/lit/ - Literature

I'll try this one again.

https://pastebin.com/7mnYsuBT

>>12332038

I don't understand it. What do the first few lines have to do with the last few lines? I think Monk was originally on USA and then it reran on TBS. How did you finish a series that was airing in perpetuity as reruns? Was it on DVD? Did you watch all the episodes, because the ones with Traylor Howard are the best. Did you know the guy who plays Leland Stottlemeiyer also played Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs?

>>12332144

Idk if it was just me but I felt the start was cliched

>>12332038
Nice meme/10
suppose summer never ends
the sun doesnt sleep, no more
honeyed chumps, choked or
drowned; bathed in basin
bare, a travelling salesman -
little Lucy: danced, squared, and
Downed.

Flesh echo, so dear, forgotten
in blue, Turn Back Time and
MEMORISE; touch, taste
the night dancer - no haste -
in barren, cold, dark, Lucy
Dies.

The clouds dont exist, no more
blue stars, stock in store, or
return - chumps cheer, He wept -
congregation: dear child, the best
for poor moon, left lonely, and Lucy to
burn.

Title: suppose summer never ends
/
the sun doesnt sleep, no more
honeyed chumps, choked or
drowned; bathed in basin
bare, a travelling salesman -
little Lucy: danced, squared, and
Downed.

Flesh echo, so dear, forgotten
in blue, Turn Back Time and
MEMORISE; touch, taste
the night dancer - no haste -
in barren, cold, dark, Lucy
Dies.

The clouds dont exist, no more
blue stars, stock in store, or
return - chumps cheer, He wept -
congregation: dear child, the best
for poor moon, left lonely, and Lucy to
burn.

slip cross concrete into something meaner

a greystone facade swallows me up

dipping me in a endless sea of sick and queasy

see something you like

take it home


rattling gasps

light smashes back

cracked teeth on a cut tongue

im a professional lush

hush money

makes me only cry once-


Nose-broke dunce,

I feel it blue

Strange the hour of my birth
I recall it well:

See this heavy body
Whose weight I carry
Whose legs shall never take me thence

Behold this Name which I despise
For I must bring it everywhere
And must speak its word to you

I fear and despise you
For making me speak my Name
For having to dance at your feet

You, who sit on the throne of Babylon
Reader of banners and carrier of seals
Heralded buyer of whores!

You who bring me forth
From me
Be damned, for you are me as well

O awful Name, grotesque Face
Terrible Body whose lusts and longings
I must suffer

I dream of the day your ugliness
Shall come to rot away
I fancy the stinking foulness of your grave
And I long to spend my life beside you

Here's something I wrote for an english project recently.

My whole life I have known the influence of both good and evil. When I was 4 I have a vivid memory of waking up in my bed one morning, sitting up, and recalling my dreams from that night. The first being myself chasing my mother down the street on her way to work as she left me with my grandmother and aunt at home. I remember putting on my miniature, beige work boots and scolding myself for not remembering how to tie them, and the image of her walking in the opposite direction with her purse over her shoulder as I chased her down the dusty pothole ridden streets. I wouldn’t catch up to her until she was halfway to work already, where she would ask me what I was doing, and laugh as she said my shoes were on the wrong feet. Through a blurry haze that seemed to engulfed everything but my immediate focal point, I remember looking down and not being able to tell which boot was which, as much as I had tried. She took me home afterward. I would learn later that that was my first memory, and it had actually happened, and is probably the purest thing I can imagine. That day when I awoke after these “dreams” in my bed, my mother would call my name from outside the room, next I would stand up, and walk towards my kitchen, and ask myself where I was going. Some part of me knew and had responded that we were going to see my mother and get some orange juice. I drank it in front of our TV, watching cartoons on the couch. The whole time somewhere in the back of my head was a voice asking who these people were, and how I had known them, it was like my whole life I was only ever responding to things like my name being called and questions being asked reflexively, instinctively, never really grasping that I, and those around me were separate entities requiring names as identifiers. It was like my conscious mind had only just fully developed and was beginning to question the things I saw every day, as if I were just thrown into a body that wasn’t mine, and that day was the day I was truly born. I might even go as far as to say that was the year that the internal battle between moral extremes would begin to take hold of me. That in the coming weeks I would be caught up in a war I had no idea was going on right in front of me; a battle for good and evil between the absolute incarnation of each that would rage in every human ever to live for the totality of mankind’s existence. That year would be the first year I stole something.

>>12332315
Doesn't seem to refer to anything. Why is there barren cold in an endless summer? Nothing strikes me as even slighty compelling or interesting.

>>12332478
Doesn't seem to refer to anything. No compelling language whatsoever, nothing which suggests craft.

>>12332508
>no rhyme
>no meter
>no rhythm
This is a step below boring prose, this is just crudeness.

Romance must keep lazy,
souls less fortunate
Love;
A tidy eye on unsteady arse
are products of the young.
What wit bubbles sophistication dries
in foreign pants -
which receive tightly
then give thanks for keeping
well within sport.
If, then, you demand yourself Love,
ill receiving worship or reason,
turn to mind and ask her name
then bear it your
sole discipline.

>>12332530
>waking up in my bed
As opposed to the floor?
>the first being myself
The first was me
>"dreams"
Avoid scare quotes

Many more things wrong with this. (Especially the first sentence and the last) but that will do for now.

>>12332551
Clearly none of those aspects were the focus of that poem. I assure you a great deal of thought went into it.

TO EVERYONE'S
i like it but it's not my cup of tea

>>12332533
Endless summer is a metaphor and I chose those to represent emptiness, seclusion, and death. Thank you for the response! If you wouldn't mind to go in harder, I would be grateful. I really want to improve so and usually just get "ah this is nice, I like this line" without any real direction

Near a lake in the northwest, there is a hermit who lives in a little cabin. The shore to the west, and elsewhere a clearing of one or two hundred feet which break the ring of wild forest around it. Mountains may be seen in all directions. From the long end of the lake, they rise fjord-like at unwalkable angles, gaunt near-overhang the round stone banks. Near-shadows grade on the heaping rock, where pounding snows have bled the mantle's offerings to crags. Gathered in the gash, the blue eye colored water, darkened at the middle's setting clay. Ferns wither in the peeling stone. Small spruce shrink in the soon blank snow. Ridges emanate from iris.

A single path leads north. From the cabin door, to the State Road, it can be made out among the brush and pine, still overgrown in the years since he last walked it.

The old hermit remembers the moment he finally resolved to come down it, and resigned himself to the vague hope that certain mysteries might be revealed in staying where it ends. All hope is vague, as he then knew, scarcely formed in words which the mind will dare announce as emissary of the upturned heart. So resolution and resignation are mingled kin, born of life and death. In resolution, the old man seeks to explore the infinite catacombs of dark possibility with a candle of daylight. In resignation he makes a bed of bones to lay on. He came here to know-- who was the girl? It has been a long life. What was it for?

His wife is dead. His son is gone, as his mother, without letter of loving or trace of explanation in years gone by. His father is buried in the clearing of this very cabin. He came here throughout his life, when such passings overtook him, for repose and retreat. But now he shall stay. Laughter lingers like smoke stuck in the wood, of summer vacations whence this place was bought and built, and since when it has been inherited and remade. And with this laughter, a sadness soaked into the reaches of joists. He who laughed and cried enough has but woods to venture, where resolved and resigned there is only one thing left to do; to go a-ways into the forest when the sun rises, to drop earthward and refuse to get up.

Romance must keep lazy,
souls less fortunate
Love;
A tidy eye upon unsteady arse
are products of the young.
What wit bubbles sophistication dries
in foreign pants -
which receive tightly
then give thanks for keeping
well within sport.
If, then, you demand yourself Love,
ill receiving worship or reason,
turn to mind and ask her name
then bear it your
sole discipline.

Lethargy of a stinging morn,
pierced by a queer and fiery eye,
is burned away.

Left behind, the things we've borne
up from velvet dreams to iron sky
where they'll always stay,
dangling 'neath a weeping moon

Whose tears I'll faithfully return
one by one, never saying goodbye,
gone about my day.
Said my friend: "I'll see you soon".

>>12332606
I like it

>>12332315
like a shitty Smiths song

>>12332617
This is the only poem so far (other than mine) that seems to have a sense of what poetry involves.

The metaphors are a little odd (i certainly never thought of the sun as queer) but at least youre making some kind of effort.

>>12332597
What is your poem supposed to be about? Lets start there.

>>12332315
This would be good if I understood anything in it.
>>12332478
Kinda dull to read - sick and queasy are the same thing
>>12332508
No no no I cannot read this again. Just no.
>>12332606
Enjoyable
>>12332617
Actually pretty good friend

Dull pastures of foaming mouths,

tree lines rabid as any dog, any sheep,

any wolf for more of a placid touch

lie in wait at the end of the tunnel.

Every bristle a tooth, every drop of slobber

a bit of dusky dew falling into evening laps.

Every roaming bear a tongue, every roaming rabbit a

tongue.

Dull pastures of foaming mouths foam over,

billowing yeast rising to the apex

forgoing and shirking matters of mindfulness or

"filial piety."

The service of the Earth to the Sky is thus unchained-

The slave in bondage turns his chains into whips

And the nine clouds crumble, as they are known to do.

The son and the daughter strike down the father

And in an incestual display of self-masturbatory gratification

Subsume all beneath their puerile love.

A Woman like a Man, A Man like a Woman,

An Earth like a Sky, A Father like an Ancestor-

Trees pierce the dome of the unruptured firmament;

Sol Invictus is no longer "in",

And the green of the bountiful pastures strangles his last gasps

of heavenly fire, of divine radiance, of all-smiting inarguable I AM

into a few pitiful, meager, whining wails of I WAS

HERE

>>12332814
Not him but it seems to be about suicide

>>12332839
Youre a complete moron, stop misguiding people you dont even reas poetry.

>>12332874
????????? How is that misguiding ????????? I gave my opinion, idiot.

>>12332038
Anna and I

>>12332865
There may be something here... looks very promising. Care to help me read it?

>>12332839
>>12332772
I wrote both of these poems:
>>12332478
>>12332617
Honestly, I prefer the first.

>>12332913
The one you prefer is way too terse. It comes across as disjointed and unrelated lines. Perhaps it makes sense to your mind but make sure its possible for the reader to recover your meaning. If Im wrong show me how a reader can recover the meaning.

Black magic fox whispers to little rabbit.
Little rabbit runs to get it.
Black magic fox follows little rabbit.
Little rabbit activated a fucking foxtrap.

>>12332913

I like the first one better too but they are both good. I don't have anything to add. They are good poems.

>>12332937

Maybe you are just bad at reading things?

A satirical short story I'm working on written in a mockingly archaic style.

1/2

My acquaintance and I met on the first snowy night of December at a dinner party hosted by our mutual friends, the esteemed Governor and his wife. He was raving over his dearest Anna, who wasn't even present, and though I remained sitting politely, sipping my schnapps, I was finding it increasingly difficult not to throttle the bugger from across our little table. I kept my composure, nodding along and smiling endearingly, but inside I was beginning to boil. Who was this scoundrel to brag of his dearest before a lonely bachelor sipping schnapps at a dinner party? And with such a scoundrel's nose, indeed!

It began like this:

Picture myself, quietly indulging in the cocktail shrimp at my solitary office in the corner of the dining hall. The gentlemen are gathered in loosely formed groups, smoking their pipes, and discussing matters of the utmost importance, while their wives are circulating around the room, mingling, performing their social duties with charm. Our hostess stands out amongst this school of pretty fish, and with her buxom figure and enormous pearl earrings, looks more like a dream consort than the wife of that burly old man, the Governor. A jovial air saturates the party; and beholding the high stacks of pastries and sweets that had just been laid out on the table in the center of the room, I am perfectly content in my own company.

Presently enters our devil in question, who, after surveying the party from the entryway, catches my wandering gaze. At first he acts coy, his shifty eyes darting left to right in a clear mockery of suspicion, but I must have been of peculiar interest to him, for he very quickly begins slithering towards me through the crowd. Judging by the dubious grin he now bares across his face - one which looks to suggest an intrigue, or an inside joke - I realize this will not be an encounter I can easily avoid.

"Imagine us!" Was his grand introduction. "Two handsome young gentlemen of the highest standard health and grooming, with the whitest of teeth, and a full head of hair, here alone at a society party with neither of us a date by our side! What's your excuse?"

He sat down promptly across from me, plucked a shrimp from my glass, and popped it into his mouth. He wore a long, elegant swallowtail coat, fine leather boots, and donned on his bird's nest of curly hair, a black top hat, which he was evidently very proud of by the way he delicately caressed the brim between two spindly fingers. His face was waxy and unusually handsome, but had the disconcerting quality of a mask. I suspected he was not actually on his own here, but it was of no consequence to me.

"I'm just here on invitation," I said. (A lie.)

"What's your relation to the Governor?" He asked.

"A distant nephew." (Another lie.)

He leaned back in his chair and scrutinized me closely. I could tell he was sizing me up.

>>12332315
>some amber-honey covered images, things being doused in it, then happy girl, then she drowns like the prior (though while I like the setup, chocking a honey clump?)
>some brief image of a meat locker, then some dark bluescale images of the girl as a dancer--by the way, she's dead
>thing are bad, dull color, bits of the previous highlights, and com-BUSTION

the color filtering was pretty nice

>>12333007
>Maybe you are just bad at reading things?
Entirely possible, but the way to show that is to show me the meaning I missed.

>>12333013
2/2

"Ah well, myself... Just out to enjoy the evening. I really know nobody here." With that he gave a wink. "Just passing through on my way to the ______. Oh, but look! Isn't that the snow already beginning to fall?"

I turned to look out the window across the room, and indeed it was the snow, already falling from the crisp, darkening sky.

"It's sure to be a wonderful night!" He said. "One might fancy a stroll through the streets if one doesn't find oneself bogged down here with this unruly bunch for too long..."

He nodded in the direction of the Governor, who, surrounded by a circle of intimates, was nearly falling over in laughter as one of the servants - a ratty little man of scarcely five feet - was attempting to balance a martini glass on his nose, obviously at the order of his master, and quite succeeding, too, though he was bent over backwards nearly to his waist, spilling drink all over his tuxedo. The old walrus had the courtesy at least to wipe him down with his handkerchief, but not before first blowing his turnip of a nose into it.

"A little chilly for me," I said.

He began musing: "If only my dearest Anna were here... Isn't it a sweet thing, our love? If only you knew... On a night like tonight, with such a moon in the sky! She'd start us off the couch with a little tickle under the arm, as she usually does when some whimsical fancy's got hold of her senses, and, well, you know women!..." And so on.

The more he spoke, the more animated he became. Soon he was gesticulating wildly. Occasionally his eyes would flash, and he'd shoot me a strange glance, as if to make sure I was listening to every word he was saying, and read by the look on my face the affect his words were having on me. Was I envious? He must have thought. Was I impressed? Had I been swept away by his irresistible charm? I imagined this really mattered to him. The longer I sat in silence, seeding him on with my courteous nods and bashful toasts, his confidence seemed to grow. His tone was haughty and patronizing. He spoke sharply and eloquently, never skipping a beat, or tripping over his own tongue; but the words he spoke were shallow and monotonous, bold and braggadocious, clearly designed to stir with their sizzle, rather than their substance. He went on, and on, and on, and only spoke of his dearest Anna, who wasn't even by his side! I was at once confused, irritated, and at a loss for words. My patience was waning. As I've already mentioned, it took quite a lot of restraint not to simply fling my snack in his face, and walk away. But I couldn't bring myself to say a word against him, shy creature that I am! I must have been red as a beet and sweating profusely.

>>12332478
I like the opening
I don't like the next line staying on grey, like the concrete; when I think of something slipping across concrete I imagine a shadow, like when Ebon moves across the walls in static shock. That could be used more deliberately if it was your intent.
The line after turned him into a nice oil slick though.
The line after I didn't get much image from. I think it's because it was the first instance of "you"; I was stuck trying to think of what the character you've presented liked.
I guess I saw him take a bag of chips or something.

Now he's in jail
Baton beating the bars
Self explanatory
good

>>12332508
I saw a dancing baby nearly the entire time, up until the grotesque face where I got a fanged kabuki mask for whatever reason

>>12332937
It is in many ways, too me, a deeply personal poem, but that wasn't my intention in writing it. I'm telling a story that the reader can project their own imagination onto. The lines are disjointed because the narrator is unreliable, but beyond that I wanted each line to be able to evoke some vivid imagery or emotion for the reader. This has gotten mixed reception and that's very understandable, it is highly interpretive, so for some people it will always mean nothing.

https://pastebin.com/0TLyEqe8

>>12332478
maybe its because im also a lush but i really enjoyed this

We were all collected in a room, sprawled out on the various furniture, some resting, some sleeping, and from above, our bodies looked like packed sausages. I seemed to be viewing us through recorded footage, I remember that precisely, but that was only for an instant, and then I was back behind my own eyes. There were five of us in the room, and we were being attended to frequently and intermittently by two women - one younger, one of middle-age; the former of average height, the latter unnaturally tall - though I could not tell for sure what they were actually doing when they came and went from the room.

We five were all men, and we were all more or less naked, though I remember distinctly having a white towel wrapped around my groin. This was probably true of the other four, though I didn't take special interest. We were all men, except the fat, dark one who lay across the empty television stand dead asleep and snoring by the door. He was more of a pig than a man, but that detail is inconsequential to the rest of my account.

I remember it being hot, unbearably so, and I was grateful my place in the room was on the cold linoleum floor, crammed between the couch and the coffee table, because at least there I was offered some relief from the stifling heat. But when I lifted my head occasionally to survey the room - it was really very small and stuffy - that action alone was enough to tire me out, and could not be endured for too long. So I lay still, staring upwards, and watching the bright light from outside pour in through the long, blinded window behind the couch, and bleach the ceiling in sharp, white streaks.

The door opened without warning, as it always did, and I heard the voice of the tall woman say, "You!", quite loudly and sternly; and though she didn't address me by name, and had never actually spoken a direct word to any of us, I seemed to know for certain she was talking to me.

I lay still and didn't budge.

"You!" She repeated after a few moments in the same impatient tone.

I blinked my eyes, and craned my neck forward to look at her. She was standing at the doorway, holding the door open with one long arm, and staring straight ahead of her at the wall, not moving. I slowly got up, and carefully made my way around the coffee table, conscious not to bump into the dangling feet of the man who was lying on it, or step on or trip over, any other loose limbs or body parts that were lying about, and made my way through to the door. I felt terribly weak. Only when I stood before her did she acknowledge me, and with a pleasant smile on her face, handed me some folded linen. I took it, and walked into the other room, assuming that is what she wanted me to do.

>>12333026
for some context, greystones are a type of building

>>12333059
They're made of grey stones though, right?

>>12332617
>accessible but awful poem gets the best reception

Don't get your feedback from /lit/, if you want to become actually good.

>>12333044

Probably the best thing here so far IMO, even though the parentheses are confusing, and it's funny because the guy's name is Phuc.

>>12333072
Harsh, I don't think it's awful, just conventional. Care to go beyond that?

>>12333069
Sure are. point taken

>>12333051
I thought some people would relate to it.

>>12332617
It's hard for me not to see the eye getting pierced in that second line
Fiery eye is also bordering on cliche, I'm seeing sauron and the inkling reveal for smash brothers

The velvet dreams and iron sky seems like it's only a witty comparison, just words; I'm not actually getting the image of the dreams or the sky, just velvet and iron at best. And that's despite the fact that I've seen iron sky used well before.

It seemed like you were done with the moon then it picked up again--changing Whose to Those might keep your camera from rubber banding. I liked the next half of that line and the two after.

>>12332865
>Dull pastures of foaming mouths,
>tree lines rabid as any dog, any sheep,
>any wolf for more of a placid touch
>lie in wait at the end of the tunnel.
>Every bristle a tooth, every drop of slobber
>a bit of dusky dew falling into evening laps.
>Every roaming bear a tongue, every roaming rabbit a
>tongue.
>Dull pastures of foaming mouths foam over,
>billowing yeast rising to the apex
>forgoing and shirking matters of mindfulness or
>"filial piety."
Cut the rest

>>12333044
this is good enough to be published, which is rare around here

>>12333155

There's really a very large amount of absolute shit that gets published, anon. Something getting published doesn't mean it is good. >>12333155 almost certainly wouldn't get published in its current state because it's a piece of a chapter of something else, and it needs to be cut up by an editor and made more accessible to absorb. But yeah it is good.

>>12333130
You're right about fiery eye. I did mean Velvet dreams and iron sky as a comparison, a juxtaposition between the comfort of dreams and the oppressive and inhospitable nature of our waking lives. Whose to those is a great suggestion, thanks.

>>12333092
You want me to go beyond that then that is exactly what i will do. I heard others say once that what mattered in life was that you make the very best of it. I can hear my father saying it right into my face when i failed an exam and he put his hands on my shoulders, smiling his big smiles. His big goofy smiles, his exaggerated fake big goofy smiles trying to make me his when i could not yet be mine, his big goofy smile sucking me in and munching on me, so i said it's okay, dad, you just eat me and shit me out again and i will lie here on the ground floor forevermore for nobody will pick it up as mom is gone no? He ignored me and my doubts, as he'd always do and leave me there, walking away, far away, forevermore. Sitting in his ferrari and talking on the cullular phone with his women. The smiling blondes with big tits and sex on their minds and money on their minds an him with his dick there, putting it in them after he had shown them the ferrari and it is fair to say, sadly, that the cliche is not true, that he really was just a winner at life and no jealousy would do up for it and no badmouthing could keep him down so he always stayed up, mightily and overpoweringly while i was just a turd on the ground with my fail exams. I smeared Fuck You onto the ground back then and will always continue to do so. Eventually i will grow old and forgive him and long for his smile, i will not smile myself though. I will just sit here and tear all the papers of mine into little pieces, tear them apart until i tear him apart. I will always scream fuck you at him inside my head, every day, and will tear his head apart only to met by that thing named regret, regret and regret, making me suffer twice for failing once. I could get up from here, i suppose and tell you in detail why you're poem is shit. I could walk up to your house and play piggysex with your mom. The whole town knows she's into corkscrew cocks after all, so atleast getting raped and beaten up would play into her fantasies if i wear my piggy mask but that's beside the point, for my main target would be your stinky good-natured little face with your fancy little words trying to conjure images by talking about the motherfucking moon and the fiery eye of your morningwooded dick barely touching your brief's forsaken pee-hole and the velvet red skies of soviet russia and the tears of your daughters crushed skull as i use her to train my infamous roundhouse kick and the weeping sons of mothers, watching as i do nothing at all like i always do, oh weeping they are, oh the fiery eye of nothingness lighting up my big belly. Why don't you come down to my fathers place and have a little greet and meet and eat and sharing seed with your big nice exaggerated smiles shining upon the worlds because you are Born to Be Winners. Big Time Winners taking what is theirs and making nice little poems about the Suns chiming it's bells right in your mouthbreathing face, punk. I will wait for mommy to return and t

>>12333192
I almost read half of this.

>>12333192

>>12333225

Read all of it, it's really good.

>>12333231
I don't care how long you spent on it

>>12333248

Actually wasn't me, I posted that smiling cat.

>>12333044
either this is a good imitation or this is Kolsti fucking Nguyen

I knew the store would close at twelve
So hurried through its shelves
And frantic sought a thing unnamed
Then suddenly beheld

A monolith that lighted, rang
And then your voice proclaim
You'd rather have my closeness
My voice less far away

My cheeks became like roses
Glad that you had proposed it
I said to you "Ill see you soon"
Drunken love imposed it

With haste- the clock hands boomed!-
My shopping I resumed
At last I found a good to claim
A thing you'd love, I knew

"I know your face, whats your name?"
Said the clerk when I came through
"I saw you come by yesterday!"
And he smiled, for he was new...

What harm can a little bubbly do?
My love, my lover too!
And so I brought my burden you
When I showed up with champagne

>>12333271
>>12333155
>>12333091
>>12333044

samefag

>>12333044

This is really bad.

>>12332038

This short story: http://sys.4channel.org/derefer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.google.com%2Fdocument%2Fd%2F1NIeof-JJSdzrIwNDTmhpQ79H1TAHaldL6nblNoYMyX0%2Fedit%3Fusp%3Dsharing

>>12332315
Trying way too hard - stop nofapping.
>>12332593
>Le post-school shooting melancholy
What Went Wrong?
>>12332617
>iron sky
>velvet dreams
>weeping moon
>faithfully return
>gone about my day
What Went Wrong?

>>12333293
Reads like a sitcom.

>>12333192
>you're poem is shit
This is either a mistake or a joke, which would also be a mistake.

The image critique at the end is good and well executed, but anon being a big-dicked winner at life like your dad doesn't follow from him writing shoddy poems. That entire component just looks like you were gluing some old work on, as though you were originally planning to just give him a pastebin link but wanted to be less obvious.

>>12332604
Would anyone mind giving this a read? Posted several reviews of others.

>>12333325
I read this earlier. I got that feel in the beginning and it annoyed me. Then liked the juxtaposition of that with the final act.

>>12332315
Trying way to hard in all the wrong ways
>flesh echos
- get off nofap.
>>12332593
>Le post-school shooting melancholy
What Went Wrong?
>>12332617
>iron sky
>velvet dreams
>weeping moon
>faithfully return
>gone about my day
What Went Wrong?
>>12333273
Boring
>A monolith that lighted rang
Just say phone, my man: your archaic voice is inflexible, front to back, and trying too hard to beautify the modern and mundane.

jerry seinfeld

>>12333192
Yu lile pretentious peace of shit. Newsflash, yu primodial cuck, beig kind and shoig goodnes is an attitude that will help yu to trascend that miserable bitter existance of yurself. Let me back up the latter first, before i grant yu supreme enlightement. Ever wondered what the purpose was of dedicatig somethig that went beyond yurself? That aimed for either somethig mystical, for some afterlife in the remembrance of yur descendants, for glory, fame or world peace or god? Whatever purpose it fulfills, if yu agree with me and scientific FACTS that yur conjiousnes will disapar in the moment of yur deth, it's as sure as the nonexistance of deth, that nothig that reaches beyond yurself does have any impact on yur own existance whatsoever, yu foolish idiot. Lift some weights while yu read this, so that the truthfulnes of flows through yur fatsoiled veins like any kind of liquid when yu spill it on an uneven surface that has no restictions - quite fluidly. Did yu get what i just told yu? I am laughig at yur patheticnes, cuck. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Yu fuckig cuck, nothig at all, that yu do, that aims at somethig that is lastig, who's effect reaches beyond yur self, will come back to yu because yu are literally just Air when yu die and to be quite frenk with yu, yu are nothig but HOT AIR right now for me too. But wait, let's not get ahead of ourselves, and if yu could see me, yu could see me chucklig understandigly at yur rashnes, but however it is, yu must not get ahead of yurself and consider the followig: The fact that this is not true, does not invalidate our desire for it. Our desire for - purpose -. I thing it is fair to say then that what is required is to take a onehoundredandeighty degrees turn and look at it in the followig way: Don't justify yur acts by pointig at their usefulnes for yurself AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Yu lile rascal with yur weak and embarrasig jokes, studyig some whak degree and talkig about dicks, forget yur Self, and learn to serve others. Nothig that lasts will come back to yu, but it may come to those that continue livig, and in such a way Homer, and yup, he was a woman yu fucker, has brightened up our world for tens of thousands of years and will continue to do so. Serve the livig, not the dead, and if yu get this, if yu finally toughen up yu primordial weasel cuck yu will see that our only purpose is to brig eternal joy to those that will conitnue livig on our world. It is this realization that made me realize that the only true purpose is to erect the Temple of the Eternal Sun, our godes beig the Eternal Sun who without any kind of egocentrism shines upon all that is, grants us life, dances, joy, splendour, jungles because plants need suns, warmth, hot-bloodednes of males stickig their most precious part into openins and all that follows this. My philosophical studies have taught me the value of kindnes and i wish to teach yu this one particular leson: The World Loves Yu... And Yu MUST LOVE I.

>>12332593
I could have sworn I'd posted a response to this like ten minutes ago.

Sunbeam creeps sounds nice but makes me see the beam grow, when the opposite is supposed to be happening according to the next line.

I'm getting the footage in a weird order with the sewing class and the scratched and the scissors.

>>12333293

Did you skip act 3 on purpose? Parts of this are pretty good. Are you comparing women to the devil? I don't understand the structure of it, of putting in the Act numbers. Probably it could be a lot better, but what's there isn't entirely bad.

>>12333369
I reckoned id catch flack for calling it a monolith. Maybe ill change it. The poem is not an attempt to make the mundane beautiful. Its about an alcoholic darkness invading the mundane.

>>12333044
Using sets of parenthetical themselves to section off "Phuc's budding" was a good subliminal move.

>>12333091
>and it's funny because the guy's name is Phuc.
haw haw guy name id phuck hehehehe :DD

>>12332604

They shot a movie once
In my home town
Everybody was in it
From miles around

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGRNEJiD3PY

>>12333405
>Did you skip act 3 on purpose? I don't understand the structure of it, of putting in the Act numbers.

Thanks for reading! I had an Act 3 that I deleted then forgot to renumerate the other two. You can just forget the “act” part, prob should have replaced it with the ‘***’ thing.

> Parts of this are pretty good.

Thanks! What particularly did you like / dislike?

> Are you comparing women to the devil?

The theme I was going for was “God’s Love for humanity is identical to a father’s love for his only child.” I forgot who said that. Some women certainly can be “the devil”, idc if that’s someone’s takeaway.

> Probably it could be a lot better, but what's there isn't entirely bad.

Thanks for saying that. I really have no ego with my work and am just trying to get better. Any suggestions on how to make it “a lot better”?

>>12333293
Whew, that payoff at the end hit hard. Prob the best thing in the thread, but still a little raw.

>>12333415
Fair man, I'm actually drunk as fuck and don't mean to be so blunt, or wrong. Still don't think you conveyed 'alcoholic darkness', rhythm's too sing songy without gap to suggest mismatch between form and feeling, 'my drunken love imposed it' and 'I brought my burden' sit lazily, I think you could find a sharper, less robotic, paint of words to magnify rhythm and bring us closer to situation.

>>12333034
Its about social anxiety more or less- how other people force us to present an identity and yank us out of our internal dialogues into the realm of bodies, glances, sexuality and charisma.

>>12333453

I like how you focus on dialogue and characterization and imply the setting so it's easy to visualize and focus on what the people are saying, not where they are, and how you again imply people's appearances with their personalities, not necessarily specific descriptions. I like how it feels lighthearted and then becomes sad. I don't like the structure of it. I think some of the dialogue is forced and feels unnatural. The character who speaks towards the logic of the theme is considered the villain by the end and is the rival of the person who embodies the theme. It feels like you are emulating a reality tv show or something with the dialogue in the coffee shop, and then putting a political statement into a character's mouth. The doesn't interest me personally, but it's not stylistically or technically wrong to do.

God's love for man is the man's love for his child, and the woman in the story takes that love away like the devil takes man from god by giving him free will. That's the potential comparison there, the Eden story.

I can't offer any advice on improving it because I don't care what some imagined population of readers thinks or wants. Write it for yourself and make it so you think it's good, that's my advice.

>>12333573
Yeah I agree its not a fantastic poem. It was mainly written to practice terza rima, which is pretty fucking hard it turns out. But i still like the little turn at the end and the sort of riddle quality it has.

Its worth two reads at least. The store is closing and he has to get booze. Hes frantically searching for what to buy. He is caught up in the exagerrated romance of boozing. He needs a drink but he needs to meet his date, so he decides champagne will be a good excuse. The clerk notices he came in yestersay (he comes every day). His true love is booze, his lover is his date, and little does she know, he is bringing his alcoholism into her life and he knows his burden will eventually be hers too.

>>12333606
>God's love for man is the man's love for his child, and the woman in the story takes that love away like the devil takes man from god by giving him free will. That's the potential comparison there, the Eden story.

Great comparison, I've missed that somehow.

> I can't offer any advice on improving it because I don't care what some imagined population of readers thinks or wants. Write it for yourself and make it so you think it's good, that's my advice.

Thank you so much, genuinely. This was really helpful and I think you're right.

>>12333606
>>12333763

>>God's love for man is the man's love for his child, and the woman in the story takes that love away like the devil takes man from god by giving him free will. That's the potential comparison there, the Eden story.

This is really so on point. Though Sasha isn't the devil, Trevor is. Trevor seduces Sasha resulting in great pain and misfortune for Derek, just as the Devil seduced Eve and threw Adam from Eden as an accomplice.

Great story, great critique. This is why I love /lit/

>>12333293
>period-quote-comma
why

there's this weird non-deliberate repetition you have with the plates

>the virgin straw woman vs the chad freshman who talks all class long
what a great waste of my time

Before getting to the end I'm just going to write here that, if "that's the joke" and the guy actually is terrible, than it's only the same problem but reversed. There being this many characters in the room without anyone playing the straightman just doesn't feel real.

There's also the fact that this guy's supposed to be waiting tables. I could maybe understand this conversation if he was the one seated, holding our listener down, but you don't get to drop paragraphs on people in that line of work unless you're telling your boss that you quit.

>The phantom shitter
Interesting

>Hey here's the court case and uh Derek's the good guy
show don't tell

>secures generations of wealth
>makes chicken tendies
>watches barney with his fucking eighteen year old daughter
what? I can sort of understand the tendies, but barney? Most people have no recollection of watching those shows as kids; this serves only the father's own nostalgia, despite the fact that you've pretty much declared him a selfless martyr.

>though he knew his greatest fears were the most realistic reality.
>realistic reality.
anon, look up some modal terms

>He had owned and operated a company of nearly 100 employees.
and that was enough to secure generations of wealth?

>dropping the facade and actually referring to derek as divinity at the end
I'm sorry but this story just reeks of youth anon. I don't get the impression that you understand women, marriage, fatherhood, or waiting tables. Write what you know.

>>12332478
Taking Back Sunday lyrics.

>>12333825
I read his first line in DOOM's voice actually

>>12332315
This is really bad. I would know, I wrote it. Sorry to everyone who read it and gave feedback

>>12334239

Well, usually you go back and read something you wrote and don't like it. Don't beat yourself up, anon-kun.

The car is on fire, and there's no driver at the wheel
And the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides
And a dark wind blows

The government is corrupt
And we're on so many drugs
With the radio on and the curtains drawn

We're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine
And the machine is bleeding to death

The sun has fallen down
And the billboards are all leering
And the flags are all dead at the top of their poles

It went like this:

The buildings toppled in on themselves
Mothers clutching babies
Picked through the rubble
And pulled out their hair

The skyline was beautiful on fire
All twisted metal stretching upwards
Everything washed in a thin orange haze

I said, "Kiss me, you're beautiful -
These are truly the last days"

You grabbed my hand
And we fell into it
Like a daydream
Or a fever

We woke up one morning and fell a little further down
For sure it's the valley of death

I open up my wallet
And it's full of blood

>>12332038
Someone stole my first novel and posted it on fanfiction.net. I dare someone to read/review it.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10878662/1/Amazing-Bullshit-Adventure

>>12333783
>>period-quote-comma...why... there's this weird non-deliberate repetition you have with the plates

I honestly don't know what this is referring to

>the virgin straw woman vs the chad freshman who talks all class long
what a great waste of my time. Before getting to the end I'm just going to write here that, if "that's the joke" and the guy actually is terrible, than it's only the same problem but reversed. There being this many characters in the room without anyone playing the straightman just doesn't feel real.

I don't get this either, except for the last point which is on point

> There's also the fact that this guy's supposed to be waiting tables. I could maybe understand this conversation if he was the one seated, holding our listener down, but you don't get to drop paragraphs on people in that line of work unless you're telling your boss that you quit.

He's the owner. I earnestly thought that was obvious

>Hey here's the court case and uh Derek's the good guy.. show don't tell

Good point. You're right.

> what? I can sort of understand the tendies, but barney? Most people have no recollection of watching those shows as kids; this serves only the father's own nostalgia, despite the fact that you've pretty much declared him a selfless martyr.

The daughter is 4 at that point. It *is* from his perspective.

> realistic reality... anon, look up some modal terms

lmao, fair. Good catch.

> >dropping the facade and actually referring to derek as divinity at the end

the divinity wasn't Derek per se

Anyway, thanks for the critique.

This life is a strange and terrible distinction
I have been set up, by women or snakes or God
I have been called up from the dirt to be kicked into it
Who watches from clouds to see the dust spread from my knees? Get up!

I have been given the taste for bread
Which is a great pain in the ass to acquire

The world is a stripper on a pole
She flaunts and invites and beckons
And has her bouncers toss you aside
When you reach what is not yours to grasp

Kicked out! Banned! Blocked by fiery swords!
And always money but not quite enough
Caesar winks on his coins, but even he is refused
In his harem, he longs to hold the soul of a wench who finds him ridiculous
And no power of soldier or treasury
Can bend or buy her soul

Two walls extend forever, North and South
One is called Hope, the other named Despair
A latter leans against Hope, and it is called Labor
The first step is easily obtained
A rope hangs down from Despair, beyond reach

I am a man. I see crowded throngs of peasants, and landowners, and even kings
Walking North and South between
Laughing and spitting and crying
I see men and women dance
And children born in songs of woe and joy

I grab them and speak these words to them
I gesture at the rope and the latter
When they laugh I cease my rambling
Because I am a clown

https://pastebin.com/H6L6M4Sy

>>12333783
y do u hate your father Anon

>>12334308
>I honestly don't know what this is referring to
then google the words "period," "quote," and "comma" and how to use them

>plates
read paragraph 5 out loud and tell me the thrice-appearing word "plate" isn't oddly stressed

>I don't get this either, except for the last point which is on point
how rational and open minded of you

>The daughter is 4 at that point. It *is* from his perspective.
if it's a flashback use the proper form of past tense for it

>the divinity wasn't Derek per se
>you just didn't geddit
For someone writing a story ending on an image of self doubt, it sure doesn't seem like you're capable of feeling it

>>12334341

You're a weird guy, Nguyen.

>>12334456

>if it's a flashback use the proper form of past tense for it

What if the writer wants it to be experienced in the present tense? The master can eschew the conventions of the student, anon.

>>12334422
Just dawned on me that this isn't you making some freudian deduction. No, I'm not that anon. Though he definitely gets the point. Ironically I'm >>12333326

>>12334473
>The master can eschew the conventions of the student, anon.
I'm pretty sure you aren't a master of anything. You can break rules once you learn to follow them. Otherwise you're just another highschooler drawing shitty anime figures without an understanding of anatomy. If you want, I'm sure there's a way to write a good story with entirely ambiguous tense, even, but if the point you're trying to get across relies upon it being recognized as a flashback of a four year old rather than an image of someone who's eighteen, then make it so that it's recognized as such.

>>12334502

I'm a master of having my feelings hurt, now that I've read your post T_T

>They hadn’t spoken since she was too young to understand him say, “I’m sorry. Daddy has to say goodbye for a while, but he loves you, and will always love you. No matter what. Forever.” He started crying then, that day, after the word “sorry”. He saw her for only two hours, with Sasha waiting outside in the car the entire time.

I'm not the person who wrote the story, I did >>12332144, but you're just wrong, anon. The writer clearly indicates the dad is thinking of a day when his daughter was much younger. It's okay to be wrong. It's not okay to be a meanie-pants.

>>12334527
>They hadn’t spoken since
sounds quite a bit like a brief reunion

>>12334502
>>12334527

Will you all shut the hell up? You're derailing the thread. Im kind of trying to have my posts critiqued and nobody can see them crowded out by your retarded debates about nothing.

Dont reply to me. And dont reply to me just because I said dont reply to me.

>>12334535
I absolutely will commend you for not linking your post

>>12334473
>The master can eschew the conventions of the student, anon.
This is never something you should say unironically about yourself. Never. Let's be clear here. Never. Just go with "Quod licet Iovi, no licet bovi" cause comparing yourself with a god in Latin will make sure noone will take you remotely serious in the first place.

Tie up saliva and quit dance
Heinrich manoeuvres don't come fast
Nor heroine to clutch your heart
From timeless compensation
And HEAVE
oh nose
achoo
the sharts!
What Grandiose speckles apart
Red blue bars flash to bed robes white -
the nurse can't help but laugh.

>>12333013
>>12333024
>"Imagine us!" Was his grand introduction. "Two handsome young gentlemen of the highest standard health and grooming, with the whitest of teeth, and a full head of hair, here alone at a society party with neither of us a date by our side! What's your excuse?"
This part made me chuckle, which I did not expect. But other than that, nothing particularly interesting. I am somewhat interested to see where it goes, and its not badly written. I'd read more, especially to find out about who this dude is and who is his dearest Anna. My question would be whether or not this is soley a satire as you said or if there'd be something more substantial to sink one's teeth into.

>>12334707
>"Quod licet Iovi, no licet bovi"
I'm a native Latin speaker and a feminist and this post triggered me.

>>12332038
https://pastebin.com/9XuYbnq2
this is a friend's

>>12333013
you're just posting Dostoevsky's you cut

>>12334872
I like this poem, but I think it might have too many bodily fluids in it. I've nothing against sputum, saliva, effluvia, and dissolved opiates individually, but might this be a "less is more" situation? For example, you could have easily done an 11-line poem about sharts alone. Really focus on the imagery, the sensory details of sharting, and let us sink deep into that one poetic universe (though I do love the surprise ending—you HAVE to keep that somehow). I just think, I mean this poem is obviously 100% yours but, you could really let your work shine if you focused it a little more. If you don't try to put an egg in every basket. I think you have real talent, and I want to encourage rather than quash it. If the shart poem works out, you could even expand it into a quartet, all circling around the same existential theme: the cycle of the body's matter through the matter of the non-self (othered) world.

>>12334993
>Twas a cold autumn evening
Aaaaand immediately dropped. Let your friend know I think he's a faggot.

I laid in bed and held the book. The sun was lifting towards a rainy sky. The early tides of morning light flooded my window, spilling onto my sheets dappled coruscations of a cold and sainted white. Clouded rivulets of liquid sun streamed into a hoary deluge, washing away the shadow and dark of the room with a pale brightness. All the warmth of the night dissipated. Thick drops clattered loudly against the panes, violently reforming themselves from sphere to rill, as clear as crystal. The gutters percussed and groaned and chimed and whistled like some sort of Seussian instrument which only a storm could play. I was submerged into the day, as I was every day, a diurnal near-drowning through which my baptism had not yet come.

People say you must swim in order to stop from drowning. I used to think it was simply a matter of not allowing water to enter the throat, a nastily ironic thought which often occurred to me while drowning. Recently my ears have opened to rumors of those who emerge from a drowning on the other side of it, suddenly breathing water as air. What a thing it would be to do that! I would like nothing more, myself. The swimmers, the most common type of person, will tell you to tread water near the middle. Right in the middle is best, they say. There is no particular direction to go, they say. Right in the middle is best. Yes, that's how we want to live life, right in the middle.

Yet I say there is no place more hostile to life. A body of water is most dangerous at its middle. The shorelines shatter hopelessly into oblivion beneath the impossible weight of horizons and the river currents gnash and spit like a rabid Scamander. The middle—where airplanes are last heard from and where ships can be swallowed without chewing. Even that oceanic ghost known as the desert haunts the psyche of all men with visions of its lifeless and barren void. Feel your mind recoil when you place your fingertip on some atlas at the pitiless heart of the Sahara or the Negeb or the Gobi. See if you do not for a moment find yourself without your bearings standing and trembling and burning deep within the primordial skeleton of a dead and incinerated sea. No more faithful omen to Death has existed among men than the aqueous centroid. We must escape the middle, and fast. But we can only save ourselves from the terrors of the middle by the means of some other middle, some intercessor. For it is a tautology that a man is always equidistant from himself.

I laid in bed and held the book. The sun was lifting towards a rainy sky. The early tides of morning light flooded my window, spilling onto my sheets dappled coruscations of a cold and sainted white. Clouded rivulets of liquid sun streamed into a hoary deluge, washing away the shadow and dark of the room with a pale brightness. All the warmth of the night dissipated. Thick drops clattered loudly against the panes, violently reforming themselves from sphere to rill, as clear as crystal. The gutters percussed and groaned and chimed and whistled like some sort of Seussian instrument which only a storm could play. I was submerged into the day, as I was every day, a diurnal near-drowning through which my baptism had not yet come.

People say you must swim in order to stop from drowning. I used to think it was simply a matter of not allowing water to enter the throat, a nastily ironic thought which often occurred to me while drowning. Recently my ears have opened to rumors of those who emerge from a drowning on the other side of it, suddenly breathing water as air. I would like nothing more! The swimmers, the most common type of person, will tell you to tread water near the middle. Right in the middle is best, they say. There is no particular direction to go, they say. Right in the middle is best. Yes, that's how we want to live life, right in the middle.

Yet I say there is no place more hostile to life. A body of water is most dangerous at its middle. The shorelines shatter hopelessly into oblivion beneath the impossible weight of horizons and the river currents gnash and spit like a rabid Scamander. The middle—where airplanes are last heard from and where ships can be swallowed without chewing. Even that oceanic ghost known as the desert haunts the psyche of all men with visions of its lifeless and barren void. Feel your mind recoil when you place your fingertip on some atlas at the pitiless heart of the Sahara or the Negeb or the Gobi. See if you do not for a moment find yourself without your bearings standing and trembling and burning deep within the primordial skeleton of a dead and incinerated sea. No more faithful omen to Death has existed among men than the aqueous centroid. We must escape the middle, and fast. But we can only save ourselves from the terrors of the middle by the means of some other middle, some intercessor. For it is a tautology that a man is always equidistant from himself.

… climb to its peak… climb this one altogether… up to his height’s limit… rises all things he dominates…

https://christianjaroschdialogues.com/

… unpaid labour… to be my service… my naturally given gift… is some beauty of nature… is correctly formed… is appreciated for at least that… for something at the very least… which is returned (in exchange)…

https://christianjaroschdialogues.com/

>>12335002
Thanks for the feedback lad; I can't tell if your shart advice is taking the piss, but I agree with your too-many-eggs point and feel guilty receiving such a thoughtful response, when the poem itself took ten minutes(and a toilet trip) to write.

>>12335002
Thanks for the feedback lad; I can't tell if your shart advice is taking the piss but I agree with your too-many-eggs point, and feel guilty getting such a thoughtful response when the poem itself took ten minutes(and a toilet trip) to write.

A dim glow from an apartment window reflected off the asphalt. It had rained. As Carlos unlocked the door to his car lightning flashed. He shuddered, and gripped the wheel tight as he put the car in reverse. Lightning made him nervous. Distracted him. It hadn't always. There was just something about the unpredictability. It wasn't that it was deadly if one was struck. Carlos was no stranger to that. It wasn't the weather that came with it. He had driven through harder storms, on far worse than that suburban countertop. It was the crypto-hypnotic flashing. If it had a pattern, or he had the mind to discern one, he could approach it like he had approached his current plan (methodically), and it would be like anything else. But it wasn't. A thunderstorm could pin, strafe around, and fire on him. In war a soldier cherishes an enemy he can see and predict. Carlos had suffered enough unpredictability yet. But he drove quietly, focused, the spiderwebs in the sky crawling across his rear view, retreating to fight another day. Rain fell lightly. He was halfway out of town before he saw another car, and there was no stopping for gas at that hour.

The man was dark even under the tangerine sunlight - a silhouette at every angle. He was swaying wild as if in ecstasy: chest high against the sky then leaning forwards like somebody bumped him in the subway, dancing like an oriental shadow puppet while his soles stuck steady on that spot on the pavement. He couldn’t see the man clearly under this phantom spotlight, but really it was the sound that pulled his heart and demanded his full attention.

The trumpet roared at his kiss, the valves cried at the slightest touch of his callous fingers. The bell aimed at the strawberry sky with the high notes, then down to the pavement with the lows. The intensity of his complexion told a story of how he got it and how he’s trying with all his might to keep hold of it. But he didn’t need to see the man’s face to know that, because he felt it, just for a moment before it flew into vapour.

Sweat glistening from his head - glowing vermillion from the dying sun and Sonora’s lights - bled down to the neck of his crumpled shirt. His eyelids clutched fiercely to keep his vision inside, because he saw it, and by God he won’t let it slip away. The heaviest notes oppressed him until his back crouched under its crushing weight. He was Atlas, carrying the entire world with all its sins and purpose at the tip of the mouthpiece, striving hard and exerting all his human strength to not let it fall.

Time shook and the air held still in that little stretch of pavement. The trumpet lifted his heart up then slammed it down to his guts with every swinging melody. Something ominous caught grip on his chest. Each heartbeat took greater effort than the last. He thought he would die.

Of course. Atlas’ face relaxed like a great weight was lifted from his shoulders. The trumpet slowed down ever so gently, with him bringing it down and stretching it as far as he could so that he could hold on to it just a moment longer, until it was just a whisper and a breath coming from the bell. He had the world and then he lost it.

>>12332593
should really say PRACTICED this piano

>>12333369
>Le post-school shooting melancholy
it's about the otherness a school when seen out-of-hours

>>12333396
>I'm getting the footage in a weird order with the sewing class and the scratched and the scissors.
eh?

To be clear, these are all separate things:

-

A day is rest,
A daze, stagnation.
Unmultiply the quiet days,
Don't divide.
There's work to be done.

-

Might I see a 1,
Or even a 2?
Could it be a 3,
Or a 404?
The Devil's Gratification

-

“I'm not going to eat you.”
The Lioness claims.
Alas, the rabbit was already consumed.

-

To be crushed by no weight,
To be beaten by no blows,
Perhaps one would feel stronger if the wind blew false.
The Predator simply smiles.

-

The safety,
The touch.
The waking sleep,
The dreaming wake.
Never have I ever never wanted it.
but still, I shudder

Eyes shot, and exhausted, looped by pale circles on an already pale face. He itched in the black sweater and corduroys he had forgotten to keep washed, and picked more than one cobweb from the fabric. He had once worked strictly clean cut (as a rule), but in that second year, as he had become restless, he had laxed in his morning routine, shaving at first once daily, but by the end of that second year less than once in a week. When Willem got The Call, it had been nearly three months. His wife liked the beard grown out, and the baby was scared when he'd shaved it. So he kept the beard, but in the second year, he could not keep more pepper than salt and it made the third year much harder. As the promise of light filled the car he caught himself in the mirror and for the first time in the drive he lost his train of thought.

>>12336174
got halfway through before i realised it wasn't a mom's spaghetti joke

i thought of a great piece to share it with the evening of courtly entertainment which I initially wrote for my mother and father and maybe my brother too but i forgot. oh well

>>12334976
Thank you. It'll probably remain pretty insubstantial. Just writing it for enjoyment.

>>12335001
Which Dostoevsky work is it from?

>>12336058
There is a lot I like about it, buf you are willing to be open to changing some things:
>unmultiply the quiet days / don't divide
sounds a bit awkward, and not just because of the word 'unmultiply'. In fact I like the combination unmultiply, do not divide (especially in succession), but the quiet days seem stand out. How those days lead you to work to be done, I can't see.

Ich bewundere ein bilder sehen,
Was machst du , deine mudder
sie objekt von das bild,
Ohne kleidung, ohne schande.

>>12337198 (You)
A few words crafted together
a sentence make.
A couple of sentences woven
And a poem is born.
Craft well, weave better,
Or your poem becomes an abortion,
One such as this.

Rate me.

poem for machines left after extinction

ps: there's a whatsapp group for (mainly) poetry critiques, if anyone wants me to add them

>>12332315
critiqued already.

>>12332508
agree with the other reply. nothing compelling.
if you're going to use archaic prose: 1) don't, 2) seriously, 3) if you really really want to at least use a meter.

>>12332593
tidy up the meter. it wouldn't be particularly difficult. "till the sun shines no more" -> "until they shine no more" or smth.
"who did their hair" -- try not to use "do" as a generic verb. try "tied" or whatever. make it a stressed syllable.
"who practices this piano" reaaally deviates from meter.
also: it's the keys that are still, not the notes
"ah" -> the
"tomorrow/from the" -> "tomorrow from/ the"
by "mistress" do you mean school mistress or the lover of a married man
in total: this is very nice. perfect length. farrr better than average for /lit/

>>12333273
cut this down 25%. so much of this is redundant. eg: entirety verse 4. discover what you can delete.
also, archaic language =/= poetic language

>>12334262
this doesn't work as a poem without the screeching melody of train tracks.

>>12336058
the 3rd is good: maybe change word order. add a meter. change "rabbit" to "lamb" (more standard duality) or at least capitalise Rabbit to match lioness

is 2nd about porn?

>>12337235
crap.

>>12337343
Will you do me a favor. Re-read >>12332508

In light of this explanation:

Its about social anxiety more or less- how other people force us to present an identity and yank us out of our internal dialogues into the realm of bodies, glances, sexuality and charisma

>>12337245
>>12337343
Please critique.
I've written poems since forever, but few if any of my poems have been considered good here.
How can I improve?

>>12336050
>eh?
I meant that events I'd already depicted got re-described

>>12333405
>Are you comparing women to the devil?
If anything he's making them out to be NPCs

>>12337385
my problem is the language is archaic and boring.
clunky phrases. meterless, rhymeless, devoid of soul or warmth or wit. it's too long. beginning a verse with "behold" -- christ alive.

>skim thread
>well what my story actually means...
>well what the masters do is...
yikes

>>12337450
I think its dumb of you to resent a poem because you disagree with its most superficial aesthetic quality. Its not even an archaic poem, as you pointed out it doesnt use rhyme or meter (hallmarks of older form).

Youre associating things like "Behold" and "O" and "It shall" with haughtiness and posturing, which is stupid. Even Hart Crane, writing in 20th century New york city, has no problem with writing lines like

"O harp and altar of the fury fused
How could mere toil align thy choiring strings?"

And poets as recent as Roethke wrote like

"This flat land has become a pit
Wherein I am beset by harm"

Who do you like to read? Billy Collins?

I disagree completely with you, and i think youre a stupid plebe who cannot read past the visual quality of a text.

Im getting very annoyed with people like you who give the same standard opinions:

>no meter
>no rhyme
>archaic

>>12337562
getting THIS upset about writing a shit poem

>>12337575
I dont care about my poem, that post isnt about my poem, its about perrenial ""critiques"" that betray a lack of insight into what poetry is.

>>12337562
the whole thing is bad poetry. sorry if you wanted me to give some mechanism for making it good, but that's impossible. instead, just scrap it and start again; there's no point giving an in-depth critique of a poem which is unsalvagable.

the language is archaic and not even skilful. comparing yourself to crane is hilarious.
a lot of it is just *wrong*:

i'll take a single verse because the whole thing should be scrapped.
"Behold this Name which I despise For I must bring it everywhere And must speak its word to you"
what a fucking weak use of "behold". the most inappropriate introduction of a noun phrase. how does one "behold a name" fucking stupid
and "speak its word to you" -- wtf does it mean to speak the word of a name? awful

listen. it's B A D P O E T R Y. don't get upset about that, there's lot of different hobbies you could try instead

>>12337343
Not a bad poem, enjoyed the reference to breath (which is life) in

>pipes confine the singing stream
>human voice extinct

And ensuing irony. Wonder if this was intentional.

The line "gesrs embrace, and dance" which imbues machines with human soul is out of sync with the rest of the stanza.

I think you should firmly decide whether machines in the absence of man should denote inhumanity or humanity, you seem to vacillate.

>>12337610
they retain humanity: the music, the awkward dancing, and finally: existential anxiety

>>12337606
>Behold this name which I despise
See my name. See my mask. See the character whose part I must play to you, even though I hate it. Behold is ironic: I think my mask is crummy.

>for I must bring it everywhere
I cannot be among others without bringing my character along

>and must speak its word to you
I have to speak in keeping with the part, I have to say its word, not my word

Name is a fine way to describe the external life, because we are called by names in our external life. We do not say "Hello, I am me." We say "I am Tony."

To speak the word of a name is to say what Tony says, as opposed to thinking what I think.

>>12337630
I like the idea but the execution doesnt convey it. If you mean to give machines existential anxiety you will have to do more work, I dont think existential anxiety is encapsulated in the question "whats all this for?"

But without going down that road,
at least clarify the I in the final line. I assumed the "I" is you the poet not "I" the imagined machine poet. You could build such a character up with a line or two.

>>12337667
i originally had a penultimate stanza:

"Question wise cogs ask,
Though perpetual motion keeps:
Was this place once built?"

but deleted for efficiency

>>12337787
Put it back in. Whats this obsession with shortness?

>>12337343
>the 3rd is good: maybe change word order. add a meter. change "rabbit" to "lamb" (more standard duality) or at least capitalise Rabbit to match lioness
The third one is my favorite. What do you mean by a meter? rabbit has a double meaning, and the capitalization of Lioness and not rabbit was deliberate, and related to what it was about. I've been going to BDSM meetups, and I find talking to dominant women intimidating. The Lioness represents them and the rabbit represents me, the reason Lioness is capitalized and rabbit isn't is because it's common practice to capitalize Dominant but not submissive when writing them online in BDSM groups, Dom/sub relationships are often written as D/s relationships etc. I used a rabbit rather than a lamb because a common phrase for someone who likes to be tied up is a 'rope bunny'.
>is 2nd about porn?
The 2nd is about receiving likes, (You)s, replies etc on the internet. Often times across websites that is represented by a number, on youtube you've got the little bell for instance. Those were the numbers I was referring to. I called it the Devils Gratification because recently they've been negatively impacting my mental health, I genuinely crave that shit. It's an issue.

https://pastebin.com/NVDwza5t

>>12332038
It It was July, In the midst of a heatwave and a 5 day drug bender. I look around, filth and decadence surrounds me. Naked women lay unconscious on the floor, broken glass and a few particularly mangled men mixed in with the scum which engulfed the room. The room was massive with high white walls had three wide windows in the back and two tall ones on the sides all with beige brown blinders down a third of the way. There was a bed by the back windows with two black post-modern style bedside tables holding golden lamps, a array of cigarette buds, empty bottles of liquor and variety of narcotics. There was also two black sofas and a glass TV cabinet. On the ceiling toilet paper hung light to light. Why am I here? What happened last night? I'm laying in the bed, next to my left side a young Caucasian male lays there covered in blood, sweat and tears. I assumed he was dead and took a swig from the half drunken vodka in his hand. Slowly I sneak from the soft residence of the bed and find myself struggling to stand. I look down at myself. I'm fully naked. The damage was visible. I stumble across the room over the filth below to find something to help me recall the events of the night before. On the television cabinet, a 9mm pistol - recollections of the night before flood my mind: an acid fuelled frenzy - Alan Harrison (A fellow degenerate alike myself.) had stolen it previously from a sleeping officer we had knocked out with ether. Alan! Where the fuck was that jackass! I couldn't see him - oh well - I continue my patrol of the room. I felt a soft squidgy sensation on my foot. Below a mixture of shit and what looked like blood. What the fuck happened last night? I scraped the shit off my foot with some broken glass from the floor.

>>12338415
>>12338415
>>12338415
>>12338415
>>12338415
how do you like these (you)'s you little slut?

3rd makes more sense now. ignore my meter comment. also why switch between present (claims) and past (was). also try:
"I'm not going to eat you," claimed
The Lioness.
to stress the lioness even further.

in future, if context is needed to understand the poem -- you'll get better critique if you add that.
-------
could you check my prose? specifically the sixth section (far right, don't feel obliged to read any of the rest). context: a lesbian love story between a forest nymph and a cyborg. section 6 is the chapter explaining the cyborg's arrival on earth, where she's adopted by an Austrian priest.

“The house was empty, and at the same time, full. With each step, a memory returned. Flashes of events I buried deep. Nothing anyone could possibly gain from remembering. Some things were better left forgotten.

Until I found her old comb.

Wood plated in brass, left pristine atop her mirror, as though defying time itself. No dust had collected on it, untouched through the years. And there I stood, frozen at the door, wondering what I should think. What would be right to think? What would be wrong? I didn’t know anymore, but it still mattered to me. I had to move, or risk never moving again.

Forcing my thoughts aside, I haphazardly collected the remaining documents. Before finishing I stopped, crouched by the bedside and and looked again at her comb. A part of me felt, if I just reached out and touched it, I could feel her. I could feel her cold, soft skin, her smooth, jet black hair. Venus would be jealous.

My desperation moved me to action. I grabbed the comb, and began to cry. I pulled my hair out of my head, and I pressed her comb against my chest, the house remained, but she did not.
Despair turned to fury, fury, to peace. Peace enough to do one last thing in her memory. But I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t leave. It would be OK, to rest here, with her, I imagine. And so I burned, and the flames did not cause me pain, and the comb pressed against my heart until a hand reached out and touched me.

I whimpered, I tried to hold on, but the hand took her from me. No one was round. No other memories remained, only her memory.
Only her memory.

But she took the comb, and she left me, and finally, her memory, her memory-
Her memory left me.
Why?
Why would she leave me?
I don’t understand. I never did, I never pretended to. And now she is gone from my life, but am I gone from hers? Will she remember me? Will her memory carry mine?
For which sin I was made to atone for, I do not know. But I must have atoned for it, one thousand times over.
Where is she?”

>>12338041
i thought it was too heavy handed, soz

>>12338585
You never did get back to me on the Behold this Name business.

One problem I notice continually in these threads is that its hard to know who warrants close/careful reading and who is just posturing with fake ideas or grandiose language.

>>12338611
get your head out of your arse. you shouldnt have to convince the reader that aktualally it's a great poem bc you're hart crane

just amend it, or scrap it

>>12338651
I dont know why I bother at all. Sorry for wasting our time. Good luck, What if Robots Had Souls.

>>12338687
christ. not even has effort to give a critique as in-depth as you demand. sometimes "it's bad/it's good" is still useful. sometimes people can't even explain WHY it's bad, let alone how to improve it!
If it's useful -- this is what I would write:

Strange was my birth - I recall it well:
This heavy body whose weight I carry,
And this name to which I'm chained.

I fear you -
Who make me speak my name,
And dance before the throne of Babylon,
And drag me from myself.

Be damned!
For you are me as well.

I dream of when your ugliness shall come to rot away,
In the foulness of your grave.
I long to lie beside you.

>>12338771
Get that sickly half child away from me, I did not write that.

>>12338791
why attach so much of your dignity to such an awful poem?

>>12338827
Good Luck, I said! You missed its meaning entirely. You had to be taken by the hand to read it, and would grant me nothing, and will only insisit its awful.
Its not the poem Im attached to, perhaps it is bad, but YOU can't tell me anything about it.

Lets not derail the thead. Good luck, terse Robot Man.

Driving in New Jersey: A Suicide Rap
.
Prelude
.
I'm
Driving in New Jersey
I'm
Running naked on a freeway
Bloody and screaming
And I can’t slow down
.
Part I
.
Life
and the Garden State Parkway
Offers you two alternatives
(You're at a crossroads)
You can sit
Shook, timid, and weak
Afraid of those maniacs
These monsters in murder machines
Cursing God
Personally offended by the disorder
In awe
and disgust
at the chaos
and discord.
.
To accept your victimization
Is to accept your defeat
Is to take your aggressor's knife
Turn it
Hug it deep into your heart
And cough blood onto your converse
.
Part II
.
Or shall we,
Let's say,
Live as the Romans do
.
Bacchus, take the wheel
.
Drink and go mad
And enjoy it
.
Treacherous roads they may be
You're on an important adventure
You don't have time to get stuck behind someone else's (Honda) Odyssey
.
Embark on your own Hero's Journeytm
Kill your father
Make sweet beautiful love to your mother
Take both hands off the wield
Middle fingers up and out the window
Going 90 down I-95
Darting,
Weaving through traffic
Driving with your knees
And animal instinct
.
And fuck their mothers too
Or hug their bumper at least
Let the weak sort themselves out
Just feel the wind through your hair
As you're flying.
That's freedom, baby
.
Intermission
.
The enemy...
(mouth agape bespectacled and incredulous)
Behind the wheel of a rogue Nissan tank
Massive and plodding
Unassuming in the color of surrender
No battle scars or bumper stickers
Farting untapped potential from the tail pipe
But
with
WAIT FOR IT
NY plates
That stick out
Like a zebra with a limp
...Calmly presses his steering wheel
To emit a comically impotent
"meep"
As you lap him
On your way to victory

>>12338883

(contd)

Pre-Climax
.
Bruce Springsteen snarls on the radio
Or plays in your head
.
At night we ride through mansions of glory in suicide machines
.
Now here’s a fellow who gets it
We were born to run
Too smart to stay
Too stained with the stink of Secaucus
To feel at home anywhere else
Or to ever slow down
.
Oh-oh, Baby this town rips the bones from your back
It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap
.

Finale
.
You arrive home safely
Lying still in your bed
But heart still racing
And ponder
.
What is life without death?
What is peace without war?
.
You lay in bed awake
Your soul is over-engorged
Why did you starve it before?
.
It's the State of Nature
It's the Garden State
.
You lay in bed awake
Eyes stuck to the ceiling
Now dueling with sleep
.
Quick!
Remember
Evolution in extreme environments
[Bane quotes]
Africa's lions
Are Iowa's rabbits
.
And can you imagine
The hell had
God handed the Earth to the meek
.
You lay in bed awake
Daring morning to come
.

>>12338883
What the fuck are you writing dude?

to the tune of daisy, daisy

Anon, Anon,
Give me a nasty (you);
That’s your gravy,
Telling chaps what to do.
Forget about style and passion,
As long as it’s in the fashion:-
But it’s got you replies, which, in my eyes,
Was the most that you had in view.

>>12338909
It's a poem. Did you like it?

>>12338582
It's pretty overdone towards the end. You could definitely help it out by building up the silence of the house in the first paragraph more. The whole thing is a tad drammatic. Nothing wrong with drama you just have to build it more subtly.

>>12338973
Its like something I mightve written around age 17-19. Its very bad.

>>12338982
most poets are finished by 23

>>12339012
Anyone who thinks they are on the level of a great poet would have no time or use for this website and would find it so repulsive and annoying they would also have no desire for it either.

>>12339012
Also thats not true at all wtf

>>12338568
>how do you like these (you)'s you little slut?
Like a small dose of MDMA
>also why switch between present (claims) and past (was).
Changed, ty
>also try:
Eh, I prefer it my way
>in future, if context is needed to understand the poem -- you'll get better critique if you add that.
Makes sense.
>could you check my prose?
Were you asking me specifically or just anyone? I hope you meant anyone cause I'm literarily retarded. Still, I would suggest removing "throwing the door open" as it doesn't seem necessary, and also I would say "hands behind her back" rather than "hands behind back".

>>12338982
Mind offering a more legitimate critique so I can get better?

>>12339032
true, but what's your point?

>>12339043

The sun was dimming and the sky was bleeding into its final minutes of red before the black and finally he made his way up the stairs and went inside the cathedral. Inside a man or ghost sat on a broken statue. The statue looked centuries old. He walked towards the man and smelt heavier ash and he thought he smelt rotting flesh. The stranger paid him no mind and he took a moment to examine the ruined structure. Nothing was here - just rocks, broken icons and the bones of rats and other small rodents. The ceiling had partly caved in and he could see thousands of stars and perhaps the past and future along with them in the abyss. The Knight suddenly felt ill and sat down. He looked up at the stranger who was wearing a long black cloak with a hood. He had pale skin and no facial hair or hair on his head. His eyes were vapid, his teeth cracked and yellow. The Knight knew this because the stranger was smiling at him.

>>12339079
I typed a long reply and hit back by mistake and its gone. It said dont try to mix youth culture with literature, because unthought and thought dont mix. It said form is not a substitute for content (lines dont make poems, the words "pre climax" dont make something a pre climax).

It also expressed gratitude because reading this made me feel like i was 18, it made me remember the brief episode of my life when having the wind blow through my hair seemed like the whole meaning of everything.

>>12339174
>>12339174
I actually liked it and thought it was a bit more mature than you’re giving it credit for

I do think that breaking it up into acts was a mistake

>>12339104
Emily Dickinson was most active from 30-35. Walt whitmann wrote Leaves of grass at 36. Robert Frost wrote Stopping by Woods on a snowy Evening at 48.

Im sure there are plenty more counterexamples. All ages give or take a year.

Im other fields such as music and math, mid 20s to late 30s seem to produce the most great work, but seeing someine produce many decades longer is not unusual for certain fields that require amassing lifetimes of information.

I have no idea where this 23 business is coming from.

>>12339207
I am being as generous as I know how to be. Had I written that, I would burn it and carry the secret of its authorship to the grave as though it were the secret of killing a manand getting away with it. I

>>12339222

Can someone else critique this or is it as bad as this guy says

>>12337044
Missed this reply. Yeah that one is probably one of my least favorites out of the bunch. The poem was about working out as I'm trying to get /fit/ at the moment, but it also relates to getting work done in general. It was saying that a day of rest is fine, but multiple days leads to stagnation. There was a double meaning with the word "daze" in the second line, as it sounds like "days" as in multiple. The fact that that line starts with "A" kinda flies in the face of that though, not sure how to fix that, or if I need to.

Anyway, regarding the last three lines. It's a bit abstract and dumb. By unmultiply, I'm saying make sure there aren't multiple. Sure you can get 1 by dividing by the same number but generally when you divide you still end up with multiples, 10 / 2 = 5 etc. So yeah that was my thought process for that one.

>>12338883
>>12338891

Come on Wendy TRAMPS LIKE US...

BAYBEE WE WERE BOOOOORN TO RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN

fuck yeah

>>12337436
hmm but that's all one sentence

>>12337343
a games mistress teaches PE

>>12339549
I dislike the reference to the Shakespeare poem because of how casually its tossed in there, and mostly because that poem has nothing to do at all with yours. And also that poem is immensely difficult (im still working on it) and to reference it so directly comes off as total arrogance.

Much of the language is nice. Extremely short lines annoy me personally but perhaps thats just a pet peeve.

I wrote a little short story about a little girl who visits an old man like a ghost on the edge of a wood. But I decides the metaphor was lazy, that you shouldnt bother encapsulating human desire into a single symbol without having something to say about it, other than that it always gets away.

But i appreciate youve got a coherent idea guiding your lines, which is more than can be said for 9/10 poems posted around here.

Jeffie was the happiest floor tile in the mall. Floor tiles aren't usually happy about many things - being trod on by hundreds of people does poor things to one's outlook, but Jeffie was unperturbed and even joyful about his lot. He took his station as a blessing, a sort of existential goodwill the universe had bestowed upon him. All beings must trod upon something, he reasoned, so why not be the best thing to trod on?

There was little doubt of this fact in Jeffie's mind: carpets were comfortable to the touch but stained easily and engendered static electricity, which, in his view, was quite rude. Wooden floors were painfully irrelevant, although their manners were impeccable. No one really had any excuse for traipsing about dead trees anymore, Jeffie thought. That's downright macabre. No, the tile, glossy and clean, was both the easiest to clean of any flooring surface and the most versatile. Jeffie was proud of his well-practiced ability to complete the tableau of his corner of the mall - he was a central, slightly off-colored version of the many tiles around him, and his presence lent a pleasing symmetry to the floor. He even observed, although he was too humble to admit it, that some people made it a point to purposefully step on his face, drawn to the lovely artistic depth it created, and he was overjoyed to be so noticed and, at the same time, part of something so uniform and all-ecompassing as a floor.

>>12339655
Love the idea, not a bad execution. Creative and yet has a serious message undergirding it (pun not intended), I thin Pope called it the Great Chain of Being, a highly optimistic idea, to each their station.

Wonder where you might take this. Also careful with words like existential and macabre. They've been so terribly abused by bad writers that they cue negative criticism.

>>12339655

One day a child spilled its slushee onto Jeffie, and Jeffie thought oh god no please clean me, I can't move this is so cold oh god, and he could do nothing but be motionless, thinking, feeling the ice melt on him, and another child was running his way, completely against the rules of the mall, and Jeffie saw this in his periphery and could do nothing, and his mind shook, and the child slipped on his wet, icy face and fell and her head cracked on Terrence, his friend, and Terrence just stared, completely fucking gone on floor polish fumes, and the kid was dead. Jeffie tried to cover it up at first on instinct, like a scared dog, but he couldn't move because he was a floor tile, and the mom ran over screaming, oh jesus this tile is wet oh jesus carrie are you ok, and Jeffie cried I'm sorry I'm fucking sorry it's not my fault, but nobody could hear him. Jeffie was pretty quiet after that, for years, until the mall shut down, and occasionally they'd open it up to a group of nerds playing card games, but they'd stay in a stripped bare store on the other side of the foodcourt, and Jeffie could only barely hear them laughing.

>>12339727
Yes, I love it! Maybe the kid didnt need to die, seemed a tad drammatic and unlikely for a regular old floor tile like Jeffrie.

>>12334341
>>12333044
these are by the same person

Dallas was never more at home
Than when in the middle of a mosh pit
Arms and legs flailing
In the eye of a human tornado.
'
After my first breakup
Dallas flew to my house at an ungodly speed
Threw me into his mom's minivan
And we drove 400 miles
Went to a strip club in Kentucky
And then immediately drove back.
'
But Dallas was my favorite poet
'
Ask for 30 lines
He'd give 30
beautiful
fat
little
coke
lines
spread out in geometrical perfection on a pristine mirror
The first one smelled like your grandfather's armchair
The next one like your favorite lover's cunt
The next like Opening Day at Fenway Park
The last one like a mortuary
And they'd jump off the slab
And up through your nose
exploding your brain.
While your left only
To look at your reflection in the mirror
And you've never seen yourself so pretty.
'
You'd ask for 30 lines
He'd give you 30 haymakers in rapid succession
The next one landing
Always
Before you've even partially registered the last
Distributed evenly
Among the sacred cows
and God
our enemies, friends, friends' enemies
Me, you, he, she, him
Pregnant bellies,
the moon

(1/2)

>>12340080

(cntd)

You'd ask for 30 lines
He'd hand back pure poetic perfection
Tight rope walking the line between chaos and order
And finding divinity there
Plucking your salvation from the anarchywar of existence
Or mundanity
Or death.
'
I suppose
I was looking for something similar
When I picked up the note on his desk
Three paces from a pool of vomit
'
Give me 30 lines
Give me a tome
The New-est Testament
War and Peace: Part II
Give me anything but the three or four
You left me to analyze
For the rest of my life
'
It’s not your fault.
I love you all.
Too much pain
I'm sorry.
'
Pain killers
30 of them
And a bottle of plastic jug vodka
'
You were in so much pain
I know
But it made you great
Stay with it
Sit there and
Open your wrists
Bleeding ink onto the page.
Alchemize art from pain
Poetry
You did it better than any of us
'
Pain killers.
I saw this coming, you know?
Your affair with the heroine
To forsake your muse.
When she left you,
Did you think you could not win her back?
Or did you not want to?
'
Pain killers.
I remember when you called yourself a fraud
"Great artists steal."
"So if I'm great"
"It's only because I am a great thief."
You stole that from Picasso
And I've stolen far more from you
And Proust, Frankl, Doestoevsky
And learned
Suffer is salvation
Life is pain
And pain is life
And all great men must suffer more.
Pain Killers
(I'm screaming this now.)
'
To Dallas,
You once were great
And I love you
And I hate you
And now,
I suffer too
But
(Here’s where we differ)
I thank you for that.
Ready to
Pick up your cross
Of pain
And wear it
Like weightless wings
'
Dallas,
Baby,
Did you know that I could fly?

>>12340080
This is prose, not poetry. Get rid of the lines.

Ode to a Young Man

What will become of thee, young myrmidon,
when energies of youth extinguish'd be,
thy vigour faded, thy physique long gone?
Will ember cruel still burn inside of thee?
You raged o'er a wife thou made too young,
to liquor turn'd thee and thy spite she bore.
Thy ruddy face inflamed when thou belch'd
ichor to us; thou tried to soothe the wrong.
As wounded corner'd beast thou sought in war
to bleed, and there in blood thy pain be quench'd.

The world was bath'd in diffuse sunset light
when 'cross the beach we ran, youths springing, free
from toil at last, enamour'd of our might
and drunk on paradise. Thou met the sea
with spirit, grappling waves with all the strength
with which we threw each other in the brine.
Thou seem'd to find, in Ouranos's loin,
a peace no doctor could provide. At length
I saw no worry dragging down thy spine,
until at last departure was enjoin'd.

What will become of thee, young myrmidon?
It will not last, the joy thou felt that day.
The demon will return, and thou'll, alone,
endure a lash, not touching that display
of musculature, but nevertheless
will have thou crawling, and spitting yellow bile.
This place, so distant from that pristine shore,
will tax a man, impov'rish him, unless
he finds a sanctuary, by grace or wile,
or else escape, and rest, and rage no more.

please be gentle daddy it's my first serious attempt at a poem

>>12340820
*will have thee crawling
Caught right after posting

>>12340541
What’s the difference? This looks like poetry to me, but, also, the only poet I’ve ever really liked was Bukowski. And this does read like Bukowski.

In any case, I did really like that poem. But maybe that means it stinks because most people don’t like Bukowski.

>>12340085

Was Dallas real? Or did you just make up the story? Sorry for your loss if it’s the former, and it was a good eulogy if that’s the case

i am having trouble writing so i just freewrote this thing. please do not take my saying that i freewrote this as a way to create distance between me and it, all that really means is it isn't refined, it all came out pretty automatically, it at least felt good while writing it.

https://pastebin.com/90ePisq6

>>12332604
this is nice but it doesn't make me think or feel very much. you do a good job with images but at a certain point you can stop and move on to another thing, because despite the image being Nice it's not super unique or anything, though in a larger work it may be of more importance and justify itself later on. i had a friend tell me to avoid just putting my imagination on the page w/o considering the story, or at least cutting those moments when they do occur.

>>12333044
this was fun and it's quite easy to read. it's nice that it plays with the feeling of shitposting in writing which just makes it feel a little more novel.

>>12335032
i think this is almost pretty decent but it just needs to pared down.
from "Recently" up to "in the middle" is probably the perfect example where the section begins with a bit of a groan but the thought flowers quite nicely. what bothers me most specifically is it just feels a little needless, the part about the ears opening up, even as characterization it's a little flat, i don't know if i've heard anyone really talk that way.

>>12339110
i don't like "his eyes were vapid"

>>12339655
>very nice. Jeffie is a cool tile.
>>12339727
>why'd you it Jeffie?

>>12340840
Good on you dude, I alwys think of Bukowski

When i see
Poems that
Go
Kind of
Like
This.

And I loathe bukowski, who worked just find as some kind romanticizer of the alcoholic blue collar 9-5 but is useless otherwise.

>>12341179
A good way to measure the worth of their poet is to ask them their opinion on Bukowski.

If the poet is a male, and they dislike them, their poems are typically boring, pretentious, and shite. Any other answer and they're at least entertaining or better than average.

>>12341179
>>12341179
A good way to measure the worth of their poet is to ask them their opinion on Bukowski.

If the poet is a male, and they dislike him, their poems are typically boring, pretentious, and shite. Any other answer and they're at least entertaining or better than average.

“You’re making a very serious face.”
There was no response to me.
“Any thoughts about what our 4:30 to 7:30 timeframe is looking like?”
“You still think scheduling will change things? That’s the solution?”
“It worked when we had a very small amount of free time. Why shouldn’t it work during an abundance of free time?”
Last Thursday was one of those lazy afternoons. We had juice on the alcove of the balcony. Anna scribbled on a spiral notebook. College had been a special time for us. We had met through a group of friends we had both made through the dorm rooms and various social events. It all came together so spontaneously, so organically. It was Dave, the alcoholic engineer, who had introduced us.
“What are you working on?”
“You know. The glory years.”
“Ah, I remember them well, the gossamer weeks.”
“I still don’t understand how you passed.”
“That’s undermining. I make enough to take care of you. Don’t forget that.”
“Like you can hold that over my head.”
“Let’s just have a pleasant morning. Let’s have our juice.”
This is what the USA show Psych took out of our lives. Instead of pursuing fruitless hobbies that would artificially inflate the bank accounts of our souls, or of our narcissism, we instead sat dumb and content in front of the television as Psych reminded us who we really were.

>>12341179
any poet only writes for his hypothetical circle of friends