistemological loop holes you faggot, answer the question.”
“Yes.”
“But if embers remain it has potential to rekindle does it not?”
“If it does it would be a new fire.”

>>11208241
Is this a joke? A jape? Do you mock us, or mock up? Christ, and just when I thought we reached peak retardation.
Anyway, actual critique on the offchance this drivel-stain pile of sadness and regret ends up being real: it's trite, simple, disgustingly naive, and reeking of the seventh-grade. Your voice and flow aren't even able to mimic what they claim: Orwell would run circles around you time over river bend and back with foot up your ass, monkeyfucker. Your style is atrocious. Never post here again unless:
a) You lean to shitpost better or,
b) Become old enough to post on this website.

Everybody had
lost their shit
The lost & found was full
of piles & piles
of shit

>>11208276
nikofest@gmail.com

Send me ur stuff if u want I got nothing to do. or u can write shit here, up to u

>>11208345
Ok, ill do it tomorrow. I work at a hospital and ended up getting picked to rub ointment on this old guys dick which is absolutely gross lol and after that i got some other stuff but ill try to email you tomorrow.

The Night Palace

When I woke up my ferry had already arrived.
Over the railing and the still river,I saw carnival lights.
The university and the turning ferris wheel.
Bleary,
The world seen through a sheet of water

Then someone called me
Like muffled chiming through a thin wall
And I turned
down ink-blue alleys of viennese lanterns
Past canals and paper walls
Into the luminescent sluice city
Of the palace at night.

Never written a poem before I'm sorry if the feedback I give is too pleb. I'm not /lit/ enough to say anything insightful. Just a line cook. :)

I liked these though:
>>11206048
marriage of american and biblical/apocalyptic imagery and "folky" tone reminds me of bob dylan. I hope you don't think that's lowbrow. I liked the images, particularly the more grounded stuff early on. the simple line about rotten eelgrass is probably the most vivid part of the poem for me. I don't pretend to get it though. What does Jim Crow have to do with it?

>>11206222
This reads like the beginning of a story and I'd like to see the end. The details you choose and the way you frame them are nice. :) Particularly the punchline about the father, and the mooniness of the character after his redemption by the priest.

>>11208226
Too short: leads into what appears to be a thoughtless roadblock, or stifled into a board sort of end without an end. Try and add another line or two or another stanza if you feel so inclined. Overall, I like it: you seem to have a lovely grasp of tone and diction, and the melodic elements you incorporate for a piece so short do not go unappreciated.

This got mixed reviews last thread.


There are times I know God is laughing at me. He is not laughing with, but at, I know it for certain. Just yesterday, I opened an unopened box of cookies I had gotten days prior from the grocer. I grabbed it from my cabinet opened them and saw that *He* had eaten three- an entire serving. That very same day, I noticed my milk gallon was short 8 fluid oz; that's another serving! For how else would the pristine packages have been bypassed without it being God?
It is either He or Santa Claus...Now that I think of it, they are known to look similar...perhaps I have been naughty? Perhaps he is laughing now...

>>11208424
unwrite this pls

>>11208508
Feedback pls

>>11206143
never write again

>>11206048
Sounds like something Dwight Schrute would write.
>>11208279
>>11208386
Thank you so much anons, when I get published I'll dedicate my book to the lovely anons of /lit/.

>>11207833
>>11207869
>>11208226
>>11208294

DON'T YOU DARE USE SEMI-COLONS EVER AGAIN YOU HEAR ME???

>>11208358
You're right, it is an emulation of that rambling, beatnik style. like those folk artists and writers who draw on roots American music to provide their generic form, the piece repurposes phrases and fragments of spirituals/gospel/hymns etc of the black south in the 20th century. The final line is taken from Josh White, a musician and political activist. It really is an incredibly rich and beautiful tradition to draw inspiration from

Creature comforts
A world in mucous
membrane life,

As in death,
In sickness or in health,
But no throbbing is felt between
the cold red velvet curtains.

Transmission-

I only wanted to say
How old you are today,

Like the Gaelic blood
Rusting in the limestone,
One flagrant life
Plugged into the dull echo
Of its former self.

Rumours abound the schoolyard
From murmurs behind the bike shed,
"His pecker is haunted", they said,
"And there's nothing to stop the rash's itching spread".

Burrowing deep to gestate,
The worm carves out
a meagre existence
In the cavities of the mind.

But where does it end?
What is animate (grey) matter to the gaze if not the assembly of particles as a false totality? That which manifests and guides desire to peek below the folds of her garb?

What really lies underneath- degenerations, chemical transformations, subatomic collapse, writhing, teeming- the whole gross primordial soup, not yet alive, never fully deceased.

A host of microcosmic life. The "total" object is victim to the degradations of living. A slice of death, prime cuts only.

To disassemble, to unpack like a cannibal- to turn the entrails out and lay bare the workings of the body for all to see. The champion of man seeks a woman's heart as his prize, and nothing will stop his carving knife from reaching it.

Were the people who posted in this thread never shamed by their teachers? All this shit is complete shit. Redo your life and get raised a self-hating Catholic, and maybe your work will stand a chance.

>>11209297
Kill yourself.

>>11208294
You said it yourself, your style is very cognitively playful. Almost to the point that you probably can drop the very first word and the quality of "playful"ness will still resonate through the entire piece. Interested to know how you'd handle dialogue

>>11208296
this reminds me of that completely fucked relationship in Blue Valentine, although the line about trying to "fuck me or fuck me up" feels forced

>>11208358
move the 4th and 5th line of the first stanza to the second and third. also say "the world watched through" rather than repeating the word "saw" in different tenses. It also leaves an intriguing ambiguity to it– is the world seen or seeing through the sheet of water?

Otherwise its not bad for a first poem.

>>11208358
It's nice but there's not much color to it, your descriptions are terse and plain rather than precise and with life.
'Luminescent sluice city'
This line is boring telling imo, the 'viennese lanterns' shows it better.
>>11209246
>'dull echo of its former self'
Not so great, a dull echo of a line (I couldn't resist), that I'm sure's been said the same a thousand times.
The whole poem is striving too hard for affect, it's cheap-disturbing, references to 'blood' 'worms' 'life' the 'self' 'death', there's too much being thrown down for it not to feel self-serious. You probably have talent, but you need to stop being so grandiose when your words can't handle it. There's too much here to chew on, it's like a garbage pile of half musings that would work better separately, and linked together better.
>>11208226
Agree with other posters, well written but not enough.
>>11208294
This ran down the tongue well, good job.
Posting:

I'm a strobe!
I'm disfigured!
I slide off walls!
In room
vacuums of pulse and poise.

I think the music fancies me,
it finds my frills,
I'm so unstuck -
and stop.
Stare off.

Then lift again.

Fuck man I can't not love my friends.

Each moment flits green white blue
epilepsy.
Shooting
space
and I into
whirring
strumming
my muscles' lute:
please loud machine,
unmechanise me,
oil these joints and
sodomise me.

I'll strut up pure pangs like fists
Or sex,
and
speaking of, they're options here:
but, does the minx's glint
hint a relaxing orifice?
Or reflect light shows?
This our shit show, this full farce of
limbo bongo.
I'd go ask but my flask's full.
Ok I'll go and gulp a few.
And ah she's gone, oh well, new song!
I recognise this one, when I was young
so very young...

Ah yes!
Everyone sings along!

Come ground accommodate us now,
we sycophants for tickled youth.
Recalling our culling, cool and such
unlikely collection.

Yes if you want life,
then get some friends,
a half handful will do.
You want to lull and lie?
They'll have that too,
piped next to you.

In Arcades of Disfigurement,
and love tunnels of noise,
some rowdy random
fuckers have no tact.
We can't have that,
someone snap that!

How old am I?

No one knows in respons-disability,
sound blooms nonsense and this our
shining slither's age for so!

>>11205990
This thread is the reason I'll never write again.

>>11208335
>>11208306
thanks for being constructive, here is more

>>11208619
I appreciate the constructive criticism. :)

How do I grow balls and post my shitty prose ?

>>11209246
I didn't really like this. The enjambment was sloppy and there wasn't much of a flow. Also, words like pecker and meagre were distracting and poorly chosen.

>>11208358
Not bad at all for a first poem. I've tone down the diction a bit by replacing "luminescent" but overall this was a solid effort. I'd encourage you to write more.

>>11208296
You have a good voice, and I don't mind the choppy sentence fragments. But "the spite of decades" I'm almost certain is an erroneous use of the word 'spite'. I'd refine this a bit more, but it's a worthy effort.


Here's mine

Hey guys, thanks. I hardly ever get any input on these threads.

>>11209301
Thanks. The line says what I want, but it’s never felt right. I believe I can smooth it out.
>>11209418
You could be right. What about “decades worth of spite.”? There is definitely something else I could put in there completely.

>>11209338
>cheap-disturbing
kinda the outcome I was going for desu. the poem was an (admittedly haphazard) exploration of necrophilic tendencies, and how those prohibited desires are given a new kind of liberty when sublimated into misogynistic, exploitative or otherwise abusive relations with the opposite sex. women are treated not as objects of desire but desirable corpses, lacking the agency to revoke consent or even have desires of their own.

>>11209417
control v

Hello, I am typing to you now, believing this. Thinking that. Owing nothing to which the mind reserves as a convenient vehicle. I am, American, my heritage, African: Caribbean. I am writing now—thinking that grammar and possibly, cadence of this grammatical form, is justified. I enjoy writers whose nature is to communicate within the realms of syntax, the foibles of language, linguistics and pragmatics. Our study of these systems is complete insofar as we can provide a perlocution of communication. So, for our digression here, we will now advise rather than comment, on the state of your writing ability.
To whom it may concern,
Your writing is foppish, unclean and irresolute. It possess a quality of rebellion—sheer anarchy. You have learned to speak from novels, and dictionaries, thesauruses, all manners of indexes, and yet your diction recites a letter of surly disapproval. Of whom, do you disapprove? In what faculty do you compete, that would identify with your meticulous and paradoxically insouciant manner of speaking? However grand is the vista of your wisdom, that you set upon the throne of all that is good and righteous? At whose behest is your tongue challenged? Listen to me and understand: I do not want to condescend to you, nor am I variously intrigued in the manner of condemning you. I speak to you directly so as to devise a mastership over this unwieldy thing you call a skill.

>>11209645
For whom do you mistake me?

>>11208296
This comes from the same place:

An idea coming from nowhere is just the same as if it was born inside you. She didn’t understand the desire to slither into his sheets while he was away, but with no second, and indeed, no first thoughts she did it anyway. The next thing she did also came naturally. Maybe she could smell him. Maybe she wanted him to smell her. It was all very primal, like when she spit in his drinks. That whim, likewise, came from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Anything she had hoped to accomplish by this action was completely lost on her.

Then they’ll nearly collide around a corner. So close as to be conscious of each other’s breath. He smiles, she blushes. Staring into her eyes in such a way that she is incapable of movement or rational thought. Like doomed prey she’ll stand hollow, still, petrified, as he, eyes fixed on hers as if forever, reaches down to her hand, lifts it gingerly, and slips her aghast fingertips between the lips of his predatory grin. Humiliated and exhilarated she’ll close her eyes. When they open again, he is gone. A phantom. A ghost. She touches her wet fingers to her cheek. She wonders if she will ever speak of this to anyone, ever. The next day she wonders if she even believes it happened.

I know it changes tenses, it was somewhat intentional. I can't wrap my head around completely why

>>11209666
It's doggerel from my diary

>>11209583

Yeah, "decades worth of spite" gets the message across far better. Though idk how nice it'll sound in context. Might require you to re-arrange the sentence altogether

>>11209679
It's verbose and pretentious. Was that intentional, or were you super high?

>>11209734
It is exceedingly intentional, how can you think it's easy to talk like that?

>>11209738
Like I said, you could have just been super high.

can’t believe this bullshit, Lupe thought as she walked to class. She couldn’t wait to talk to Ricky about it. Lupe knew the newly elected president talked a lot of shit about things that needed to be changed about the country, but she never thought he would actually go through with any of it.
Lupe arrived at her classroom, opening the door to see Ricky, Ava, and Rebecca sitting at their unassigned-assigned seats at the rectangular table with Ricky at one side of it while Ava and Rebecca were on the other. She slammed her backpack on the ground as she took her empty seat next to Ricky.
Ricky reached out and placed his hand on her shoulder, “So, I’m guessing you heard about the new law then?”
“No shit,” Lupe reached up to put her hand on top of Ricky’s.
Ava chipped in, “What new law?”
Before Lupe could explain, Rebecca started, “Our president is demanding that all Mexicans living in the United States register themselves to the government. The aliens will be sent back to Mexico ASAP. The rest will have to wait and see if they get to stay here or get deported back to Mexico, regardless whether or not they were born in the United States.” She flipped her pin straight blond hair, “Good riddance.”
Ricky glared at Rebecca, “I will never understand why you chose to take this Race, Class, and Gender course if you’re such a goddamn racist.”
Widening her blue eyes in a ‘who, me?’ kind of way, Rebecca couldn’t keep the act up for long before she started laughing; her eyes narrowing in their usual malicious glint.

>>11209764
The purpose of the text was to deliver a pompous and veridical ethos, that's all.

>>11209356
Why?

repostan

>>11209417
stop thinking faggot

>>11209966

>>11208226
>>11209338
Thanks man, I'll build on it and post in the next thread. See ya.

>>11208322
It’s the opening of A Farewell to Arms you pseud

They’re … just … all—
Modern maladjusted male maiden millenials!—
Modern misanthropic morbid male millenials!—

They’re lobotomizin’ in the spirit of irony!
They’re self-flagellatin’ leeches on their economy!
They’re promiscuous vectors of memetic pathology!
They’re all method actors ’n epistemic tragicomedy!

>>11208294
So stupid. I don't know why you substitute fenestra for window. You mean window. But you found fenestra in a thesaurus and wanted to be latinate.

>>11210741
>Look mom, I posted it again

I walk these woods most days. Ripe with history they are. I walk slow now, the cold, gnarled fingers of old age gripping at my joints but walk i do nonetheless.
That crater over there, just behind the tree line, if you go down into it you'll find our old campsite. We used it heavy boys. Weekends of cheap cider, badly played guitars and hearty laughter. I cherish those times.
Most of those good old boys are gone now.
Ah over there, the Hanging Tree.
We had a nice swing there, many moons ago. A girl first put her hand in my trousers at that tree. Oh good times I tell ya.
Here we are, last stop on the tour.
Marys Peak.
Great view from up here.
Bluebells are blooming strong this spring.
Shame about poor Mary.
We were best friends in school so we were. A fine bird, our Mary.
Fell in with a bad crowd.
Started filling her snotbox with coke.
Got in with some men who dont take kindly at all to being owed money.
By Jesus they had a blast of a time with Mary. They fucked her. They beat her. They did unspeakable things.
I found her body about a week after they tossed her over the edge.
Twisted limbs, bones at strange angles. Missing teeth. Fingernails ripped out. Naked from the waste down. I'll never forget that image.
Imagine being in love with someone, never telling them and then finding their body like this. Seeing her private regions laid bare after numerous forced insertions. Jesus Christ boys I puked hard. The smell of stale semen that dried on her t-shirt.
I wept for months.
So undignified for such a fine lady.
And so it came be Marys Peak.
I didnt like the nickname at all.
But over time it brought back memories of her at her best so I come here a lot now.
The men who did it to her fell to equally bad fates, believe you me.
Old men in small towns arent only good for woodland strolls.
I took my time with them.
I sickened myself with how creative i got. I held a hacksaw to a mans cock and forced him to drink himself to death with bleach.
Oh he puked as hard as I did on the day I found Mary.
Then he turned blue and I watched the life leave him. And fuck, did I enjoy it.
Not one of those boys that touched Mary still draws breath and I refuse to feel bad about that.
Thats enough of Marys Peak for one day, Im going home to sleep, for in sleep we are all still together, drinking cider and singing at the pale Summer moon.

>>11211064
>hurr he use big word, me no understand!

>>11211343
>i liek to use big word becuz i smaret

>>11211064
Should also probably note that the substitution of 'fenestra' for 'window' is used for rhetorical purposes, because some of us enjoy our prose to be lyrical rather than bland oatmeal passe. But hey, don't worry, champ: you can always go back to reading Harry Potter.

>>11211364
And the alternative? Wearisome contrivance expounding upon a dullard's imagination. How absolutely wretched of a creature you must be, anon, to not find joy in linguistic manipulation. Mother Goose is long past your virtue by years, though I'll admit some skepticism to what lies beyond your fat fold forehead and forward head posture. Hark by then ye' dimming mind so engrossed and grossly bland! I'd weep for you had I the tears to spare, but the life of a pseud is beneath the grime under my bootheel. Indeed, this response? A mere excuse to twist twine fine prose betwixt an ethereal thumb and forefinger. Put your hands to the dirt and smell your shit words fertilizing my axiom: uncontested.

>>11211452
cringe

>>11211343
>>11211372
That anon clearly meant "translucent glass pane affixed to a hole in a wall," indicated by the word frosted. Fenestra is a specialist term in a number of biology and anatomy related fields. Anon didn't mention leaves, chitons, or orifices. I know one of these responses is the writer doing damage control for his shitty piece. Why don't you admit you don't know what the hell you're talking about and just wanna break usage conventions in the service of your own retarded, half baked ideas. An hero implied

I wrote some stuff in portuguese, already dropped the idea. don't try too hard to read it

>>11211372
>rhetorical purposes
>thesaurus surfing
I challenge you to defend any of that drivel you call writing

>>11211557
Writer here-- both >>11211372 and >>11211452 are mine.
I concur: fenestra was a poor-- as in, incorrect-- choice of words. I would've been better off either just using window, or, if I wanted to keep the integrity of it's lyrical content, perhaps fanlight. I will endevor to not make the same mistake again.
That being said, fuck you. I'm still gonna keep writing and posting here, if only to continue spiting whatever little niggleworm of hatred crawls beneath your skin.

>>11211452

>>11211610
based

Mary, full of (her arms full of) Christ,
bring pardon to us; marry us to the One
thou took slain from the cross to thy arms.

Mary, Mother whole, holy Mary,
give prayer for our sake; advocate for we who
have driven thorns into thy Son's brow.

We will drink His blood for salvation,
we will slake our hunger by His bread. Mary,
let our lips, hearts, and minds known thy love.

This crucified Son in thy wrecked arms
is the world restored. Mary, Lady of tears,
tho thou hast thy fears, we have our own--

and this sweet Son thou hast grown is ours
as much as thine. His blood is our wine, and His
body, pale as apple's flesh, is due

to us. O' Mary, we pray thee
ask God forgive us
this Need.

>>11205990
what

what is in the earth
what is in
birth
that animates
a soul
what is in earth
is it Laws
is it flaws
that conduce
all that is?
let me speak
to plato
let me speak
to phaedo
let me learn
in earnest
what i must
let met trust
the adonai
of Job
let me
don the robe
of knowledge
let me wear
serenity
on my brow
let the sweat
of my brow
bear
peace

>>11205990
wrote this literally right now, I think I might pass out from exhaustion
>Blackness came covering the night like a long ever expanding sheet seizing everything in its sight. The light frugally pouring from the tall streetlamps resembling thin white bones piercing the night's dark painted the street in a yellow tint. Struggling, I lifted my head and kept marching along the crusty rural road through the January winter cold. "It could last only so long, can't it," I thought to myself, rubbing my hands together in a feeble and petty attempt at preserving any cluster of heat inside my palm. I took it for granted that winter would never come; drenched in the summer's heat it had never crossed my mind that someday winter, like Death galloping on his white horse in a black robe, would come to rob any and all heat from every corner that the eye could grasp- that precious resource necessary for the preservation of life.

>>11211713
strongly advise foregoing the KJV antiquated tongue. it had it's hundreds of years in the spotlight, and in that time it's been employed in ways better than you or I could ever conceive. the sound and rhythym here are nice, you're in touch with the music of language. break it down to contemporary parlance and really get at the heart of what you want to say

New to these threads, just wrote this today:
>Oh, how these streets, once fluttered beyond the segments of material, considered themselves lone to the declarations of this future: the leavings of conversation, fleed onto the formative years to the youngest night, birthed into the streetlamps of a motherly music, purely without the warmest winters of a nourished soul. Oh, how we all forged the stones of Man, into the prospects of so, leaving us only into the crafting of this absence, like a statue without invigoration.

>>11211174
many grammatical errors here. read strunk and white.

>>11211726
>long ever expanding sheet seizing everything in its sight
redundancy. either its ever expanding or it seizes everything in sight, not both

>>11211756
Is this supposed to mean something?

>>11211816
With context, yes. However, I'm only wondering how others would react to it.

>>11208135
This but ironically

>>11211756
>>11211726
>>11208294
overblown

>>11211604
this is a thread for criticism. if you can't take criticism well...

Song

Lifes not a game when you're walking down the high way
Its not a game when you are stranded with one way
Not when you have a destination, and you have a place to be
You have an appointment with mr fate
Up on the hill
From the trials on trail with Frost and his words that he sent through mail
When every step is covered in dust and crawlin bugs
There is never a step without a burden to test
There is never a minute to find peace for rest
Lifes not a game when your walking down the highway

Hurrying down the path of intent, Self conscious of walking in sin
So take your step in mercy of the Chosen Son,
The one who was sold to overcome the filth in the life of men
It is the only option, the only proposition that gives rules and allowance to spend

They drown in a sea of signatures,
the lawyers,
defending themselves in condensed fury.
The trial of the century,
it comes thrice a day—
the jury frothing with rabid wolves
packed together, pickled asparagus.
The grandfather clock's pendulum:
the gavel, wielded by Wrinkles,
sporter of the eery white smile,
a loose tension, worn past Hooke's law.
Still gasping for air, the esquires petition
for milder weather, nine floaties for twelve.
A contemptuous voyeur objects,
flashes his curtain of Rolex's
and spontaneously turns into Kleenex—
the blind clap in the back.
But yes! A tsunami comes,
tastes of umami and buns,

and all the attorneys die,
praying to the last man alive,
their mothers, the will to dive.

>>11212148
This sounds like a Christian rock song

>>11211726
Needs cuts and rephrasing. You actually have some beautiful imagery lost in the poor form of your sentences. -Ing words are a delicate thing; the general advice is to just not use them. I don't think you're at a level where you know when it's right to because your paragraph is littered with -ing words that clunk down the flow and make it read awkwardly.

There are these moments where you're applying vivid syntax to a feeling logically distant, like "drenched in the summer's heat" where you're really just trying to ping the reader's mind back to the heat of summer but 'drenched' is a very vivid and immediate word. Doing this creates a dissonance and weakens the strength of what you're trying to do.

>>11206143
Honestly mate you should probably read more and discard what you learnt in 7th grade because I can feel what you're going for but it took me a try or two to get past the "...plate tectonics made of flesh,..."

Honestly just read more homie.

Theres so much light inside me
the thoughts shine within
they tore into the darkness
and laughed at shadows sin

the husk danced, joy is here!
path's ahead suddenly clear
Inspiration grows, creativity's cost
tomorrows curse, inspiration lost

>>11206143
discared after LSD, xanax, coke, and alcohol. First two are believable since people do that combo a lot. All four would take a nigger of a human being, and I don't think a nigger like that would be writing very much.

>>11213272
>>11206143


that being said, keep writing. It's not horrible

There’d been word prisoner 356 had been planning revolt. He seemed a mutinous fellow to the other guards so word was taken austere on the men. We spent the cover of that night preparing precautionary measures not to be letting the prisoners know we had our suspicions. A line of foxholes was dug ere off the camp to flank the suspected attempt. The next day few of the privates were saying they’d overheard the revolt to happen that night. General Vorontsov questioned them pretty bad, but came away believing them. And so it was to be that night.

Before continuing on with the narrative, I’ll ask of the reader to allow some background understanding of the characters of which this story revolves. I’d been reserved to guarding the pow camp east of River Terek ever since I’d received a musket-ball to the thigh, fired by a line of sharpshooters in battle near Chechnya. The musket-ball hadn’t gone deep on account of the distance it flew and the doctor said I’d keep the leg, but the limp would remain. General Vorontsov considered me a war-hero, bringing my name up with the superiors for promotion. I spent those days recovering in the field-hospital reading. Vorontsov would visit often and we’d smoke pipes, drink black tea and talk of metaphysics, warfare-strategy, and the latest news from the fronts. Once my leg healed I’d be promoted to First Lieutenant of Artillery.

On the night of which our story pertains: sunset lit fire to the sky, an orange blanket to the snow which rose and fell like an ocean swell around the encampment. After supper a messenger brought word that General Ivanovich had been killed by a Turkish flank out 15 miles south of here. In 3 days it’d been ordered near a quarter of our best men march to reinforce the front. Vorontsov gathered the men-of-rank to share the news. At hearing of the tragedy an air of desperation breathed from the men. Following a moment of silence Vorontsov soberly said:
Have no pity for Turks at war.
This was met with general grunts of approval from the circle.

>>11205990
a lot of words neither telling a story, creating vivid imagery, or achieving poetic aesthetics. Very boring.
>>11208241
fawkin good m8
>>11209246
mucous is a truly awful word

Cicadas struggle around me. The fluttering of limbs across the surface fails to move them more than a few centimeters. Attempts to socialize with the air above are not successful. A brief moment passes where flight is taken, and the ascent is linear. But rejection is swift. No matter how hopeful the pursuit, each cicada still falls back to the ground. One lies supine in a dent between the cement. It will die in that dent. How I wish I could end its suffering.

>>11206143
>emanating through every

>>11207869
I like the way you use numbers and short phrases to make the scene dynamic.

>>11208241
...

>>11213634
Not sure what the context for this is but drop the last sentence and it's solid.
Always keep in mind: using more words can sometimes lessen the impact of what you're saying. 'It will die in that dent' is neutered by the unnecessary 'How I wish I could end its suffering' since the sentiment that you express in the latter is already contained in the image of the former as the culmination of the preceding lines.

>>11209766
Leaving aside the actual politics, do you think your political opponents are mustache-twirling cartoon villains?
More importantly, is that an interesting story worth telling?

>>11209766
garbage story/garbage execution stop writing

>>11206143
Reads like a Frank Miller graphic novel but less cringey. i'd read more if i were bored, it wasn't terrible.

>>11208335
its not too far off from a hunger games novel honestly

>>11209370
this is hilarious. more

>>11206143
Read more books

>>11209766
i thought most of this was hammer-on-the-head stupid. very unsubtle. that being said, i chuckled at the end, probably because rebecca's caricature is so ridiculous

>>11213234
Is this any better? I really tried to keep the -ing's to a minimum but they seem kind of inescapable like a bad habit picked up in an action, like a pushup for example, which gets harder to modify as time goes on
>Blackness came that night to sieze everything in it's sight like a long ever expanding sheet. The light which frugally poured from the tall street lamps (resembling thin white bones piercing into the night dark) painted the street in a yellow tint. Sluggishly, I lifted my head and kept on marching along the crusty rural road through the January winter cold. "It could last only so long, can't it?" I thought to myself and rubbed my hands together in a feeble and petty attempt at preserving any cluster of heat within my palm. I took it for granted that winter would never come; have being once drenched in the summer's heat it had never crossed my mind that someday winter, like Death's gallop on his white horse in a black robe, would come to rob any and all heat from every corner that the eye could grasp- that precious resource necessary for the preservation of life.

Reading the reactions in this thread makes me feel better about the response I got to my own writing here a while ago. Almost all the responses are negative and generally betray an inability to offer legitimate critique, so I think that probably a lot of the negative reactions decent stuff gets is more a function of the hateful faggotry of this site and less because the work is actually bad. Thanks, guys.

>>11215430
whats worse is when your writing never gets critiqued

>>11215430
Yeah, it's gotten to the point where if somebody says your work isn't terrible, you're actually encouraged to continue because the general atmosphere and negativity of this board is stifling at times. But you also do need to bear in mind that even if there is a specific target audience you're seeking, it helps to receive anonymous opinions in case they intercede on your behalf and show you the key issues with your writing. Unfortunately, more often than not it's a lot easier to just throw shade instead of offering somebody genuine advice, and that's usually what happens in threads like these as opposed to constructive feedback.

>>11215871
A comic needs to bomb before he gets any good. I think this sort of accomplishes something similar.

>>11215883
Exactly, you hit the nail on the head. Unless you're some child prodigy in the literary field, everybody has to begin somewhere. And beginnings are rarely pretty for authors. It's not like Dostoyevsky popped out of the womb with a fully formed concept of the Brothers Karamazov or anything, but it feels that way because the path to greatness or even modest acclaim requires a lot of dedication. That's why most people throw in the towel and balk at the slightest hint of criticism, because they don't have what it takes to keep going. You have to face your phobias and move on regardless if you're seriously considering becoming an author. So hazing is a necessary evil, in a way.

>>11215935
Plus it's just good for the ego, that honeymoon period after a writing fit is so often dishonest, and getting a gut punch of resistance can help steady any thoughts of grandeur. But sometimes this place can just throw shade for the sake of it, playing the 'tough guy' terrence fletcher type.

>>11208339
good

It was one of those wine-and-cheese ordeals. I’m not the type to know, but if I had to guess I’d say the whole thing was very likely ‘tasteful.’ The host’s residence rose up – like so many did in that pristine corner of the pacific northwest – at the end of a winding, pine and redwood-lined road like a Frank Lloyd Wright fever dream. Through the foyer was a two-story glass wall window overlooking an idyllic little valley, home to a glistening pond so perfectly dimpled into the landscape it seemed sky-touched by the thumb of God herself. The appliances were blinding chrome, the furniture was referred to as ‘décor,’ and the throw pillows were so soft I blushed like a pimpled teenager just to lean up against them. The bathroom smelled nice. I felt terribly out of place and immediately set to getting as covertly drunk as possible.

I remember standing near a mantlepiece and talking with the host, a functional stranger, someone who I had just been introduced to but shortly lost their name in my ambient hum of anxiety and intemperance. She was short, witty, and likely could have taken me in a fight – one of the few biographical details I remember was that she had just returned from a four-month, cross-country bike expedition.

In many ways, she was reflective of the gaggle of older women I met during my two-week stay on the Washington coast. I was twenty, visiting my girlfriend at the time, Hannah, and her family, staying at what was ostensibly a house but might be better described as an ‘estate.’ Every morning I’d watch Hannah exercise her show-jumping horses, and the evenings were spent entertaining guests or being entertained as guests at other estates. I don’t think I met more than two husbands, but they were always being referred to – off cavorting on business or pleasure trips in exotic-sounding and faraway locales. The wives certainly weren’t forlorn, however. They planned and participated in galas, benefits, and fundraisers (this was when I came to understand that big-budget philanthropy is a social exercise, not an altruistic one), and as a hobby all were age-range competitive in some sort of tortuous endurance sport – lots of distance runners and skiers and climbers. Everyone was visiting someone or preparing to travel someplace else. They all had short, spunky haircuts of dazzling artificial color, and beautiful, intelligent pets that followed them everywhere. I had next to nothing in common with any of them, and talking to them nightly was an intimidating task.

Tall buildings but no life in them is what he sees but he doesn’t need to see any life to have a life for himself he is completely submerged in the zeitgeist of lifelessness:
Lifelessness is the property of not not containing any life, biological or otherwise, but rather not having any outlet for this life, biological or otherwise. Those humans who don’t contain any life altogether would be referred to by most people as – rather insensitively – vegetables. No, lifelessness however occurs when one does contain life, but cannot express it in any way. This occurs in individuals whose narrative is blocked by other narratives: Consuming one narrative at one point in time makes it impossible to construct a narrative at that same point in time, therefore those who are always consuming narratives are unable to construct a narrative of their own. Lifelessness has taken hold. This is what he feeds off and there is nothing that can stop him in the current environment he has no enemies left that are worthy of any sort of counterstrategies they are all too weak, James will reign supreme over them all he has the fire of will in him that will bring him to the very top of the world. It is made for people like James, James is it. James is what he needs to be to be in the world. Thousands of people around the building James is sitting in right now, thousands of drones lacking in individuality but it’s not like everyone can be an individual anyway because if everybody is unique then no one is. James is truly unique however. Or, instead of being one of billions he is one of a thousand, one of a thousand that rise to the top, and it is not certain (yet) whether James will rise to the top of that top but it is certainly certain that James will rise to the top, unless he isn’t there already, we can’t know for sure. What makes James James is his unique ability to be unique, his life is hindered not by anything; unhindered. A man like this is a man who will rise to the top, which point I have driven home enough now.

James, James, James. You don’t know what’s good for you do you. You know exactly what you need to do to do whatever you want to do, and you know exactly what you want. What you don’t know – quite sadly – is what you should want. Those are two subtly but importantly different things James. I hope you have no plan B, because plans like yours won’t work unless there’s only a plan A and nothing else. I’m sure yours is a plan A+ James. It always is.

Drawing closer, drawing here, drawing, drawing, drawing near
The age of man - over gods, King Hermes-Thoth - on his throne
For the men of this age they shall rule high over ash!
Above and beyond and untamed the wild lands grow

The time is soon - when the Kvasir mead runs dry
and old pacts between gods of the earth and the sky
like mortal men they fail, grow old, die!
the madness of Pan - writhes in iron chains

Coming to a violent end - quakes of the earth and fire from sky
Ripped apart by Maenads, by his own hand
He wrote his own sentence with ink and pen
Bacchae! - Bacchae! - Bacchae!

Explanation: Hermes-Thoth represents language and the written word. The age of men is the new age of science and atheism. The untamed wild lands are a peaceful state of mind. The Kvasir mead refers to the Norse mead of poetry. Kvasir was created by a pact between the Vanir and the Aesir. The Vanir tend to be more agricultural gods (gods of earth) while the Aesir may be more abstract (gods of sky). The gods of earth represent the human body and the material world. The gods of sky represent the mental world. Chaining Pan being a god of madness, agricultural and inspiration is then representative of a body mind depersonalization, derealization and disconnection. This also references the play Bacchus where Pentheus tries to chain and outlaw Pan but only ends up humiliating himself and dying. "He wrote his own sentence with ink and pen" is a play on the idea of metaphorically chaining Pan with words and so sentencing himself to death. In summary, the poem presents an apocalypse based on psychic and spiritual warfare as an allegory for the stifling chains of modern day double-think and left-wing crime-think and the author's personal depersonalization and depression.

>>11206048
I would reformat it along the lines of this. It seems a trifle obscurantist and maybe could be reworked into a stronger structure.

Slip a thumb - along a phrase
scratched into the stable door:

“The land - is condemned - all the way
from Chesapeake Bay -to Jerusalem.”

Kick off your - barn bed - and hustle back
to the wet edge - clutched by rotten eelgrass.

Breathe that cool evening air.
Aimless fish - bob softly - in sour ammonia.
Approaching gappernippers - hymn below -the ether.

Your shoulder - tips against - a pine-scented trunk,
itching to twitch - and breathe to funk, - as birds settle the boughs
an urge to hanker.

From across the bay, a heavy - crackling thunderneedle - bumps!
Make your beat - skip - a little warped.

Scintillating melodies - of a perching empress
draws in the orbit - of a cornet dive above:

When you're - down and out, - (Not one penny–)
and my friends– - (I haven't any!)

and I felt so low - nobody wants me
'round their door.

Lyrical lament, - burial by percussive clatter
of distant railroads, - old anti-metre of body blows

and vaudeville showcases on Broadway.
Let’s get together and kill Jim Crow today.

>>11208226
I simply don't understand.

>>11211758
Thanks for the feedback

Across the grand European plane of culture lie -- with roots in Era and Soil --
societal organisms from which life and ideals bloom so famously
that their offspring inherit their reputation by name, and from name into symbol.


do you like this sentence. the spacing is weird because I'm writing directly into vim.

>>11216107
i like this

Lord God ring unto to me the bells of Heaven as the ones that announce Christ in the Cathedral. Let this be in my ear so that I may heed your call in my light steps beyond the trenches of the world. Receive me in your tides of fire for the shores of water have already welcomed as I walk in. Cover me in foam as the tides take me in and I shall see the light of the tower higher than Babel. Call me and I shall be there.

>>11217288
Wish this was longer. Thoroughly enjoyable, though the last sentence is a tad mundane compared to the rest.

>>11217255
Thx brah. You got one in thread?

>>11216107
Say something mean you nerds

>>11217554
If this was the first page of a book I'd keep reading. The only downside is that I can't see how this situation will develop into a story is find engaging, but anything could happen

One ignites me
The other tends the flames
One starts me up
And the other takes me away
One wraps me in desire like a blanket
And the other envelops me entirely,
Consuming it, and me,
in one lick
Like a dogs tongue.
leaving only a glossy film
Of the lust what consumed me.

>>11217359
Yeah, I might add onto it. I haven't written a devotional like that in a while so I enjoyed writing just this small section. Yeah, the last sentence, I was going for a terse style—hinting at being obedient to God. And thank you!

Posted this at the end of the other thread and never got critiqued so I'll go again... I'll critique a few below this post.

A Breakfast in my backyard

I vaulted on the paving stones
Sat alone at the glass table on a floral
Wrought iron chair, five scrambled eggs
And a sliced orange and the soft aromas of
Resurrectings flossed in the seams,
Spring balanced me on its fingertips.
The Thing was such I felt gargantuant,
Exhuding myself, light as a swimming pool,
I even figured a songbird would start to sing,
Sashaying crocuses uncork a cloud,
The Pouring sun ebb over
Blind and teetering tree-mouthes
Tangled tongues out in their buds.

Then satiated I abated to the glass
Sliding-doors but they would not budge-
The cruel acrobacy when I discerned
My own face on the other side
Holding the handle shut!

>>11217780
It's just that 'Call me and I will be there' seems too likely to be in a contemporary Christian-rock song and the rest of what you've written is much better. I figured you were going for something terse for an ending contrast, and for that you could just use 'I shall be there' (this would work very well because then you would have a bit of alliteration going on between 'Babel' and 'be there').
I particularly like the 'Cover me in foam . . . higher than Babel' line, not just for its aesthetics, because it follows that wonderful formula of: Plea -> Action -> Promise that works so well in religious writings. 'Give x to me as y is happening and I shall z' etc. You've got a great sense for description, how to utilize religious imagery without going overboard, and, most importantly, you write all this in a modern way.
Keep it up, anon.

>>11217250
Good stuff. Enough substance so that it doesn't seem contrived and sounds nicely when read aloud.

>>11217882
Quite lyrical, reminds me a great deal of Crane and Eliot combined. It's certainly a charged piece of poetry, a lovely read.

guy from the post above, gonna critique now.

>>11217713
I feel the general fire-lust dynamic isint very fresh. The end of it though, what follows "in one lick", is palpably better and more evocative. The rhythms are choppy and the sounds could use work.

>>11213240
This is pretty good, the structure holds up and carries the idea well, a good music. The first part was a bit boring though, and i'm not sure i've fully understood/felt the last two lines.

>>11217916
Lust, by its very nature is fresh. If you're feeling it, it doesn't really matter what a tired concept it is. But I take your criticism with thanks. It was just something I scratched out quickly, that kind of almost half rhymes by chance. I wouldn't be sure how to clean it up, but I'll do mybest

>>11217882
Is this a prayer of some kind? In any case, it was nice to read and really flows off the tongue. If there's more please post

>>11216107
I like the choice of words, it shows how much the narrator is put off by the whole experience without him really saying anything explicitly negative. I think you can do without the last sentence though.
How do I dialogue? I find myself just writing out people's words and hoping they can be told apart and when I do add descriptions it feels like I'm just repeating myself.

>he said
>she said
>it said then did something

fugg

>>11206143
the 60s were a mistake

>>11216107
It's actually solid, but in terms of criticism we would need a longer clip, to get an idea of where it's going. If this is the start, my taste is that it's a little too fast. You can afford another paragraph added to the first one, covering the same ground, because though it's written solidly it doesn't distinguish too impressively. But that's pretty unimportant, al things considered.

>>11218379
>>11218379
It's serviceable, but it doesn't stand out. I mean, I *know* this passage, and many ones like it, but It doesn't really indicate what it supposed to be, in terms of my interest.

But in terms of the basic things it's supposed to be doing, it's fine. The elements of pacing and proper coverage are there.

>>11216107
Second section:

Even still, I’d like to think I wasn’t letting on any nervousness. Even at twenty I’d developed various coping mechanisms: I know how to white-knuckle a wine glass spine to stop my hands from shaking, and when daunted by a large or swarthy group I tend to become reflexively verbose and polite – traits which can endear me to the right company (unfortunately, I have never learned how to quiet my dyspeptic guts, all grumbling, shifting, and whimpering like a dog in a canoe). In any case, the host and I were talking, and it was bearable.

I don’t know what prompted it. I might have fetched us both another round or told a well-received joke, but for some reason our conviviality warmed to the right temperature and she – to my abject terror and rumbling gastric distress – took out her phone and showed me a picture of her son.

Yes, here he is, we visited Malaysia last summer...

It’s an exchange I find excruciating. Crankiness like this rarely emerges in a void, and sure, I admit to a chip on my shoulder when it comes to talk about family. Moreover, I’ve never understood what it is I have to gain from this interaction – what knowledge do I take away from one member of a family displaying themselves in relief of another? A misanthrope could say the same about most human communication, but this routine is one that has always struck me as wholly superfluous. Part of the bitterness, too, is rooted in my general discomfort with the showiness inherent in the act – the host exhibiting to me her son the way she might a painting on the wall. But, tantamount to all these concerns is the dread associated with the inevitable turn I know the conversation is about to take, switching the focus onto me and mine.

So, tell me about your family.

I never have any suitable answer prepared for this line of inquiry. Most often I’ll mumble something about my father being a lawyer and my mother a schoolteacher, but it always seems affected, and the recipient of this half-lie can tell something is ‘off.’ Like a student stuttering through an explanation of a book they’ve never read, the inadequacy is equally painful for me as it is for everyone listening. It doesn’t matter the ways in which I bend and twist the possibilities, either – changing the subject, , talking about my hometown – the end result is a slow nod and concerned look.

>>11205990
That's the worst opening line I've read in my entire life.

>>11216122
Too runny in progression of ideas. Kind of nonsense. Some of this stufff sounds like it belongs on the backflap of a Createspace book.

>>11218492
There’s nothing wrong with it. I notice published works tend to have snappier, more topical prose. Yours might seem too drifty in comparison. I would give this guy an angle which gives you more room, because right now it’s progressing lazy sequence, at least in the context of a short story given this literary climate.

It makes more sense in the context of it being a longer, novel-length piece, this kind of pace. There’s a lot being said, but the character himself doesn’t exhibit a distinctive angle on it.

But I think you could fix it up, because you’re talented.

>>11205990

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Za3w8TvFsW6Zo_xJ53laAPu1cwjSij22aVJqnFBO218/edit?usp=sharing

Excerpt:

>Hideous. As the elevator had begun to close, the tranny insinuated itself through the door, and now it was standing next to him, breathing heavily, burdened from a great deal of fat distributed in a decidedly anti-feminine fashion across its body. He had hoped to keep the elevator to himself, and as he dwelt on his anger over this, he suddenly realized that the reason he was angry was because he had been expected to show chivalry for something that wasn't even a woman. It would have been bad enough if it were a woman, since he wasn't attracted to women, and the underlying assumption of men doing favors for women is that, in the aggregate long run, women will compensate men in turn, and the people who call this thinking transactional can go fuck themselves, because the entire world is transactional and always has been and will be whether people want it to be or not; it would have been bad enough under those circumstances, but this was not even a woman but a “woman”, and not even a very good facsimile of one, and yet the same expectations of chivalry remained in place, the same demands on him as a gay man to perform the duties of a heterosexual with none of the compensation, all for the sake of something that, in this case, isn't even fuckable in principle. All of this now went through his head, but as the door at last opened to the therapists office he went through and left the creature behind, still breathing heavily, surprisingly but thankfully not following him.

>>11205990
Poor old Mr. Treacher screamed out in those woods just about every night that week. Started about the same time every time, too. About one, one-thirty. I know I’d said before I was surprised his voice didn’t give out after the hell he put it through on night one, but to continue on in that fashion for five, six nights in a row, it is just astonishing to me, plain and simple. Even more astonishing is that not even one of those nights did Jem ever wake up to the sound of these screams, she’d been early to rise in the mornings and, generally that entailed her being early to bed and therefore already out for hours by the time this occurrences typically began, but I cannot comprehend her missing every single one.

After the second night I quit bringing it up to her.

Granted, I don’t sleep too much anymore and when I do it is not with the same tenacity I once had slept with. I don’t know. I’m not too sure of a lot of things any more. I even went out in those woods looking for him some mornings- early on- and not once did I see him nor even a trace of where he could have been at one point or another. Come to think of it I don’t believe I ever did see Mr. Treacher at any point after seeing those men kick him out from his home, I suppose it could have been anybody screaming out in those woods, any number of people other than Mr. Treacher.

But I don’t believe it.

At least I don’t think I do.

The transient stumbled into the public restroom. He edged his way to the urinal with both hands searching the cement wall so as to maintain his balance. He rested his back against the wall, and carefully moved his hands towards his crusty, piss-stained jeans. He unfastened the top button, unzipped, and pushed them towards his ankles. He turned 180 degrees, arms upwards against the wall, pelvis thrust into the urinal. He started to relieve himself. He shut his eyes so as to fully enjoy the ecstasy of the moment; as he did he felt a warm, tingling sensation run from down his neck and through his entire body. He looked down to see that he was covered in blood. He tried to yell but all he could muster was a gargling sound, and as he did so more blood sputtered from the wound on his neck. He turned to see a stranger smirking at him. He tried to make his way towards the figure, but he felt as though his bodyweight had quadrupled. Each step was more and more laboured, 10 seconds of exertion seemed like 10 hours, and finally he stooped over and collapsed in the centre of the room.


Probably the first piece of fiction I've written in 8 years. I feel like I used "he X" too much, but I'm not sure how to avoid it. Writing makes my head ache.

>>11218785
I like Stephen King and murder shit. I liked this. Painted a thorough picture.

>>11214100
I highlighted all the awkward or needless sentences I personally didn't think fit, and the two black marks are entirely personal choice, but at the end of the day it's all up to you. Good luck.

Spring: The castle
immaculate, scrubbed clean
like a naughty child,
A kingfisher pairs off
with the moon
among the willows
The yellow, cream and blue
of a slow-moving,
two-carriage train
thread the hedges
of six-marginal
constituencies that
saved it from the axe.
Fflur's kitten Bluebell
mistakes the distant chime
of an ice-cream van
for a bird,
looking up
at the trees,
stalking.
Crwys's donkey
eats my poems
through an open window.
The bluebells
from castle to castle
make Wordsworth's
'daffodils' a child's
posy.

I wont do it again, he said after wiping himself down. He promised god it was his last time. Later that evening he began browsing his internet forum, a place enthusiast across the world would discuss basket weaving. BRAAAAAP. Immediately he sniffed as if he'd smelled his mothers pie. No this was a sniff of lust. He saw a busom. He broke his promise to god.

>>11218785
>I feel like I used "he X" too much, but I'm not sure how to avoid it
Describe what's being manipulated or acted upon and build narrative from there. So instead of,

>He pulled on the rusty handle, afraid it wouldn't give in.

You can try,

>Janky and weary the handle slung and almost flew off its axis, hand gripping tight in a worrisome state.

I feel like this is complete gibberish, but you get the idea.

>>11218877
>Fear and trembling consumed him as the shit door wouldnt open, he pulled, but it was a push door.

thanks anon

A new dread now held Marie to the spot. De la Vigne began to serpentine around and around the open space, making smaller circles each time, with the prostrate figure of Neengay Lafevre as the center of his convolutions but with Marie at the focus of his eyes. Bending on his knees, then leaping into the air, his eyes gleaming in the last yellow of the twilight, he began to shriek
– Mas-ka-na-ko, Great Snake Spirit, possess me now! Snake of Birth-out-of-the-Ground, Snake of the Never-Dying, Snake of Eternal-Passion!
The circles became smaller. De la Vigne ceased shouting, his eyes glittering now on Neengay Lefevre, his body and his hands weaving such hypnotic circles that even Marie felt herself passing under their spell. At last De la Vigne reached the tormented body of his victim. Now he stoode motionless over her, compelling her with his black flame-centered eyes. She in turn looked back at him unwinking, gradually stiffening in every muscle. When the hypnotism was complete, De la Vigne lifted his hands slowly and Neengay rose stiffly to a sitting position, then to a kneeling position, then stood up, As De la Vigne backed towards the dark pinewoods, she followed him like a doomed sleepwalker.

i don't know if translation technically counts as /lit/ but i have no one to ask for a second opinion
english isn't my second language and i'd really appreciate it if you could give me your thoughts on this paragraph
the awkward writing is there to match the original text, i'm more curious about any strictly grammatically incorrect phrasing i've used and commas and such

>>11217912
>It's just that 'Call me and I will be there' seems too likely to be in a contemporary Christian-rock song and the rest of what you've written is much better.
Yeah, I can see that. I'll make it longer and cut that last sentence out.
>I particularly like the 'Cover me in foam . . . higher than Babel' line, not just for its aesthetics, because it follows that wonderful formula of: Plea -> Action -> Promise that works so well in religious writings. 'Give x to me as y is happening and I shall z' etc. You've got a great sense for description, how to utilize religious imagery without going overboard, and, most importantly, you write all this in a modern way.
Thanks man, I really appreciate this. I won't lie, I don't think to much about it lol. Well, I try to make sure that I do not go overboard(trying not to shove in religious imagery where I don't need it).

Again, thank you!!!

>>11213213
Thanks I geuss

>>11218820
Thanks Anon, how nice.

>>11218877
Makes sense. Sounds like it would be hard to do it and keep the text easy to read, I suppose that's where experience and talent come in.

Thank you

The damn rain seemed to never stop,so he began reading his favorite book, "The Art of War",which helped him to become the greatest general of his country, to distract himself. After a couple of hours Milan heard a knock. " I knew you would come, the door's unlocked." he said. A tall,dominant figure dressed in a black military uniform entered in the living room. Then he started talking. "Mr. Nedich, my name is Heinrich Dankelmann. Your country needs you,now more than ever" said the man. Milan wasn't moved at all. He angrily said: " You mean you,the germans, need me? Let me guess,you want me to create an ally government to help you in your war? Why should I,It's your fault that my son and granddaughter died in the explosion of Smederevo's fortress! You carelesly choose to store ammo and explosives there!". The German man then smiled. "Mr Nedich,what if I told you we found and killed he real culprit,the infamous Communist spy Mustafa Golubich? He was seen by eyewitnesses in Smederevo on that fateful day. Have you ever asked yourself why have we started Operation Barbarossa a few days later? It was in response to that tragedy,to avenge your lost family members and the other innocent victims of that explosion. If you're still not sure about helping us llease,take a walk with me outside". Nedich was surprised,he had been on house arrest ever since his country lost the war against Germans. Without saying a word,he walked following Mr. Dankelmann,who stopped at the side of a bridge above the Sava River. "Look at the water,Mr. Nedich. Whay Nedich saw shocked him. Dozens of corpses floating on a blood red river. " What is this,Heinrich? Answer me!" shouted Nedich at the German. "This is not our work Mr. Nedich. This is the work of your neighbours,the bodies are coming from Croatia. Creating a Government is the only way you will protect your people living across the border. If you ally with us,we will make Croatia allow Serbians to cross the border instead of murdering them. Believe in us,as we now put our trust in you,Mr. Nedich, I beg of you!". Milan could finally understand what he needed to do to save his people. " Very well,then. I will make sure that Serbia doesn't get wiped off the map neither by the Croats nor by the Communists! The new government shall be called... The government of national salvation!" At that exact moment,the rain suddenly stopped and the Sun began to shine. Milan pointed at it and turned to Heinrich. " Look at this sun,Mr. Dankelmann!" he shoued enthusiastically "It is the sign that Serbia will not be destroyed and that it will keep to exist thanks to the decision I just made!." Heinrich laughed and added "Of course,my friend! After all, God is with us!"

>>11205990
I accompanied my wife to her annual workplace party, a chore I had been forced to engage in for the past four years. This year would be different because she had a new boss—Mike, who I hadn’t met before. I’ll try to keep this story short.

We get there and immediately meet our mutual friend John, who, after exchanging greetings and while we were leaving to talk to her boss, the CEO, says to me while I’m walking away, so that I can barely catch what he says “be sure not to get cucked dude.”

What? Marshall, the big man, is standing by a greek scuplture made out of ice. “Jessica, glad you came,” he says looking at me as we shake hands. After formalities he pulls out a sheet of paper with a plot graph I don’t understand and to my embarrassment holds it above his crotch, where it’s hard to see that he’s not packing heat. I try not to look at my wife to not make it awkward but something tells me she noticed it as we both listen to him tell us about the trajectory of their new product.

“Listen, I my partners can explain it better than I can,” he says and then puts his hand on my shoulder. I turn to look at Jessica and she looks different, a little stiff, a little red in the fave. “Follow me, I’ll tell you more about it,” he tells her taking her other hand and giving me a pat on the shoulder.

As they walk away I see him put his hand close to her ass and turn back to me, “we’ll be right back. We just have to talk business.”

“Haha dude, don’t worry, that’s Marshall,” he says, mixing the olives around in his martini, “we all had it happen to us.” But I’m an editor for the New York Times, and I know who this fucker is. I hope he tries me.


That’s all I got right now if anyone wants more I can post it here. Just let me know.

>>11213816
>>11213910
>>11214264
"No, I literally think Lupe is here illegally,” Rebecca remarked. She looked down at her phone. Suddenly, a huge smile crawled on to her face, “Oh, how interesting.”
“What?” Greg asked, not taking his eyes off Lupe. His fists clenched into tight balls on his lap to a point where his nails started to break the skin on his palms.
“The president just issued an executive order. Anyone who comes to the authorities with enough data to present someone is an illegal immigrant will get a cash reward of $30,000.”
No one dared to look at each other. The sound of the large sum of money snaked around the room, tickling at their ears and wrapping around their ankles.
Ricky shook out of it first, “You guys can’t possibly be thinking what I think you’re thinking.”
“$30,000 is a lot of money,” Rebecca asserted.
“We all know you’re set for life from your dad’s trust fund, ice princess.”
“A girl could always use more money. Isn’t that right, Ava? Well, in your case, you really do need that money.”
Ava stared at the ground. A thousand thoughts were going through her head. Lupe’s her classmate. Not even just that, she’s her friend. They’ve gotten close being in this class together. She couldn’t possibly do that to her. Yet, she lied to her classmates about her family being ok for a couple of more months. If her parents couldn’t get the landlord their rent by next week, they would be evicted from their home. She’s noticed that her mom’s been eating less and less while urging her and her sisters to eat. Her mom kept telling her that she ate earlier, but she knew that’s not true.
“I want in,” Greg declared.
Everyone stared at him.
Rebecca smiled, “Excellent.”
Lupe looked at him with tears welling up in her eyes, “You know me. How could you do this?”
Shaking with fury, Greg stood up, kicking his chair back, “Your people killed my parents! They would still be here today if Mexicans could never enter this country. It’s time to send them back to where they belong.”

I accompanied my wife to her annual workplace party, a chore I had been forced to engage in for the past four years. This year would be different because she had a new boss—Mike, who I hadn’t met before. I’ll try to keep this story short.

We get there and immediately meet our mutual friend John, who, after exchanging greetings and while we were leaving to talk to her boss, the CEO, says to me while I’m walking away, so that I can barely catch what he says “be sure not to get cucked dude.”

What? I didn’t have time to ask him what he meant. Marshall, the big man, is standing by a greek scuplture made out of ice. “Jessica, glad you came,” he says looking at me as we shake hands. After formalities he pulls out a sheet of paper with a plot graph I don’t understand and to my embarrassment holds it above his crotch, where it’s hard to see that he’s not packing heat. I try not to look at my wife to not make it awkward but something tells me she noticed it as we both listen to him tell us about the trajectory of their new product.

“Listen, I my partners can explain it better than I can,” he says and then puts his hand on my shoulder. I turn to look at Jessica and she looks different, a little stiff, a little red in the face. “Follow me, I’ll tell you more about it,” he tells her taking her other hand and giving me a pat on the shoulder.

As they walk away I see him put his hand above her ass and turn back to me, “we’ll be right back. We just have to talk business.”

At this point I see mike walking towards me with a grin on his face. “Haha dude, don’t worry, that’s Marshall,” he says, mixing the olives around in his martini, “we all had it happen to us.” But I’m an editor for the New York Times, and I know who this fucker is. I hope he tries me.


That’s all I got right now if anyone wants more I can post it here. Just let me know.

>>11208424

Rewrote this to make it better

There are times I know God is laughing at me. He is not laughing with, but at, I know it for certain. Just yesterday, I opened an unopened box of cookies I had gotten days prior from the grocer. I grabbed it from my cabinet, opened them, and saw that *our Noble Leader* had eaten three- an entire serving. That very same day, I noticed my milk gallon was short 8 fluid oz - that's another serving! For how else would the pristine packages been bypassed without it being our ol' friend from up north.

No, not Santa Claus you idiot!...Now that I think of it, they are known to look similar...perhaps I have been naughty? Perhaps He is laughing now...

rowdyrags or sundayclosies
[a threnody of sorts]
-----
Freundman and I, We first met one after-lunch on the schoolyard amany ayear ago and immediately decided to learn each other something anew. I explained the cubic root. He taught me comment allez-vous? though we pronounced both zed and es. Thereafter, each time brought pages of New Things both handwritten and printed to share and jumped high to ring the bell and bemusedly begranted entrance.

I recall once outside rain was slashing down, but inside sat I transfixedly thrashing a man with an iron pipe and stealing his car (only one star!) whilst Freundman lay on the ground reading the Kalevala in the original Finnish, not because he understood the words, but because he found the patterning of vowels to be so beautiful. "In my mouth the words are melting", he exclaimed, "puhe'et putoelevat, kielelleni kerkiävät, hampahilleni hajoovat."

And soon came rounded scriptures off to go to lections. The Algonquian sun would slink away and much was to be learned. Academe and hallowed grounds and minds are ones to be so formed; but Freundman did not follow. He went to walkabout. He upposted stills of winds and trees. I learned to cure the morning next with water and vitamin B’s (the entire complex).

I don't remember when we met last. I lose track easily to things. He deleted Facebook (no one knows what happened to MySpace).

To be told his demons grew much stronger. Souls are strange and living beings, I hardly thought his to be but gold. Years go by I suppose, and in us all change alone is eternal. The pace of life causes time to sometimes drift along in slipstream, thus to us posed if there be any requiescat in pace. Still... still my heart still pounds and one can still see goosebumps crane their necks as I stilly leaf through these compiled poems his mother me-handed at Freundman's wake. Each page rings a distant but familiar summons; in truth, I do not understand his wrds but I find his patterning of vowels to be so beautiful.

>>>11219258
>But I’m an editor for the New York Times, and I know who this fucker is. I hope he tries me.
This is so arbitrarily tacked on it's hard to know what I'm supposed to do with it. Of course this is unfinished and color and context are missing but it reads way too 4chan shitfic.

>>11218853
I like this. The unexpected Welsh is really nice because it first engages a sense of temporary confusion over the letters, but then grounds me viscerally to the environment of the poem

>>11217162
Thanks for the crit. It might seem a little obscurantist, but that's mainly because it's an excerpt from a longer poem. I'm not sure what you mean about the use of dashes though - how does that improve the structure?

>>11220142
I thought the opening was good, but you try too hard to write spicy prose. Every so often it feels elegant, but a lot of the time it just comes off as pretentious and forced, and the shaky sentence structures don't particularly help either. The mark of a true master, at least as I see it, is the ability to stir vivid images and to read beautifully, without coming across as pretentious.

Also, in the image is a poem of mine I'd like to see get a critique

Too far away the bottle dewed restless upon that nether-desk. Wonder beckons anti-motion, forgetful, rather hopefully passive of longevity of wishful soulless flesh.
Old stains murmur painfully growing until its maker discards inactivity momentarily yet will remain eternally circular pending closing. Attack on what would have seemed to be the apex of the heart, as that is where it collapsed and dares woefully cares not to run, walk or crawl.

A man sitting down on a bench in front of a hundred-year-old church wonders of the process; how the stones were transported and hoisted upon each other and which books the architect read in school and how he was brought up. The man on the bench is an architect himself, explaining why he would be so fixated on these sort of things, although not due to a naturally intrinsic curiosity, but instead a deeply embedded one due to the loudness and brashness of his teacher; always in his face saying to look up on the architectural greats: Gehry, Corbusier, van der Rohe, so on and so forth. The insistence of his tutor suggesting that he read all these books on the traditional structure of Christian churches and other religious places even outside of class time. His underlying struggle to make all his students share this mindset with him that architecture used to be something important and that it was “art”.
The thought of this utterance disgusted the man on the bench. “Art? How so?” he’d ponder to himself as he analysed the parquet-like pattern of the pale stone lining the walls of the church. “Why must architecture mean anything more than that? Just architecture? How does this loon convince himself that there is anything more to a building that just residence?” he’d wonder as his scanning of the textbook in his hands reminded him of his stern architecture tutor. He didn’t want to find any meaning in what he did, he just simply wanted to do. He heard that being an architect was a wealthy profession to have, as told to him by his father who formerly wanted to be one, but soon gave up on it due to the arrival of a little boy. He grew up to be a bright lad and was inspired by the possible wealth that this profession could bring him, not out of any passion nor desire for this “artform” that his teacher claimed it to be.

any germans here?

Five minutes in word. Tear me a new asshole.

The bedside candle flickered. The fireplace crackled and flared, giving it's warmth and lighting the room a dull orange. Rain battered the balcony doors, as it had done continuously for hours.

>>11220790
cliche
come up with something original

>>11220853
Goodbye, /lit/, he though to himself before tightening the noose around his neck.

There was no mistaking them. Obese, disheveled, unwashed. Every last one of them wearing an ill fitting fedora. This was the /lit/ meetup. For these genetic dead ends, it would be their last. He flicked the safety off on the AR 15 and took aim.

>>11220641
thanks anon for the crit.
>a lot of the time it just comes off as pretentious
It's definitely perhaps meant to be pretentious inasmuch as I intentionally make up words or mangle sentence structure to create syllabic repetition or enforce a rhythm, and intentionally use archaic wordforms if the etymology convey a meaning that the contemporary words do not ("lection" and "academe" for instance). The influence is ee cummings and joyce (particularly joyce, the title is a reference to a random phrase in a 1st edition of Finnegan's Wake), who are both in many ways pretentious.

I'd be interested in what passages you found elegant and which you found forced. It's really hard to find the balance of conveying feeling and meaning on the first order sense, and deeper shades of meaning from a Joycian free-form structure with idiosyncratic language, and it helps with my edits if I can nail down passages where there is disconnect in what I'm trying to do and how it reads.

>Also, in the image is a poem of mine I'd like to see get a critique
I enjoy a lot of the language here; there's some subtle things I like such as the "advent of winter" carries supernatural allusion to it (Christian Advent coincides with the coming of winter) which aligns nicely with the piece. The rhythm and alliteration also reads very nicely aloud.

A couple critiques: the pairing of the particular word "memory" with words like "one"/"single" in line 5 and 8 creates a quasi-repetition that seems stylistically unintended. There is a lot of varied word usage in this, yet memory is repeated three times, including twice in a very similar sequence, and this is a bit less satisfying for me.

Secondly, perhaps "word-bereft" would be more appropriate than "word bereft". Beyond the grammar reasons, this would also visually align lines 4 and 7 with the same ending structure of "his [noun]-[adjective] [body part]"

Little bit of some fat fetish smut I'm working on.

“Are you hungry?” it asked.

“Uh, am I what?” she repeated, slightly confused.

“What a silly question. Of course you are. Just look at you”

“Why you rude little…” Before she could tell the creature off, a sudden, unnatural tiredness came over her. There was no fighting it. She fell backwards and was sound asleep within seconds.

>>11220985
Thanks man for the critique, you clearly know your shit much better than I do. That being said, from my more amateur position, the whole section from "The Algonquin sun" to "the entire complex" felt almost deliberately obscurantist to me, and I found it moderately difficult to keep track of what exactly was being said. I believe it has a delightful rhythm and flow to it though, and if that's more your focus, you did brilliantly. However, I do find a sharp contrast in the prose of the aforementioned section and the following paragraph, as it very quickly jumps from this very intense language and structure to something incredibly simple. If that juxtaposition was intentional, I can't see any reason why it's there. That said however, I still did find it an enjoyable piece.

Body aching, I steadied my footing on the rocky incline, judging this to be far enough. Turning around I admired the vast landscape before me, verdant plains as far as the eye can reach, corralled by snow-capped mountains piercing the clouds. Nowhere did I see signs of civilization, not a house, not a field of crop, not even a beaten path. The wild state of the vegetation I traversed earlier already suggested that this land was uninhabited. Perhaps for the better I thought, yet I could not shake the sudden weight on my chest as I realized my chances of finding someone who could shed light on my predicament had just evaporated.


Note: I'm juggling the idea of writing a novel, above is what I am thinking of sticking to as a bog standard passage (more important ones I would spend more time and effort on). I'm trying to keep it relatively simple so that writing it will be decently straightforward, without keeping a tab on a thesaurus, and hopefully getting good progress.

>>11221077
>That being said, from my more amateur position, the whole section from "The Algonquin sun" to "the entire complex" felt almost deliberately obscurantist to me, and I found it moderately difficult to keep track of what exactly was being said.
nice. I think this section is trying to do too much with secord order meaning compared to what comes after, so I need to rethink how I word it. It's meant to combine language of religion to university (the narrator going to going to college) to tie the education to hierarchy. This is contrasted with nonhierarchical nature (Algoquian sun slinking referencing the lack of sun in Massachusetts area with concentrated higher education) which the narrator's poet friend is more in search of. But re-reading after your critique, I can more clearly see that the first order meaning of two friends drifting apart as one goes to college is being obscured too much by the language games and the shift in tone is too drastic with the next stanza.

>>11221110
Comes across as way too serious.

>>11221110
Your prose is very clear and easy to read, not like most of the turgid autism posted here; keep working at it, challenging yourself, trying to find correlations between the imagery of your prose and your own personal philosophy, and from the mating of these two will be born great metaphors and character development.
You're right on about seeking the straightforward; postmodernism blew its circuits trying to keep getting bigger and crazier, and the only natural solution is to revert back to the pristine simplicity of nature, only there will we rediscover the beauty and peace of this world in the midst of this synthetic human chaos and madness

>>11221140
Not him but this isn't the first time I see this complaint levelled at something. How exactly does something come across as too serious when it probably is supposed to be serious (or as serious as a description of a landscape can be, anyway)?

>>11221158
>You're right on about seeking the straightforward; postmodernism blew its circuits trying to keep getting bigger and crazier
Posterboy postmodernists like Delilo, Pynchon, Barth, etc are often more straightforward than modernists like Joyce, Woolf, Gertrude Stein, ee cummings, Faulkner, etc. Furthermore, a lot of the "experimental" lit that goes a bit too far is usually not even rooted in postmodern themes. Methinks you are creating a bogeyman called "postmodernism" to simply represent forms of contemporary lit and thought that you don't understand or like.

Simplicity of human language cannot map so easily to the simplicity of nature unless we rediscover the archaic peasant dialects whose vocabulary had a more extricable tie to the environment/nature. But doing that would probably come across as postmodern and not straightforward to you.

"How come you guys don't treat anyone else as badly as me?" I asked.
He sighed, sunk his head into his hands and looked at me. He seemed to start, wanting to tell me something, but stopped just short of speaking.
"What," I pressed.
"Why did you guys do that to me?"
"Because it was allowed at the time, so no one really cared."
"It was outlawed at some point?"
"Yeah, people started to figure it was horrible to do to others."
"So I just got unlucky? Is that it? The rules changed because people where whimsical?"
"No, it's not like that."
"So I managed to be born at an inconvenient time? Is it sociological?"
"You were the only person who let us treat you like that, so we did!"
"You call that an admission? Begging and pleading to be left alone an admission?"
"This is why I didn't want to say anything!" he protested.

>>11221140
As >>11221224 said, I don't really see how it is too serious, I did envision it as a rather anxious scene due to being lost with no clue where you are, but I don't think I put in that many "negative" elements into it.

>>11221158
Thanks, that was pretty much what I was going for, I want the focus to be on storytelling and development rather than the prose itself as it is in the end just the tool. Obviously however there is a point were straightforward prose becomes too straightforward and loses a lot of the punch that I might want a scene to carry, so it will be a balancing act.

>>11205990

Lend whisper, Freedom!
See how she lies
Her militant thighs
Smeared in honorable discharge
Nearly rotten to the core

Lend ear, a kingdom!
Tales of bread rich as flesh
Wine bled fresh
From vineyards built upon stars
Which the feeble engorge.

>>11220048
Anyone?

>>11221110
I would think about with the novel, then come back to passages like these. You can end up cannabalizing your tools and tendencies in lack of a real direction, which I feel is what's happening here.

I am twenty-one years old and
like a majestic ibis
has dropped
a pomegranate into the
crown of
my head
(as if into
an offering basket)

A monk has descended
into my unconscious
to silently guide me
towards meadows of
pecan air and
perennial sunlight.

And yet, when teenaged,
I would boldly plunge through
razor clad shrubs with
hopes to
find some
bored white girl, or
a proof to myself
that
I was right in a
situation where
I was hopelessly wrong.

Yes. To have a
Confident Direction is
certainly a perk
of getting older.

Though it is complimented
by the rising potentiality
of financial destitution
and numerous imposing constraints
that had once only sneered
from outside university walls.

Dander walked down a crumbling pack, sneaking through streets with tack on eyes appearing like swaying vines. His surcoat grazed the road, his low posture, his dark gray clothes allowed him to move through the street. Each step was calculated, a single mistake, just one rolling stone would make all the swaying eyes to rush at him.

The tunnel was narrow and tight. He prone and crawled through the passage while keeping a low profile. He heard a shriek, his vision went black.

1) Information
2) Story

Alternatively

1) Motivation
2) Reaction.

Make it simple you idiots. All these purple prose bores me. There's no juice in these stories that makes me want more.

>>11205990
>critical meeting
Critical is not the word you want there
>plates and silverware echoed out
Plates and silverware don’t echo without an action to prompt the noise.
>or a sense of it
Don’t really need that

Otherwise, it’s quite good. Avoid wordiness and descriptions that don’t make sense.

I am complete shit at writing but it kills an hour here or there

“You have a hedonistic heart.”

“I-I don’t know what that word means”, she admitted, slightly embarrassed.

“Well hedonism is, uh… well how do I explain it? Essentially You live for pleasure.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“I supposed to some extent. But the kind of pleasure I’m talking about is a little different.”

>>11225168
>Ronnie had a father. Ronnie's father had a father
dropped. You fucked up.

iFunny
Christbol Gang? what's that?
Oh nothing Veronica, let's just s

bottom text
memegenerator.com

>>11211604
>" *Snap* yep, this one is going into my cringe compilation."

I'm the Globglogabgalab
I love books
And this basement is a true treasure trove

I am the Glob-glo-gab-galab
The shwabble-dabble-wabble-gabble flibba blabba blab
I'm full of shwibbly glib-a-kind
I am the yeast of thoughts and minds

Shwabble dabble glibble glabble schribble shwap glab
Dibble dabble shribble shrabble glibbi-glap shwap
Shwabble dabble glibble glabble shwibble shwap-dap
Dibble dabble shribble shrabble glibbi-shwap glab

Oooh, ha ha ha, mmm, splendid
Simply delicious
Ooooohm, ha haa ha ha

I am the Glob-glo-gab-galab
The shwabble-dabble-wabble-gabble flibba blabba blab
I'm full of shwibbly glib-a-kind
I am the yeast of thoughts and minds

>>11225213
I dont mean this to sound offensive, but this is so basic I dont know were to start, was the intent to prove you could write sentences in english?

>>11225614
Ouch. I've never written anything before, so I appreciate your honesty. Are you working on anything?

>>11211604
>if I wanted to keep the integrity of it's lyrical content
I like what you were trying to do, but the burden of relying on lyrical and archaic wordplay is that you should carefully consider the breadth of meaning. As >>11211557 points out "fenestra"in english has a biological meaning relating to openings in the body, outside of the Latin "window" meaning. If there was some reason to believe the biological and window meaning could be at play then it would be a very interesting word choice, but it seems that was not the case given that the surrounding words do not give off any sense of organic-ness. Keep trying new structures and rhythms though.

>>11225614
Come on, boy. Write something.

Niggas iffy, uh, Blicky got the stiffy, uh
Got the blicky, uh, drum it holds fifty, uh
(Scum Gang!)
Pop these niggas like a wheelie nigga, you a silly nigga
In the hood with them billy niggas, and them Hoover niggas
You run up and they shooting niggas, we ain't hooping nigga
No KB, you a loser nigga, up that Uzi nigga
On the stoop, crills in my draws, your girl on my phone
She wanna fuck but keep her clothes on, I only want the jaw
Man that's really all I use her for, I kick her out the door
I don't want her, you can keep the whore, she fiending for some more
In New York my niggas don't Milly Rock, my niggas money bop
Blow a case a nigga throwing shots, I run 'em off they block
Quarter milli in the stash box, I grinded for my spot
Niggas talking 'bout that cash but my bag worth a lot
I don't fuck with no old hoes, only new hoes
Put my dick in her backbone, I pass her to my bro
I don't love her that's a sad hoe, she a bad hoe
I'mma fuck her then I dash home, to the cash hoe
I'm on some rob a nigga shit, take a nigga bitch
Do the dash in the whip, count the cash in the whip
I pull up with a stick, I let that shit hit
Shout out, but I fucked that nigga bitch
Niggas iffy, uh, Blicky got the stiffy, uh
Got the blicky, uh, drum it holds fifty, uh
Move milli, all my niggas on fifty, uh
Talk down, pew pew pew, you silly, uh
Hit a stain, fifty bands, all hunnids
Spinning through ya block like a pop shove it
Shoot at me I'm shooting back, I'm getting buckets
I ain't wanna take his life but nigga, fuck it
I'm on some rob a nigga shit, take a nigga bitch
Do the dash in the whip, count the cash in the whip
I pull up with a stick, I let that shit hit
Shout out, but I fucked that nigga bitch
I'm on some rob a nigga shit, take a nigga bitch
Do the dash in the whip, count the cash in the whip
I pull up with a stick, I let that shit hit
Shout out, but I fucked that nigga bitch
Scum Gang

Working title: "/lit/ gets what it deserves"

"Better be no mustard this time, you dumb bitch", he demanded, not even turning to look at her. If he'd bothered with even that small amount of human decency, it might have saved his life.

She flicked the safety off, gripped the gun with both hands, and took aim. "Are you sure you want that hot-dog?" she asked calmly.

"BITCH WHAT DID I JUST...", a single bullet hit him in the back. His enormous body slumped over the keyboard, motionless.

She recalled something her ex husband had told her years ago. Single shot kills are rare. Fire until the threat is stopped. She squeezed the trigger again and a second bullet hit him in the left shoulder. He remained motionless. She approached cautiously, took aim and fired a third shot into his head.

>>11205990
Not OC, but one of the greatest literary works I've ever seen on this board.

That shelf he was, or had been, so proud of. Hundreds of books, most of them still in perfect condition, having never been read or even opened. The only ones he HAD bothered to read were quickly ruined. Their pages torn out or stained with mustard and diet Pepsi. How many times had she bought and re-bought The Republic?

>>11205990
how can i have this layout in my openoffice document?

Authors note: Mother's lines are to be read in a stereotypical southern belle accent.

"Oh, Dawcta, isn't thea anethen ye can do for mah pooa boi?"

"I'm sorry, ma'am, your son has the worst case of autism I've ever encountered. He's completely beyond treatment. I know this may sound extreme, but I'm recommending post birth abortion.

"Mama, I wanna post on /lit/."

"OH TIMMEH, YEW BE STRAWNG FOR MAMA NAO, YA HEA?"

The Smile

You remember,

When you first meet;
A quick flash of friendly white
Matched with eyes full of promise,
You catch a glimpse of the puzzle wrapped inside.

When you first kiss;
An instant of stillness before gravitating
Uninhibited glasses and wandering music,
So giddy you can't help but laugh.

When you first love;
A unity of souls creating harmony
Outbursts of reciprocated ardour,
A moment so perfect you can't enjoy it.

You miss it,

The Smile
(Also just realised you can read it top to bottom and bottom to top)

>>11226768

this is nice

"The problem with defining 'human' is that if you put it in purely biological terms, purely physiological, mechanical, then you leave open the possibility of humans being made synthetically. Or humans being simulated in programs, you know? And that opens a whole can of worms. Rights, responsibilities, ethics, morality, it just goes on and on. I don’t buy that stance, myself. I don’t think to be human is a matter of machination. I think there’s a special something that makes us human. A state of consciousness, perhaps how our mind or our awareness grows on its own from conception. But my point is that when you define human by mental states, by thought processes, when you do that you’re going to find that your definition excludes some of us. And it’s easier to leave that definition than it is to join it. It’s easier to have that something then lose it than it is to be not human and become one. And I think that when you leave, you’re aware of the exact moment that it happens."

>>11225382
Fair enough. This was super rough and a lot of the sentences were just general ideas I would like to come back later and write differently. I agree that one stands out as particularly cringe but I couldnt think of a clever way to stretch out the genealogy

The first shot blew his fedora off. The second blew his brains out.

"Heh, one less /lit/ poster", he said coolly, before twirling his antique revolver and holstering it in one quick motion. He looked down at his autistic bounty. It was making gurgling noises like it was trying to say something. The bullet had just missed it's mark. "Hey fellas", he called, "this one ain't quite done." He spat a wad of tobacco onto it's forehead. "Wonder if it's thinkin' anythin'."

"Do I look like I give a god damn?", the sherrif snapped at him from atop his horse. "Put that thing outta it's misery and let's get em back to town already."

"As you say, boss", he grumbled. He took out his revolver and aimed it at the twitching autist. "Say adios, autismo." He fired a single shot into it's forehead.

>>11211174
I really like this. But I also like fucked up literature, so maybe I’m biased. Still, I think you have something here.

Oh sweet Ganymede
You draw my gaze
As the Siren's song lead
Me Towards those perilous rocks
For if I were to have you
I should bind myself with chains and locks
And cast myself into the Sea
For even my admiration
Would cause my peers to see me beastly

>>11227662
gay

The war had turned him into a fanatic. He went off to the front a boy, still relishing in the wonders of youth, but it was there, at the front, where he had all but died. Upon his return, his father at once noticed a change in his son’s eyes. The adolescent, frivolous gleam that they had previously exuded had been vanquished. However, those eyes were not hollow, and they contained within them something very curious. A certain twinkle that was akin to a shimmering object resting on the floor of a lake. It's striking visibility compelled a man to dive in and retrieve it, but they could keep on swimming until the bite of the frigid deep sank into the very marrow of their bones, and their breath could no longer bear being held, and this thing would still remain to them an unattainable mystery. This provoked in his father a certain uneasiness which he kept a secret. For he had felt ashamed by the fact that when looking at his only begotten son, whom he had loved dearly for many years, he could see nothing more than an impenetrable stranger.

>>11227639
Thanks dude

>>11212148
sounds like the lyrics to a shitty country song

A hug:

I know things when I know you.

It feels good when I know I’m not alone here.

Come here, give me a hug.

Let me feel something.

Alleviate me for a little.

Because soon it’ll be over.

One day, we’ll be too far apart.

We’ll be separated, dead, dissolved.

And what will we be then?

Come here and hug me again.

I don’t care if you’re done.

Because I don’t want to be done.

I don’t want to be done.

CRITIQUE ME MOTHERFUCKERS
https://pastebin.com/xuJBCcDK

Is it just me or has poetry really come back in vogue?
>>11229365
decent if you're handing this into a romantic partner I guess. Very cliched.


>>11227769
Great deal of passive voice, could use some sentence restructuring. some comma control needed. Could also use expansion. Seems like this is some character backstory but it reads more like a momentary dump, should relegate this to a separate chapter, and make a story about what in the war changed the character.

>>11227662
Capitalization is a bit off, could be poetic style. As I told above anon it's alright if this is for a romantic partner, this is too crony and self-pitying than I enjoy.

>>11226806
Decent dialogue, pity there's nothing else to it.

>>11226768
Very nice, cliched, but honest.

>>11226348
>>11226610
>>11227561
Keep working anon! In a month you'll be done with the first chapter!

>>11225897
maybe with strong trap production and a hard edge screaming type delivery this could be a real hit.

>>11225168
Decent ideas, read more books and reapply yourself to the idea. You have a decent taste for exposition. Also, 'Father's father,' shit is for the bible. Just put Great Grandfather. Pretension is your enemy.

>>11223303
Live another nine years and you'll no longer want to write poetry. Live another ten and maybe you'll make a good poet.

>>11221548
Need more context. Decent delivery, pacing of the dialogue and organization could be better.

>>11221110
Good opening paragraph. But great stories are great throughout. Keep writing and stick with it anon, focus more on the whole product.

>>11220769
>>11220733

Decent starters, would like to see where they go.

>>11229590
>https://pastebin.com/xuJBCcDK

>Live another nine years and you'll no longer want to write poetry. Live another ten and maybe you'll make a good poet.

I'm not sure what to make of that. Are you saying it's a bad poem?

As for your work, I like it. The prose is very comfy, it reminds me of a dry summer or a shed. You've talent, but I'm sure you know that already. I didn't care much for the plot though, but, that's not really an issue here. Keep it up comfy man.

>>11230051
I was mostly playing off your poems theme of isolation and restlessness. It's very well done, I've no real complaints as I'm not really skilled and poetry and can't give much more praise than it works or doesn't. But it definitely works.

I finally tried my hand at writing the start of my first novel. Here's the opening bit.

Does this sound even -remotely- appealing?

it's a soft sci-fi set in a parallel world in which nation states are replaced with sovereign religious organizations, which the Catholic Church holding the balance of power within a Consortium of religious groups (similar to the United Nations). The story is told from the perspective of a low-level cleric within the Consortium who is tasked with supervising the development of a virgin-born girl at Oxford, who he later abducts.

>>11230123

I'll crit for crit, by the way.

>>11229590
I'll crit you when I'm home tonight in a couple hours

"whatcha got there, boy?", he growled.

"A-a c-copy of Infinite J-J-est, sir" he sputtered, his speech impediment on full display.

"Reckon that'll stop a bullet?"

“What’s that one in for”, he asked, referring to the disheveled man child the cell.

“Being a public nuisance. Ain’t that right, tard?”

“I’M A PHILOSOPHER, I’M A LIT POSTER, I’M A CRITIC” it shouted.

“Aww, shut up with that”, the sheriff implored, throwing a cup of cold coffee on it.

“ Sounds like your boys knocked a few screws loose.”
“Nah, he was spouting that gibberish when they found him. We ain’t laid a finger on him yet.”

“I’M A PHILOSOPHER, I’M A PHILSOPOHER, I’M A PHILOPSHER” it repeated, seemingly oblivious to the soaking it had just received.

“Reckon this fella needs the rope or an asylum?”

“Well, the doc’ll be by tomorrow to figure that out. Till then, this charming individual is our guest.”

>>11230707
Whoops, fucked that up a bit.

“What’s that one in for”, he asked, referring to the disheveled man child in the cell.

“Being a public nuisance. Ain’t that right, tard?”

“I’M A PHILOSOPHER, I’M A LIT POSTER, I’M A CRITIC” it shouted.

“Aww, shut up with that”, the sheriff implored, throwing a cup of cold coffee on it.

“ Sounds like your boys knocked a few screws loose.”

“Nah, he was spouting that gibberish when they found him. We ain’t laid a finger on him yet.”

“I’M A PHILOSOPHER, I’M A PHILSOPOHER, I’M A PHILOPSHER” it repeated, seemingly oblivious to the soaking it had just received.

“Reckon this fella needs the rope or an asylum?”

“Well the doc’ll be by tomorrow to figure that out. Till then he’s our guest.”

>>11205990
/tg/ cross poster here.

I need some help figuring out a creepy poem the BBEG is gonna sing while the party is trapped. I need some help with some lines. Here's what I got so far:

Strange is the night where black stars arise,
And strange moons circle through ebon skies,
Strange is the dusk where fae lights dance,
And strange wind whispers its truths and lies,

I'm no word smith, but it's all I got.

how fucking boring am I that you FAGGOTS never fucking critique me. I fucking hang around in the thread and give critique after critique, but because I dont include it in the same post as my prose to avoid biased reactions you fucking QUEERS NEVER FUCKING CRITIQUE ME. Im so fucking sick of it. Hurr lets post a stupid fucking poem and no critique and then get 5 (You)'s and then be FUCKING DEFENSIVE about the criticism. AT LEAST YOU GOT (You)'s FUCKER. Take the critique. Fuck all of you pussies

>>11230123
this is so vague that i lost interest. your writing seems fine. not too intricate or too simple.

>>11230824
It's nice to know that anons don't change across boards.

>>11229590
> Mentally he wished he never met her. Mentally, he always wanted he knew where she was.
"No!"
you cant say shit like this

“CRITIQUE ME”, it demanded. “CRITIQUE ME, CRITIQUE ME, CRITIQUE ME.”

“Critique? Now how’s a degenerate like you know a big fancy word like that?”

“CRITIQUE ME”, it repeated.

He sneered. “Alright, boy. You want critique? You look like a dead mule and you smell worse.” By tomorrow you’re gonna swing from that rope and this town’ll be of you for good.

>>11230123
general point: I imagine this will be very plot driven, so it's hard to have anything general to say. The writing style is fine for that purpose, but it's not interesting enough to excite in small passages.

specific points: in paragraph 3, you might reconsider putting inner thoughts in quotes.
In paragraph 4, in the line "older man who had just came running", "came" should be "come".

>>11230907
Fuck. I need to double and triple check before I post.

“CRITIQUE ME”, it demanded. “CRITIQUE ME, CRITIQUE ME, CRITIQUE ME.”

“Critique? Now how’s a degenerate like you know a big fancy word like that?”

“CRITIQUE ME”, it repeated.

He sneered. “Alright, boy. You want critique? You look like a dead mule and you smell worse.” By tomorrow you’re gonna swing from that rope and this town’ll be rid of you for good.

>>11230915
are you mocking me?

>>11230919
I think it's obvious he is, anon.

>>11230929
Im a better writer than all of you fucking insignificant nothings. Hold on Ill prove it

I
Never had the sight of dawn - By sphinx
she syncs the breath of day.
Not by arduous heart nor pitchforked hay,
But a pock-marked wall
with resin stains.

Devoid of time’s distortion hum
The moment’s love becomes undone.
By piston and cog the hallowed log lays,
A present fog over the redwood’s grave.

II
Rivers flow through her eyes brim passion,
Dawn’s skies’d soon be dim and land be left ashen.
At dusk lay that hour struck
Tell me of her past while time remains unstuck
That the moment’s love may last

>>11230795
Here you go fa/tg/uy. By no means is it final, but it's my input.

Strange is the night where black stars rise,
And strange moons circle through ebon skies,
Strange is the dusk where fae lights weave,
And strange wind murmurs its truths and lies,
Strange is the eve where the darkness bleeds,
And strange is the night where silence dies,
Flow does the tears and hushed is the wind,
Sadness falls when Night does end,
Strange is the dawn where black stars fall,
And screaming wind sing songs unsung,

>>11230969

Unconvinced. Try harder, fag

>>11230969
>poem is three stanzas long
>I & II

>>11230795
Looks like you're taking bits from Carcosa. Interesting choice.

>>11231046
>try to compensate for the lack of cohesivity between stanzas
>it fails
thanks for the crit senpai

There’s six guys who live in this flat and all they do all day is play WoW and watch movies. Waking up at 2pm every day and there’s always just someone asleep on the bed near all the multimonitor computer setups. There’s always music playing and it feels like a recovery day every day, padding around blearily in pyjamas or underwear. Old hoodies from defunct school teams. They’ve got this system where they’re selling their excess computing power to companies and hosting all this warez, and they’re stealing the internet from the business next door anyway and getting welfare on top of all that. They’re self sufficient and never go outdoors except to buy more fast food, and even then only in the dark. But then one of them wakes up dead some heavy afternoon. He’s just dead and they don’t know why but maybe the floor covered in fast food wrappings is a clue. They don’t want to tell the cops because of the purgatory den they live in and the illegality that supports it, and as far as they know he never had any actual parents. So it’s trouble. It’s taking a long trip out to the forest and thinking about how stars are so far away for the first time in a long time. It’s sweating in the cold air and digging a hole all night with your brand new shovels to leave him alone in. And it’s a long few days cracking all his passwords to keep his identity and associated payments persisting. Until the rhythm of waking up every day at 2pm to play WoW for nine hours and half watch a movie on your other monitor takes over again. It’s the same as it ever was except now there’s a room no one ever goes in.

>>11231146
I like this, a lot. fuck, this is actually good.

>>11231104
It was lighthearted but seriously I wouldn't stress too much about coherency from stanza to stanza. Eliot sure as fuck didn't.
And your poem is pretty coherent anyway desu. Nice delayed and internal rhymes you've got there.

>>11231100
Ayy you caught me. But I guess this is /lit/. Anyways draft 2:

Strange is the night where black stars rise,
And strange moons circle through ebon skies,
Strange is the dusk where fae lights weave,
And strange wind murmurs her truths and lies,

Strange is the night where the darkness bleeds,
And strange is the call the takes the lead,
Strange are the tears and hushed are the trees,
And strange is the time when silence dies,

Strange is the dawn where black
stars fall,
And strange moons ebb from awakening skies,
Strange is the morn where fae lights fade,
And strange winds fall and speak naught but lies,

“He got a name?”

The sheriff laughed. “Name? Yeah, plenty. One minute he’s Aristotle, next he’s Homer, then he’s some fella called Joyce. Hell if I can figure out what he’s really called. Bet he doesn’t even know.”

Have anything on him when you picked him up?”

“Just this” he replied, gesturing to a small book on the desk. Some kinda godless smut. Nearly lost my breakfast lookin’ through it.”

He picked it up and examined the cover. On it was a drawing of a naked girl who appeared to be underage surrounded by symbols of some kind. He began flipping through it. Page after page of the same. Naked girls and symbols he didn’t recognize. “This in Chinese?”, he asked.

“Hell if I know. Had that oriental fella that works over at the laundry take a look at it earlier. Couldn’t make heads or tails of it.”

>>11209370
Excellent, but you should expand on the salsa

A little poem for /lit/

Like a devout pilgrim,
I walk towards the sunrise,
Yet, no faith follows the rhythm
Of my feet, in this endless demise

Love, obsession, illness,
My heart cannot tell,
Still, a certain stillness
Keeps me walking towards your smell

A stillness, clinging to my back,
Retelling stories of the sunlight we once had,
The one that still shines through the crack,
Of my broken heart

Like a pilgrim, devout to a sun
That has abandoned him forever,
I run
Knowing that my next sunrise, will be never

>>11231403
Replace all nouns with shart.

>>11231146
This is a good premise for a short story but I think you could do with fleshing this out fully. Have you read Cortazar?

>>11231410
very constructive

>>11231164
I erased the I and II, it does nothing to create cohesiveness regardless. You're right about Eliiot, I read a lot of Housman and Yeats, who often separate stanzas or small groupings of stanzas numerically (there's a term for that which escapes me), but that style doesn't fit this poem. It is definitely a work in progress though, so I appreciate the critique, and that you liked the internal and delayed rhymes of course. Thanks anon

>>11231486
You take yourself too seriously. Relax and your writing will be better.

>>11231496
never considered that but you might be right

>>11229590
>mass reply
Fucking end yourself, swine

>>11229590
You critique with such confidence given you are without a doubt one of the worst writers in ITT

>>11231606
you can't just write prose and hit the enter key to turn into into poe-

"What are we looking at, Doc?"

"Well where to start?" Broken nose, two black eyes, ruptured eardrums. Swelling on the brain due to blunt force trauma. They hit him from behind with something heavy, and that's just the head. He's got multiple cracked ribs, bruising on his arms and legs, fingers are broken.

"Looks like somebody worked this guy over pretty bad."

"Within an inch of his life. He wouldn't have lasted an hour if someone hadn't found him."
"Any ID?"

"Nothing. No wallet, no phone, nothing in his pockets. They took everything. Only thing he had with him was a book of Greek poetry."

"Poetry?", he repeated.

"Yeah, and that's where it gets weird. Some of the pages were torn out. We found them lodged in his anus.

The detective looked up from his notebook. "Come again?"

"some in his anus, some in his esophagus ."

"You're saying someone shoved poetry up this guy's ass?"

"Yeah, that's what I'm saying. This wasn't just a robbery."

>>11231501

Not him but I'll agree with that. Your writing is good but I don't know if it's completely genuine. The voice feels put on, but I'm not sure.

>>11231606
>The towels are full of ocean water
great, evocative line

video day

i remember
when i first saw you
in the science video
i was in the 8th grade
on prozac
wondering if the nice man
explaining geomagnetic reversal
ever thought about killing himself
the keyboard was soothing
and they showed your pretty face
for no reason
it made no sense
you were standing near the ocean
everyone in th class saw you
and kept watching

>>11232198
>for no reason
>it made no sense
If you are going to be redundant you have to do something interesting with language. The mind automatically speeds up to read faster when you do this and I doubt that is the intent. It removes impact from the following lines, which is especially detrimental when those lines are the closing lines. Sentimentality is a really hard tone to pull off anyways

>>11232198
I remember when
I first saw you
in a science video
I was in the 8th grade
on prozac: wondering
if the nice man explaining geomagnetic-reversal
ever thought of killing himself.
The keyboard was soothing
as was your pretty face
for no reason
it didn't make sense

>>11223303
Probably the absolute worst attempt at poetry I've read in quite a while; would make a good entry for the word "Talentless" on the dictionary.

>>11233355
BTFO

This is the beginning to a post-apocalyptic story taking place in Maine. But I'm worried it's gonna end up my standard issues of trying to describe the beautiful feeling of walking alone on the beach at night and the mystery I felt looking at far-off lights down shore and not an actual story.

His feet padded along the thin film of water on the sand, its surface oily black in the night, reflecting the dimming flourescent lamps of the safe haven ahead. To his left the ocean burbled and hissed. To his right, the crumbled houses lined the edge of the beach. Almost there.
The rifle strap wore at his shoulder, and he stopped for a moment to slide it over his head to the other one. It seemed foolish to do, so close to home, but he could no longer stand it. He kept on, the wet sand growing drier as he neared the sea wall. The orange lamps struck the concrete at such an angle as to exaggerate the bumpy surface, and even the barnacles clinging to the side cast long shadows. He climbed the stairs in one final burst of effort, coming to an empty concrete lot, windswept and litter-strewn. Around its edges sat darkened buildings, once motels and shops. Only one of the windows held light, a glow that caught on the cobwebs clinging to the glass. In an alcove two doors down sat an old woman on a rickety wicker chair, her sagging face wrapped in cloth.

>>11233509
Overwritten. Kind of stilted.

>>11233509
You can use the sea as a central metaphor in the story and make the story itself describe that feeling, without directly doing so. A piece of writing is sublime when there is more meaning than expressed directly through words, of course to accomplish this is infinitely harder than simply knowing of the possibility. There is the famous saying which is quite hard to utilize as it is quite vague: show don't tell. I think that you can get that beautiful feeling across without directly describing it and the story will be much better as a result of it. As Balzac says dreaming up a book is easy as it is hard to actually write the thing.
If you've read The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, Mishima accomplishes using the sea as a center-piece both physically and metaphorically. If you haven't read it I would recommend to do so, and to keep in mind how he regards the sea throughout the story. Good work though, I can tell you'll write something to be proud of.
>To his left the ocean burbled and hissed.
Is there any reason not to use bubbled here?

>>11205990
you seem to be choosing words without fully understanding their meaning or their 'direction'

Like: "she persisted north toward" should be something like "continued"--you have to persist *against* something, and clearly this woman is walking without struggle, "almost skipp[ing]" despite the "ice and snow." (which, who skips on ice, by the way?)

"newly lit" if children are up playing and, more importantly, if it is winter, the light would not be "new" at this time of day--unless it is like, within the first hour of dawn

"balancing his...body *on*" - is the character an acrobat? No? Then he is not balancing 'on' the shovel'

"sometimes slamming shut" - in this sense, the cupboards are BEING slammed, not slamming

"stagnant" - being asleep doesn't make something stagnant, which seems to be what you are trying to convey. If, in fact, the home is coming to life for the first time since Roland's brother left, that would be a slightly more appropriate use of the word.

The walls were coming Down
Happiness throughout Town
Communism was Out
And dance did the Krouts
With the ghost of the socialist Clown

The first /lit/ meetup. The last, if he had anything to say about it. Which judging by the thousand rounds of ammo in the back seat, he did.

>>11233611
Was it because he wanted to make the /klit/ meetup?

>>11233626
I'm thinking more a troubled Vietnam vet unleashes an M60 on a herd of /lit/ fat asses. Cheetos dust, pseudo-intellectual poetry and fedoras flying everywhere.

>>11233642
The only problem is that litizens never leave the basement.

Sunrise, why can't you sympathize?
You disrespect the darkness
You creep your way into the morning sky
You desecrate the stars

Sunrise, how you offend the eyes
Befoul the breath of morning
And by your force I'm drawn into the light
Beneath the blinding eternal flame
My shadow's dreadful bane
Spare me, sunrise
Go back from whence you came

Sunrise, come another day
The world looks best a deeper shade of grey
Sunrise, go the other way
I can live without you, love will light the way

>>11233666
This is a cliche tale about a basement dwelling 30 year old man who is just now getting out of his emo phase.

>>11233663
Maybe it could be a trap. Like our hero arranges the meetup himself to draw them out. Get them all in one place. Then he shows up with the hog he smuggled back from Nam.

>>11233666
>Sunrise, come another day
To keep the scheme of internal rhyme with sunrise Id suggest swapping out day for the slant rhyme of "time". Besides that I like it
>spooky digits

>>11233666
>And by your force I'm drawn to light
And you should keep the rhythm by phrasing this line like this

>>11230123

One of the few actually promising excerpts posted here lately. You better pick up the pacing though and introduce a bit of action before the end of the scene.

I Need Gamer Fuel Right Now,
Mommy, I Don't Care How,
Tendies, Cheetos, and Dew,
My Needs Are Quite Few,
Don't Tell Me I'm Turning Into A Cow!

>>11230911

thank you, sir. I appreciate the response and the read.

>>11233666
bad

>>11233750
Its very clearly one of the first poems hes written so be constructive nigger

>>11230123
Not bad. It's really nice that you describe things as they are. Most people here seem unable to do that.

The Writer sits at his Desk
He scribbles out a big Mess
He grabs his Erasure
Wipes down the Paper
His ideas he must Confess

The Writer works hard Again
Ink Forever Bleeds from his Pen
A poem is Written
But who is he kidding?
It is bad and not fit for Men

So the paper he Crunches
He skips many Lunches
Finally it's Done
And awards he has Won
It's because he never pull his punches!

>>11233839
this is fucking horrid m8 wtf

>>11233862
Is it too limericky?

>>11233868
no its just fucking gay you stupid faggot read a book of poems before you regurgitate whatever floated to the surface of the cisterne you call a mind

>>11233666
Let's remove all the dross, angst, and see what we've got underneath

>Sunrise, can't you sympathize?
>You desecrate stars,
>offend the eyes,
>befoul morning's breath.

>Beneath the blinding, eternal flame,
>Love and Sunrise's light touch the same.

Less is almost always more in poetry. Especially if you are new to it.

>>11233876
The Writer realizes his Mistake
That Feeling that he never could Shake
His writing is Gay
And that is how it will Stay
Maybe he should learn to Bake

>>11233868
It gives a tone of non-committal humor. A goofy sort of tone, but it's neither fully humorous nor serious. Then there's the random capitalization and I either don't get it or the "punchline" just falls flat. Overall I would say goofy but not funny is not a good tone.
>The Writer sits at his Desk
>He scribbles out a big Mess
Just bizarre

>>11233879
This anon is absolutely correct

>>11233899
How Bizarre the Critic Cried
Reading with his Critical Eye
But he is a Prick
That can't write a Limerick
And that will never fly!

>>11233924
>Critic
>Critical
wow I would had never guessed that a critique would be critical. If you are the OP of that shit poem and not another anon mocking him.. Learn to take criticism m8, you posted a shit poem into a critique thread and I described what I found wrong with it.

>>11206143

i thought it was hilarious but not sure if it was intentional

>>11233937
Learn to Take Criticism Mate!
It is just the Poem I hate!
But taking my advice
Putting poem to Lyse
You will never become Great!

>>11233552
can you elaborate? and if you do link your own post i will try to give you feedback myself.

>>11233574
>Is there any reason not to use bubbled here?
Not really. I guess I am trying to get feelings from works but I can't really give it a good description. Maybe I'd just switch that. What really struck me about Maine is that when you sleep even a few hundred feet from the beach, you can still here the waves as background noise. I've describe it as white noise, or being like muted radio static, but that doesn't quite fit. Anyway, I'll keep working on it. I like the idea of it being a bunch of settlements with warlords and different societies getting into conflicts and complex situations, kinda like Walking Dead if walking dead was actually good.

>>11233611
Please write more. Much, much more.

Is there any reason to write a Limerick after this masterpiece


There was a young man from Nantucket
Whose dick was so long he could suck it.
He said with a grin
As he wiped off his chin,
"If my ear was a cunt I would fuck it."

>>11213298
liked this

"The black mist rolled down from the mountain to the planes, shaping dustbowls. They were the lords of the wasteland.
At night when the winds silenced, grass peeped from the earth to watch glimmers of the milky stream across the sky, showing that there still was greatness hidden up there.

Once day broke, wild storms ran amock. Rain whipped relentlessly the land. It ran its course, and sure enough it would be silence when the dark cover tucked the rage. What the sky left were fire lit onto the grass.
Tufts of silent screams.

On the third day, there was but fog and black spots on the land.
From the mud however, pooled strange shapes. They lifted up towards the sky. The pillars sweated, stilled, then cracked."

"What happened then, Ugdun M'basi?" the child with their eyes frozen onto the storyteller in suspense, cletching his hands on the knees.

M'basi dragged from her pipe, blew the smoke upward above the crackling sparks, coughed lightly and smiled.

"We came to be."

>>11220048
Bump on this.

>>11205990
Writing a short story for competition, is it working so far?

We would whitewash behind the blackwash severally into a forest and capitalize in a sorry letter our concerns of a society so infested by apes to the brim. I remember my craft, that. The worm never does forget the anchor in the sky, because it sips on nectar it deems worthy of its kind and thunders away in me the worries, lilac dark. A time for prayer. A time to die. A luau beneath the soil in a criminal’s backyard. They want retribution, but they do not put this pen here to that there paper. Where are my dung beetles, I must plot a judge supreme in the astrology of charts present to times past. Tolerate me, pupil. Toll a rate. Help me do, do. Do me over as the frequent did till I run done. I am severed, hear me jot, my heart shivers and jumps to pour to its full liberty all over mine eyes the sacred blood crystalline. Oh, now only the woodpecker, now now, pick a pack a peck a category and tallyhoe the timber falls. There is no staying calm, never such times before bed and inside a nightmare coalesced. Up, and now I hold the chalice before the door, mea culpa. A litany for three kings, sing me infinitely, ostinato. To the end of all Autumns, it is good to be bad so early in an evening to drown. Lunch beckons, it is a tossed salad squandered with the wind. Who are you, again. Why, as if I were wrought to listen. A purpose in life, surely, to negotiate these ears we find yours, please hand over a tongue would you might. Delicious, bend your language over and steal a bite. Magnificent lips those, closing like the gates of mercy. Nicely, gentle loss in a rosy haze. Let us stroll in the vicinity of a captured prison, let’s. We’re lucky perhaps if they sentence him capital, the defense has until tomorrow to offend. Only by the devil’s gospel, son. Adhere, add here, a’there a’thither-where beyond in a jungle furious. Then wither me weather, sing me a mother’s hymn till I close shut. Amen.

>>11205990
Writing for short story competition, is it working so far?

Here's an excerpt from my novel:

7th Grade

Gonzo had decided to meet me under a peach tree eight minutes far from our school. I arrived after our final class and found cooled seating under shading branches and their attached tarred peach doppelgängers.

My waiting was too deprived of length to be significant; he showed with one arm crossing his stomach and gripping the other; the way it had been all day.
"Okay, I'm here, what did you wanna tell me?"
Apparently I was exclusive to speaking ability under the peach tree; and the grass became his newfound fixation. I trailed his eyesight with my head and bent all spine to watch his pupils.
"What's wrong?"
His neck turned his head away from me to be plastered by a doppelgänger. Fresh oxygen from the bark; I heard him; watched this sound become nasal action before he gifted me his attention; and to this day I cannot be convinced that that peach hadn't possessed him.

One finger at a time; one fingerprint countdown; one set of five equally distinctly chewed fingernails rising; and there it was: the missing piece to our Lego Death Star submerged at its corner in his arm. Like twin lips we peeled to show each other the inside of our mouths.

"You found it! You found the piece! Was it in your arm the whole time?" His virgin arm found a well fitted, curving embrace around the back of my neck.

"It went under the couch in the living room when we built it. Me and my big brother moved it to wrestle this morning and he jumped on me in the air and I guess I landed right on the piece." I held myself by the knees to look at his numb faced arm closer. The bruising puncture that seemed exceedingly proud to present its veins holding the Lego piece was still drooling bits of blood.

"How are we gonna get it out?" I asked.
He took a large breath and held me at the shoulder.

"Pull."

And so began the best summer ever.

>>11234118
thanks anon, ill post the rest in the new thread after I get home

>>11206143
That's not bad, but you're definitely mixing voices here. You should edit it down for consistency before you get a real 'criticism' of the voice. In stream of conscious style of writing you need to maintain the distinctions of the phrasing throughout. It's a pretty hard line to walk. Early stream of consciousness work would mix pure narration with a character's thoughts.

He walked down the same streets he normally walked down. Certain details struck him, a piece of paper fluttering in the wind. The sidewalks covered in trash. The children outside-no. They weren’t here today. Nothing to worry about. Everything was quieter than normal. Suddenly it erupted. Controlled chaos. His people reacted efficiently. He swung the gun around in the general direction, dropping to the ground. He pressed the trigger. The sear released, the bolt went forward under spring pressure stripping a round. It had a fixed firing pin and would run until he stopped it. Run away gun. Sometimes you have to break the bel- Oh no.

Something was wrong- He’s bleeding everywhere. They grabbed him and dragged him behind a building. Stay with us.

His consciousness was fading quickly into euphoria. Lights danced around him making charming sounds. Something spoke to him from outside. He listened but could no longer hear. Everything was warm. Why was pain so vile. How could this happen. Where am I? I’m afrai- No. You’re going home. Just calm down and enjoy the ride. You’ve never really been there in the first place. It’s all a sort of pandering illusion. Express distinctions for your mind. The binary count. It’s all some sort of sorting device. Threat, Fear. Abundance. That’s how you were raised. Never meant for these sorts of things. It’s lonely. You’ll never be with them again.

>>11230123

Still open to crit for crits on this piece if anyone's interested. Link me to your piece or i'll exchange emails