/lit/ - Literature

poetry is incredibly homosexual

>>20691705
Got a problem with that? Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo.

>>20691673

>>20691705
Tell that to Donne and Herrick

>>20691750
I should have titled this "The Birth Of The Earth". I'm not sure how I fucked that up.

>>20691750

>>20691837

>>20691673
I am not handsome or tall
And everyone laughs when I trip and fall
So that I lay down to forgetful sleep
A loser, a creep, and I siletly weep
My life has no direction, nor a plan
And I often don't feel like a man

I'm not treated like a man
Like the guys who are popular and tall
If I could, to be like them is my plan
But it's not, I'm the guy going to fall
Then somebody saw me hiding to weep
And the loud mocking prevented my sleep

Depressed, forlorn, couldn't sleep
How could I make myself a stronger man
I am not strong, as I lay here I weep
My childish ambitions once were tall
Everyone pushed me away, now I fall
In my mind, there is festering a plan

I'm slowly making a plan
During all those lone nights I can't get sleep
Deep down some twisted rabbit hole I fall
I dream that at the bottom, I'm a man
And I tower over them, now that I'm tall
And they lay broken on the ground and weep

To stand above them who weep
Those evil, twisted fuckers—that's my plan
The bullies, the fawned over, and the tall
I'll only rest when I put them to sleep
I'll prove to them that I'm a real man
Relishing as before me they all fall

The brass tinkles on the fall
I dream the hated and their loved ones weep
Finally, I've proved that I'm truly Man
Precise and genius, I follow the plan
I put all those vermin, those rats, to sleep
Red crumpled below me, I stand so tall

But I'm still no man, much deeper I fall
The drop to Hell's tall, In free fall I weep
I finished my plan, but still cannot sleep

Never did a sestina before but here's a bad first attempt. I wanted to just crank it out for this thread. Not an incel/school shooter type, but I've been thinking about young men in todays society, and I feel bad for the situation a lot of them are in.

Midnight Rider

>>20693860
It's cool, and cool idea in general, but it feels like it's trying to do a couple different things but isn't sure about either. It rhymes, then enjambs, then it doesn't rhyme, gets shorter, etc. I'm not a fan of hard to decipher poems, but I know many are, so that's fine. I think it would work better if you made the structures more define, that is, make the first 4 lines more regular/similar to each other, then have 4 shorter lines, perhaps unrhymed, and then you could add a couplet, or something else, or nothing, and continue that structure. Basically, I think it would be better with some kind of recognizeable form

>>20694042
Thanks for the good feedback I appreciate it.

>>20694042
I agree with this. Writer of >>20693860, >>20691846, >>20691837, your mind's eye is strong, but I recommend you refine it further by writing under heavier constraints. Pick a meter and a form and learn to think in it. For better or worse, I think in amphibrachs almost all the time now (perhaps a results of reading so many French Alexandrines), and most of my material now starts from language rather than image. Is that a good thing? I can't be the judge of that, but I'm glad for some of the places it's lead me.

Self-berating introductory poem after hurting somebody I love.

Poems by predators? —When have they not been?
Why make the matter worse? —Singers are such.
Unsayable! —So you would rather the sin?
How praisable! —Calm down: that's a bit much.

Based? —Never, and into the pit with you.
A defense? —For this soul no defense will do.
Debased? —But debasement's a godly affliction.
Your conscience? —Lies much less than reason's sweet fiction.

Inhibited! —Too bad I can't draw a picture.
Dangerous! —Who reads will have no kind impression.
Derivative! —Build your shop without its fixtures.
From the wrong view! —Aha! Now at last a good question.

To those who would judge that the wrong one here’s weeping:
That’s right; I agree; that’s the reason I’m speaking.
Let song be my witnesses: here I stand guilty.
Let guilt be my albatross, lighthouse, and destiny.

I am H. M., howling music in harmony
With everyone else who would justly wish harm on me.
I hoist high and mightily this heavy mantle
And holler misgivings out when it’s mishandled.

Get up, you anapests, dactyls, and amphibrachs,
At my command fall in form and in time:
March in good posture now out of my barracks
To abuse these innocent feminine rhymes.

They speed into battle in slim single file;
Their bayonets sway for a cause they detest.
The censorious chuckle, the moralists smile:
This enemy combats this enemy best.

In such a battle, the price of their victory
Is very agreeable: either it's them or me.
So much had they hoped for, always from the start:
So much does art foster, and long is this art!

If there's a better way out, then it's you I implore:
Hypocrite reader: you’ve heard this before!

What poets do people in this thread mostly read? Interested in what goes into making everyone
Am >>20694684. I am natively francophone and non-natively sinophone. I mostly read Chinese poets, but I carry a Pléiade of Baudelaire wherever I go.

Words I fear
When I'm having fun
What I don't want to hear
Are you winning son?

>>20694734
Shelley, Poe, Frost, but by sheer volume it's probably mostly been /lit/

>>20691750
>>20691837
>>20691846
>>20692149
>>20693860
>>20695386
Trash.
>>20694684
You have talent, but it's not refined yet. Learn to be more precise and you might write something good.

>>20694416
The midnight rider poem is from a different anon.

>>20695395
Shouldn't you be more specific in a critique thread? Calling it trash doesn't really help anyone

>>20694067
You're welcome
>>20694684
I think this is really cool. The beginning 3 stanzas feel like slam poetry, but it veers out, fortunately. However, it is a poem that talks about writing poetry, which I think is usually not good to do, but I think there's enough there to redeem it. You could probably take this form and repurpose it to something more serious, with some tweaks.
>>20695323
I wonder if short poems like this would be better captioning memes instead of being just posts. Putting replies in verse is also fun

>>20694734
I've read all of Poe's poetry, a lot of Shakespeare, various Donne, Jonson, Herbert, Herrick, Sydney, and some others, a fair amount of Shelley, some Byron, some Frost, quite a bit of Lovecraft's poetry. I've read quite a few, but I haven't delved too deep into many, unfortunately. I need to read more.

>>20695419
>Calling it trash doesn't really help anyone
I mean that you should quit. You don't have talent in verse. Maybe try prose?

Is anyone else working on a sestina? Quite hard to vary the meaning of 6 words over 7 stanzas. I saw an example of a double sestina with stanzas of 12 lines with 12 words repeated, which might be easier, since the reader will keep track of 6 words less easily than 12, but harder to find double the words that can have their meaning twisted enough to be interesting.

>>20695440
12 words less easily than 6*
is what I meant

>>20695438
Why would I quit if a few anons don't like my poetry? I enjoy doing it, so I will continue. It's not like I'm doing this for a career and then posting everything on 4chan

>>20695440
I'm working on one now, not varying the meaning of the six words but using their repeated appearances to elaborate in different ways on their significance as parts of the scene being described.

>>20695395
>Trash.
Post your own trash

>>20695486
>>20695395
I second this. There is nothing to lose but the sin of pride here, anon

>>20691673

'No land of mine', yeomen whine
Protesting meager yields
Long spent time, for seldom disme
Depart for greener fields

Where sun and rain have no shame
And promise golden grain
'This land of mine' in short due time
Will serve them all the same

>>20691673
You've got your syzigies wrong, psewd.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

>>20694684
>Debased? —But debasement's a godly affliction.
? it's literally not

>>20695780
Sounds nice, but is it supposed to give off pedophilic impressions at the end? Sounds like a cute poem to a daughter or niece, but the ending makes it seem otherwise. I like it otherwise. Fun, with a couple interesting lines. Particularly the last 2 lines in the 2nd stanza. I thought that was nice. The 3rd is more interesting than the 1st, and the 4th is on par with the first. Just nothing too interesting, although I like how clear in meaning they all are. And finally, I liked the "cocoa mugs and firelight" line. After that, it reads like something more intimate and personal, like it was written for someone specific, which makes the use of "snuggle" and some of the clichés fine. I hope this is just for your younger girlfriend (legal), anon. Otherwise it's a bit creepy.

>>20695678
Traditionally poetry celebrated shephards and farmers, so this is a bit irreverent in that sense. It's fine for a short poem, easy to read, but the ending doesn't have any weight. Perhaps a 3rd stanza in between that could flesh out why they will not have greater harvests, or something, (lots of leeway). I think that might give the ending some more meaning for us.

>>20695440
I'm working on one. It's very hard, but I think Arnaut Daniel is a good guide of sorts. Below is the first sestina ever written.
http://www.trobar.org/troubadours/arnaut_daniel/arnaut_daniel_09.php
I think it works best if it's playful. >>20692149's fault was gravity.

>>20695789
That's the joke: depends on which god. Might cut out that question-and-answer section anyway. It does sound a little like slam poetry, and it's any a very unworthy tribute to Tristan Corbière (a poet I think I might have written the only non-blank verse English translations of: see https://pastebin.com/M8nhu9FW for the poem I'm referencing.)
>>20695424 is right. I'm writing this as an introduction to a short series of poems on a recent experience, so its function *must* be somewhat to justify why I (the one clearly in the wrong) would write to begin with. But I could be a little less glib about it. Probably the best plan of attack is to repurpose its middle stanzas into a new piece.

Sweet ambrosia beckons me,
Honey and a guillotine,
Love your flavor on my lips,
Take my head and give a kiss

Take my head and fill it up
With tea and honey, buttercup
Look at the boiling tea bag infuse
Drink through these lips, my gift to you

>>20696310
>Traditionally poetry celebrated shepherds and farmers
Not that simple, anon. That tells me you haven't read the Eclogues or the Georgics, and certainly not Theocritus, which makes me very sad. Not every shepherd is Thyrsis or Corydon.

>>20695678
This is the best thing posted in this thread so far. Frustratingly short. It doesn't need to be longer, but I'd love to see more from you.

>>20696347
I haven't read much greek poetry, just most of the tragedies and Homer. But I was more speaking to English tradition, which I know better. Of course there are examples in English as well, but generally poets admired the simple lives of working peasants.

>>20696333
Breifly skimming an article on sestinas told me the best use is for complaints. I think serious complaints can work in the form, but you're right that this one is lacking. It was my first attempt. I do think light hearted complaints probably are more suited to it.

>>20696338
Sex. The last 2 lines need to be reworked but the rest is fine. I like "honey and a guillotine", but wouldn't something like "honeyed guillotine" work better? "Take my head and fill it up" I think could also change to make the double-meaning better. The 2nd to last line has too many syllables, it's too awkward. You could also do something a lot naughtier sounding to give the poem that extra punch at the end. Something like Herrick's The Vine.

>>20695780
The parts that are creepy without being explicit make me uncomfortable which is a result. You reveal too much at the end so the little bit of ambiguity you had is gone. The shock value is higher when you leave the ambiguity intact. The ending makes it more likely to be a joke or troll etc.

>>20695780
>>20696483
Not without redeeming qualities, but excellent arguments against writing about love and/or sex unless absolutely ready. Brrr.

>>20696502
What do you mean?

A translation from "Summoning Spirits," a minor section of the Odes of Ch'u, a less-translated Chinese classic. Only a bit of the first section: the poem is hundreds of lines long. Worth continuing?

Young already I was pure, oh, and served the right way ceaselessly.
Who holds such splendid morals, oh: the world will drag through brambled weeds.
God never glimpsed my splendid morals, oh: long suffered I catastrophe.
God called out to Wu Yang, saying: "There is a man below: I wish to help him.
His soul is scattered: with your rod divine it back to him."
Wu Yang answered: "To catch a dream, God! How difficult it is to produce this:
If by the rod I must divine, I fear delay, oh: lest his body stiffen useless."
Wu Yang then began to summon, saying: "Spirit, oh: come back!
"You left behind your warm, safe body: wherefore run you to-and-fro, ah?
"You abandoned where you once were happy: such a thing ill fate forebodes, ah!"

>>20696510
Bad, uncomfortable love poetry recalls bad, uncomfortable sex. It's beyond language to describe how, but one knows it when one feels it.

>>20696520
I think these are supposed to be on the nose and funny. Perhaps the first one is written to someone with the intention of sharing, so the intimacy is more the point than how universal it can be enjoyed. I have written many love poems for my girlfriend that I would have to change to post here, and yet many would call them childish, whereas she loved them and we are now married.

>>20695697
Rolling

>>20695386
I like it. Is it drawing from greek myth with Chronos? I think if the ending is supposed to make us feel lonely, it could do a better job.

>>20696575
Bullseye

>>20696600
It's describing a rogue black hole zipping through the solar system, eating jupiter, and tossing the planets of is their orbits. I agree on the ending, it's my own least favorite part.

>>20696631
>of is
*out of

>>20696631
You could probably use mythology a bit more, but if you want to go in the other direction, maybe using more cosmological terms.

>>20695424
Lazy, don't like to work
Garbage is what you get
So random raises spork
It smells worse wet

>>20696826
Please, anon, make no boasts,
Just put some effort in your posts,
Don't blow hot air as Summer's breeze,
But writ with wit and aim to please.

>>20696871
I know my place
A lowly peasant
Not an ace
Prose not pleasant

>>20696965
>My prose unpleasant
I think sounds better

>>20696965
C'mon, anon, do not give up,
From founts penned by the poets sup,
Sustain yourself with rhyme and verse,
'Till natural comes what you rehearse,

>>20697046
Clumsily fumbles
Where is the clitoris
Tummy rumbles
Shat in the sheets

>>20697156
Intoxicated in her bed,
The boozed-up blood gone to my head,
Lip-locked cock and feeling heady,
Barely snared, but bust already.

Moldy bread in death throes
Bard breath of life blows
Bump before the close
Because the coke knows

Update of one I posted in the last thread. What does everyone think of how I'm developing this piece?

Stop, O dictatorial eye,
In whose gaze images wither and—live, but barely!
You are worse than a dead fly,
Whose splotch makes the whole ointment unfit to give—unfairly!

Your thieving glance glazes what God's grace moves
In amber.
Your narrow sight's avarice kidnapped the Muse:
Unhand her.

Saltwater eating away at the concrete
Beneath our feet. Still sweat spills,
Oiling the crawl of the night’s drafting, damp heat
Across the windowsill.

The eyes’ blurred focus in the heat waves;
Currents that tow us in the heat waves
Towards long summer nights’ pirate-swarmed harbors;
Burnt rubber wafts; pigeons bathe.

Cardamom, vetiver, cedarwood, bergamot
Mixing with notes of vanilla and lavender
Crowd up and cloud the night’s course off the calendar.

Drinks sing in their glasses and sour the air;
Their humming sings notes of night’s not-quite-despair,
Night’s knotted stabbing pains, night’s too-loud thoughts.

Halt there, thieving, idolatrous senses,
Whose plow scarcely scratches experience’s denseness,
The vandal!

I'm thinking back to a night when I did something awful. All remembrance, all sensory experience rushing back and re-processing, all seems to serve only as a veil to obscure the blinding red light of culpability. And yet I can't help but do it. I'm trapped in my solipsistic senses, denied the beauty of the searing truth.
Where then to develop this poem? All sorts of suggestions welcome.

Hippity pippity pop
Hickory dickory dock, yo bitch be on my cock,
I gather all the rocks and beat you with them in a sock,
Prison rhymes because I’m behind the times,
I’m a gypsy so I’ll break into houses to steal limes,
My bars make them pussies drop
I ain’t into goy slop, nah, I’m an alpha top
Smoke all my weed crop and steal car parts,
Let off some verbal diarrhoea and some wet farts,
Im a gypo king like Tyson Fury
Go to court and it’s a hung jury,
Fuck all your usury, get used to me,
I hate on all the Jews, I’ll bruise you blues,
With my gypsy traveller crew, who marry their cousins,
I’m impregnating my sisters by the dozens,
Jews belong in the motherfucking oven,
It’s your momma and your sister that I’m loving.
If you down with the gypsy king of rap, bitch, shutcho trap,
I steal little kids in Romania,
And I’ll sling bullets to put pain in ya,
I fuck on bad librarians called Cynthia,
My gypsy blood so viscous,
I wank so much I’m good at discus,
Gypsies travel all the way from India,
And I’ll go to England or Aquitaine,
And go reppin my label so insane.
So stay in your lane channer,
Go back to your plotfagging, plotsing planner.
I’m writing the real fucking canon,
That’s why I came off anon.

>>20699460
I think the emdashes in the first stanza breakup the flow too much. It sounds weird to me. I think you could write them to read more naturally, unless that's the effect you want. Rhyming amber with "unhand her" is a bit conflicting for me. It's kind of fun since it's unexpected, but it really doesn't rhyme very well. It also breaks up the line the way you setup the line with a colon. After that, I really don't get the poem. Perhaps you are veiling the truth in so much hidden meaning to hide it from yourself, as you so say? I don't know. But cryptic or heavily symbolic poetry is not really my thing, so I can't critique it. But it feels like a different poem after the 2nd stanza.

>>20699842
I think I'd need to hear what kind of beat you were thinking of while writing this. Hard for me to imagine. I also don't think it's too strong of a shitpost, but it's rare for a decent rap shitpost, so it gets credit. Definitely not something I could just drop like deuce

>>20699842
Cringe. You were my favorite namfag till now..

>>20700032
>favorite namefag
Stop enabling them, anon

All my niggas say nigga
Any niggas that isn’t my niggas can’t say nigga
A nigga that ain’t my nigga saying nigga ain’t my nigga

A long time ago, I had this idea for a 4chan epic with the cast made up by memes, heavily inspired by The Iliad, but it's so much work to put everything together that I just have a bunch of memes and shit layed out. I did however write the first paragraph. How shit is it?

Muses, amuse us, you goddesses, Mommies of Songs, who on Myna
Peea reside, on its far point, moved there because of the numerous
Mortals that begged for your Aids, this memêsis, inspire, of Wojax,
Son of that Vichain man, Voyax, unbelievably true that his
Progenitor is that thick boy, large Telamonian Ajax, Strongest Achaian, but an heroed with his own sword
After his losing the Armor of great, fast-running, Achilleus
Fairly to cheeky Odysseus, Pallas his Boxxy; she cursed him then.
Listen now, fuckos, the Muses shall saucily milk from my mind's teet
Poor Wojax's pitiful life and the ill he had 'long the way.

>>20700171
I was going to have a Catalogue of Shitposts, and a bunch of meme characters with names changed to sound greek. There was going to be gratuitous violence and disgusting demeanor. Lots of bants and references from multiple boards. But ultimately I thought my time was better spent on poetry I could share with actual real people instead.

>>20700171
Rhythm is way off. Read more poetry.

>>20700186
How so? Some parts later on veer from dactylic, but I think the beginning is pretty good. Only talking about meter that is.

Boy at the table, see
Spirits spill before your feet,
The door slam, a woman weep,
Broken glass. Boy, sweep

>>20699842
less rippityraps more daily vits and iodine bro
hiphop gipsies stole yer vibes, they're gone

>>20700006
Very helpful: thank you. I've decided either to delete the second stanza or to set it aside, so as to make the first a clearer anti-invocation of sorts. I also deleted the em-dashes.

Perhaps I spoke too much. I don't think I'm going to cover the event itself in this piece: just the backdrop of the night on which it happened. My point is that indulgence in the senses is a kind of idolatry, a separation from the self, from God, and from searing responsibility. And yet for the mind broken on conventional poetry it's near involuntary. Every slippery step threatens to return the ascendant soul down the ladder to its earthy body: one must make a gargantuan effort to transcend it. I don't think I'm ready to. I don't think I can.

>>20700171
>Muses, amuse us, you goddesses, Mommies of Songs, who on Myna
Massive missed opportunity for some good alliteration here.

Revision off the top of my head, preserving the dactylic meter:
Muses, amuse us, you sing-songy goddesses, Mommies on Myna
Peea residing, far off for fear of the numerous
Mortals...

You sound like I did when I first started studying Greek. Alas, English isn't Greek. Greek isn't even Greek anymore. Time has passed and we now have to employ different techniques. I recommend that you read Ezra Pound's literary essays if you want to be semi-serious about this poetry-writing thing. Know other languages, surely, but know your own too.

>>20700171
Gave another read. I like the second half considerably more.
Consider being less ambitious right off the bat, anon. Not even Virgil wrote his epic first (and I still even prefer his Eclogues and Georgics); not even Homer, if we're to believe there was such a person, was without his shorter hymns. I know that it's not a terribly serious idea for a project, but even then it's cumbersome. You could break it up and write odes to various meme-figures; you could ditch it altogether and write short heroic sonnets on individual metaphors/conceits in the vein of the Metaphysicals. But don't burden yourself too much too young, anon. I'm excited to see what you're capable of with a load you can carry.

Unfulfilled accomplished sitting on a rake,
One giving up, one eager to take.
Easy comes lust, then they disparage
The nightstand, each-other, the baby carriage.

>>20701491
You're welcome.
>>20701588
>>20701610
I like your revision. This is the only work I've done on the concept and I'd have certainly editted it more if I thought it had promise. You may have renewed some of that for me, but it's just too much work in my life right now for something ridiculously niche. I was looking through old work to keep this thread alive and decided to post at least this if I wouldn't continue the project. Maybe someone will be inspired by it.

we all have moments, when we take leave
and only echo is instead
it whispers sneed..
that cursed duration staying in between — that sundry lead of truth and lies —
while groping in defeat

But yet defeated not! If in thine chest the heart is even now aglow
So Evening come anew and take away my fears as I must go
To straighten up my ways, to post in truth and grow
And maidens wave their scarfs forevermore

'Neath hill-speckled Brooklyn's sundry avenues
Lies murdered and buried so many a muse,
Blamed in their poets' thick hours of distress.
Huff, huff, huff!
Heavy howls Auster's breath.

This interment is no metaphorical thing:
For sometimes in summer rain still they all sing.
A heavy stench hangs: that stench is of death.
Huff, huff, huff!
Heavy howls Auster's breath.

The men for this vile act invent their reasons:
Their faceted souls' woes, their woes of the season,
The season when spirits and crops are distressed:
Huff, huff, huff!
Heavy howls Auster’s breath.

But victims, like murderers, rarely sleep lightly
For summer floods' buoyancy shoots them uprightly
Like pus pouring out from a punctured abscess.
Huff, huff, huff!
Heavy howls Auster’s breath.

And beneath the dark clouds' first pitter and patter
Light wind to the poets seems some dreadful matter
Like a disinterested lover's slow, trembling caress
Huff, huff, huff!
Heavy howls Auster’s breath.

Skeleton hoarders, although they be artists,
In summer wind stumble so artless, regardless,
Through insistent puffing that polishes flesh.
Huff, huff, huff!
Heavy howls Auster's breath.

Will critique when off work, hold on.

>>20702831
Don't stress it too much, anon. We're all lucky if we ever see a dime for this. But it would be a shame if you stopped exploring that part of your soul. See you around these threads if you ever take my suggestion and write some shorter, less taxing pieces.

>>20703096
I enjoy symbolism, but this is borderline illegible. No particular line sings much to me either. It isn't offensive, but it feels a little forced, which impedes it. Would love to read a more natural version.

>>20703655
Here's an attempt. In the very first version I used 'that mixed lead of truth and lies' but it seems somewhat 'too harsh'; 'sundry' might not even be the right word, I'm trying to say 'a varied mixture'. Like when you take a mass of soil and there is different parts and pieces in it. The focus, as I see it, is someone who's trying to break away from the 'sneed', meaning, that slimy non-life which is more 'living' than pure absence but not quite life worthy of its name. And then he suddenly get passionated, inspirited, and damsels wave him their skirts or scarfs as he goes over the horizon, to mountains or to a forest, by an old country road.

we all have moments when we take leave
and only echos are instead:
they whispers sneed..

the cursed duration staying in between —
that sundry lead of truth and lies —
while you yourself is wrestling with defeat

But yet defeated not!
If in thine chest the heart is vividly aglow
So Evening comes anew and takes away my fears as I must go
To straighten up my ways, to post in truth and grow
See, maidens wave their scarfs forevermore

>>20703779
I see a little better now.
Not going to lie: you could use more precision. Forcing yourself into a set meter is one way to achieve that. If you insist on archaicisms, get them right: "thy" and "thine" are as "a" and "an."
I recommend rewriting this in the plainest language you can, with only absolutely necessary words. Then set it into verse and meter of your choice. It will be a good exercise.
That may all sound harsh, but I'm only saying this because I like the texture of the language. I think a little exercise in discipline could do you quite some good.

New fag here, still trying to get the hang of poetry

>>20703926
This is probably the fourth thing even resembling a poem I've ever written, advice?

>>20703926
>to the
This is clunky given the rhythm you just gave, but it could be ironed out or just take as irregular. My advice would be to study Robert Bridges, especially his prosody studies.
The last two lines of the first poem match up with half a foot, which I like. But the second poem is too invested in trochees for my liking. It feels unnatural. The diction and imagery is pretty good though.

>>20703926
You have the opposite problem of most here: you don't have a tin ear, but your subjects, I'm sorry, are vile. Literary topoi are excellent; rank sadism is not.
If you want to be vile, that is fine, but do it better. Read Baudelaire, Sade, Corbière, any number of poets who pulled it off. Don't just cheer on violence: revel in its viscera. Turn up the intensity. Make it painful to read. This is like a high schooler's fantasies, and high schoolers' fantasies are all pedestrian.
And welcome aboard. We all start somewhere.

>>20703850
Alright, my gratitude. Discipline wouldn't hurt.

How he saves himself
Lifting white arms while hell
Is around and within
Suffocating feel like baiting on all three wheels
Riding with inner screams
Hatred deep seated framework
It burns the soul from all ill-gotten low-births
Not enough still — too much dirt
This alembyck: dead-weight’s spurts
All sides my slime this egg never hides
It hurts though no lies
I know not what I rhyme
Round some passion to this cup
And we’ll offer it for nothing
Left rotting
Right? -- dead weight in alembyck rolling eight
Deers are ready with a sleigh
To slide through to the next phase

>>20703947
based you-wish power affirmator

>>20703655
I have posted a bad sestina and some other poems.
>>20691750
>>20691837
>>20691846
>>20692149
>>20696483

There was a man who loved clean dick
And tales of dreams of grandma pussy
The mind of a gamer, twisted and sick
Wow, he's literally me

>>20691673
My stones are on your eyeballs
My hands feel warm mind stoned
My fingers roll across your stony face
Hid, I'm stoned, under my sack.

>>20700013
Not me, but here’s one I actually did write.

https://vocaroo.com/17JTSrFBbGPe

Too on the nose?

>>20704995
Purchase and read the complete works of Langston Hughes

>>20704825
He says nigga but sounds so white, it's funny

>>20704032
Good rhythm I guess. Don't really know what's going on

>>20703926
The first one is really good, but feels a little too short. The last line could also use some more punch I think. The second poem is much weaker. The bitch witch rhyme feels forced and the last couplet has too many syllables and is just metrically bad. The way you went about it too is just shallow.

>>20703947
This is very bad. Meter is fucked, the message comes before the poem here, twisting the lines into buzzwords and talking points without any wit or interesting imagery at all. There's a way to do something like this that is much much less cringe.

>>20703466
I think using 'Neath in the beginning is a mistake if you aren't emulating a traditional style in its time period. I also think invoking or even referencing muses is usually not done well. I don't think it's interesting here. I was also not digging the refrain. I thought it was a bit too hard to read, but you get the hang of it the more you read. It might help to break up the stresses words with unstressed syllables and make it easier to say over and over, but up to you. I think the second line of the 3rd stanza is a tongue twister. The line is hard to say. Too many like sounds together in a bad way, at least for me. I think the last 2 stanzas are good. Is this about men who are obsessed with women, their muses, who then kill them and bury them, only for their corpses to come up during a flood?

>>20696511
I wish you could get some good critique anon. But alas, I know nothing about asian poetry. If I imagined myself a reader of this kind of thing, I don't think it would be bad. I say, keep going at it if you enjoy it. Post your progress in the next thread and hopefully someone more knowledgeable or amiable to this kind of work will be able to give their impression of it.

In my mind I built a fortress against his wrath,
I built walls and towers to support my thoughts,
I checked the base of the walls and the soil and the earth to make sure the foundations were stable,
I made sure that the supports could endure any earthquake of trial, any cost of character, any death and loss and break upon my heart.
I made my fortress to stand resolute against the actions of my selfishness and the price I might pay to uphold it.
I awaited judgement and I overlooked his approach and was proud.
Yet with his love my fortress was torn asunder and I was brought to my knees. I saw how his love had always embraced my life and how I could not but open my crumbling doors to his word and being.
I was filled by him and I felt no wrath, nor price, but the beauty of life and a deep gratefulness for every blessing upon me.

I wrote this a year or two ago. Starting with the last stanza, specifically the line "born into the fire. crawled into the pan."

>>20705678
Forgot, is says untitled but the actual title is "The Forgiven"

>>20703947
Alright, from what I can gather the vitriolic jew material is a dry and insubstantial, and the excessive use of trochees makes the meter come off as awkward and jarring

Intended to dial back on the both for this one, but I'm still not too confident with basic meter and the contrast in polysyllables seem to make the accents easier to discern
>>20705437
>>20703967
>>20703960
>>20705424

Passing through my fingers
These bone white digits
A black wristband

Pulsing around the face
This blood red minute
Gave life to time

And paused at midnight
The nurse gave in
Her heart died.

>>20705476
>Is this about men who are obsessed with women, their muses, who then kill them and bury them, only for their corpses to come up during a flood?
Yep, that's the picture. I agree with basically all you say—I think I might chop this one up for parts and repurpose em. Wanted to do a summer rain poem with a gothic tinge, but I think I can do better.

>>20692149

A translation of Li Po/Li Bai. From Chinese.

In Ch’i once lived such an unusual man:
That Lu Chung-Lian, so noble and so brash.
Just like the moon from under deep seas can
Ascend, and light the ocean in one flash,

His battle-cry drove back Ch’in’s mighty army:
Our later ages still echo its trace.
He spurned reward, for that he thought gold paltry,
And turned and laughed right in King P’ing Yüan’s face.

I too belong to his unruly breed,
Inclined, like him, to take a graceful leave.

>>20707713
I like it. Not usually a fan of asian translations, but I appreciate the rhyme. I have no idea who any of the characters are though. How closely is this translated?

>>20706747
You do what you feel is necessary, anon. Hope I could be of help

>>20706769
Yeah, it's bad. But I wanted to throw out a sestina for the thread and got some tips for it.

>>20707920
I've translated this very closely and contorted to fit it into sonnet form. Li Po is Shakespeare's equal when it comes to metaphor and when it comes to versifying histories.

>>20707950
Congrats, anon. I think it's pretty good

>>20691705
yes.jpg

>>20691673

The wood pigeon watches the wind move the mist;
the world worships Him in whom we subsist.
In the graveyard a grandfather is buried;
the green leaves grow with a gravity unhurried.

>>20705866
Closet and chariot do not even near rhyme. Neither does sunshine and coax me. It seems inconsistent is all. The last 2 lines of the 3rd stanza are metrically off. Sounds like too many syllables in the 3rd and the last line has too many stressed syllables compared to unstressed. The weight of the whole line is off, let alone meter, if that is a strong concern of yours. Reading it again the 2nd line of stanza 2 is also off. It should be tweaked. I also have no idea what it means, but that might be what you're going for. I don't particularly like poems that require deciphering.

>>20706472
I don't like it. Wristband seems so out of place for a poem. I also just don't get what it's about besides some kind of sad feeling

>>20691705
Posting it on /pp/ is worse.

How do you guys write a poem? Walk me through your process.

>>20709447
Try to follow Poe's Philosophy of Composition, but usually I get an idea or a few lines and I jot them down. Later, I'll come back to them and see what kind of poem they would fit best in. I would then play around with structure until I was satisfied. I would write it all out, slightly editting as I go, and then re-read and edit more thoroughly, over and over, coming up with alternate lines where I think some are lacking, until eventually I am satisfied with it. However, I often look through old poems and find better ways to order lines than when I was focused on finding a solution.

>>20709447
i make words out from brain
better if i train
but until then you have to suffer
under my shit rain

>>20709447
I eat mushrooms and see things that are captivating (on hikes, in the city, anywhere) due to some vague feeling of significance in the moment. I take a picture to capture the image and then later use it as a muse and recreate the image poetically which invariably brings out the subconscious connections that constituted the original feeling of significance.

>>20709447
I feel nonstop guilt, grief, and rage, and these ugly thoughts come to me in beautiful words, since I am a dangerous, diagnosed narcissist. I write them down throughout my day and fit them into the closest meter if I have to (I usually think in amphibrachs anyway these days) and then piece them together into a poem when I get home late at night. It doesn't bring me peace, but it does lend some sense of meaning to the excruciating life I live, protecting other people from myself nonstop and always hurting someone whenever I let my guard down. I fear it's made me dependent, though: my best work in always from the throes of red-hot mania.

>>20710532

>>20710539

My first ero guro poem

----------------------------------------------

the bodies all chopped to bits
and the garbage bag is leaking blood, some of it splattered on my shoes
you wouldn't believe how much blood a human can make
i stared off into the distance and realized what i had done


I could still hear her screaming
anticipating every stab of the knife like she had done this before
her perfume was starting to mix with the stench of death
a double helix of eros and morte

I cut off her nipple, she wasn't using it
played with it while the miasma of her corpse grew more intoxicating
no matter how deep i buried her in the forest i couldnt get over that smell

>>20710545
>>20710550
Good poem, images are cliché but some of the ideas are cool.
>like she had done this before
>perfume mix with death

>>20710550
Effective, but in a hackneyed way, like the genre it emulates. Maybe you're going for that? I suppose you've done well if you are.
I am a fan of meter and rhyme. I don't think any of us amateurs have the right to write anything not beautiful and orderly. You might experiment with that with this subject matter.

>>20710570

>>20710590

>>20710532
>>20710539
>>20710545
>>20710570
>>20710590
Good to see more influence from the maudits in this thread. Your French is a little odd though, and I find switching like that confusing and unpleasant in general as a native bilingual.
I think your structure is far stronger than the contents of any of your verses. I can tell where you rushed. You could also do with a little more suggestiveness over than explicitness. If you must use an explicit word, do so with full respect to its weight.

>>20710606

>>20710579
im trying to write more free verse after my rhyming stuff got slagged off in a past poem thread

yes, im trying to write horror poetry, why not

>>20710610
Old French, most of it.
It’s a work in progress

>>20710513
scornful lips quiver
arrow from my mirror
mirage of barrow in the river
flowing streams of silver

>>20710620
>im trying to write more free verse after my rhyming stuff got slagged off in a past poem thread
Not the way, anon. When you do one thing badly, do it better: don't run away to another thing.

>>20710620
I only write rhyming verse because it's what I like. I agree with the other anon. Keep working at it if that's what you like. There are resources to help you improve and take what anons here say with a nice pinch of salt. Plenty of people here do not like metered rhyming poems, so you will get dismissals

>>20709048

it's about a nursing watch (my deceased mom's) that I'm twirling through my fingers and examining. a black wristband is something people wrap around their wrists / arms when someone dies. the watch has run out of battery and stopped working. also the poem is only half done.

Rhyme and meter have a magical way of supporting the strangest leaps of logic

Bump

>>20707713
Translating is a good exercise. Often rhyme in English is a good way to reproduce the tone of a poem which doesn't rhyme in the original.


Noli admirari, quare tibi femina nulla,
Rufe, velit tenerum supposuisse femur,
non si illam rarae labefactes munere vestis
aut perluciduli deliciis lapidis.
laedit te quaedam mala fabula, qua tibi fertur
valle sub alarum trux habitare caper.
hunc metuunt omnes, neque mirum: nam mala valde est
bestia, nec quicum bella puella cubet.
quare aut crudelem nasorum interfice pestem,
aut admirari desine cur fugiunt.

— Catullus


Don't wonder, Rufus, why you sleep alone,
Without some girl to offer you caresses,
Despite your endless gifts of pretty dresses
And necklaces of rare translucent stones.
I've heard some nasty rumours. In the vale
Beneath your arms a goat resides, it's said.
This scares them off. Quite right! To go to bed
With such a filthy's beast's beyond the pale.
So try to smell more like a human being,
Or otherwise get used to people fleeing.

>>20710857
Ah, ok

>>20710870
It's great

am I retarded? I dont understand the OP image

>>20696338
Like the other anon said, keep the violent intimation of the "guillotine" or something in the second stanza
>>20701682
"Unfulfilled accomplished" is a tad awkward other than that really good

brothers buried
retreat to the trees
hunted and harried
by hounds of hermes

>>20711538
That's funny

>>20712036
Perhaps
>>20712044
Lover tosses herself into the sea as her beloved departs?

>>20712833
Are you the same anon throughout these threads posting little quatrains?

>>20713628
by becoming them
break the chains
chance rules when
I eat trains

>>20713625
Originally, the last line meant that they left their mark upon the sea and drank their fill so to speak but there is that darker possibility that the ship sank and the sailor hurled into the darkness. Glad you asked, anything you would change?

>>20713704
I like rhyme. So I would add that lol, but besides that I think lines 6 and the last line are hard to understand. I think it's a cool poem, reminds me of Donne's "A Burnt Ship" with the play on words and double meaning of the end.

>>20713628
>quatrains
Thanks for the name. I don't know anything.
I assume you see what I tried to do here? >>20710640 Connecting the last and first words? I have seen it done before but does that have a name?
The mirage of the barrow was supposed to represent honest work but it's too vague, I don't think anyone will get it despite the next line sort of reiterating.

>>20713778
Line six comes from the first five verses of the Bible. The sailor is evil, but good, even if it hides in three measures in his deep. Definitely takes some liberties with language

Keeping the thread alive

Wrote this on the subway while having a panic attack about the immensity and irresolvability of my sins. Onegin verse: maybe a good theme for a future thread?
I need to work on the final couplet.

Remembered sins can only shimmer
Just out of reach, and dart off fast,
Refract, wane as our days get thinner,
And forgive tacitly at last.
And whether we or nature end it,
We get better than God intended,
For though at last our eyes slip closed,
A slighted world still bears our load.
No: senses know no sense of justice
That does not fade or fly away.
So still we stand and face the day,
So still we lie, still others trust us,
And shake our hands, say wish-you-wells,
And hide what they’ve to hide themselves.

>>20715304
Sober and admirable. Maybe change forgive to forgiven. God's intentions are always fulfilled so maybe change "intended" to "may destine" or something like that. Other than that second bit, really good stuff regardless

>>20715568
You're right. Changed that line to "fate intended." Thank you, anon.

>>20715610
And I saved your writing. Thank you, too

>>20713677
I can make no sense
Of your poetry.
Is it you or me
Who's dense?

>>20713835
Bible references are cool. I thought it was just a weird line.

>>20713794
Last and first words of what? Do you mean the whole poem, the stanza, or the line? It does have a name or a phrase, but I don't know it off the top of my head.

>>20715177
Admirable. Here is some limericks.

>>20715733
This made me grin, great stuff

>>20715304
I don't like the first 4 lines. I don't think the image of sins shimmering and darting off is a strong one. I also don't think a line should be ended with "thinner", it is a weak choice. I like lines 5 -7, but not line 8. I don't the phrase "bears our load" is a good fit for the poem. Neither is started the next line with "No:" It breaks the good rhythm it has going. However, I really like the rest. I think the last 4 lines are great.

>>20715749
Thanks anon. That compliment means a lot.

>>20715733
Your content is excellent. Your meter is clumsy. Limericks should be made of amphibrachs, a metric unit I know so well that reading these made me squirm a bit.
It's up to you whether or not that matters. But should you decide to fit these into traditional form, they're pretty quick and easy fixes. Eg
>...who knew only to say, "Damn, fuck it,"
>...and said, "no, they won't go with butter."

>>20715802
Why does structure matter to you?

>>20715760
Thank you for the thorough critique. I agree with almost all of what you said: I think it's very obvious where I just threw in the first word that rhymed. Revision should help.
>I don't like the first 4 lines. I don't think the image of sins shimmering and darting off is a strong one.
I am not one to talk back to criticism, especially when it's this considered and considerate. But I think I can provide some context: this is part of a series, and the previous poem therein ends with a bright (but electric) light telling the speaker to remember. So I thought that would be a good transition. Does that make sense? Here it is, for reference:

The light on the ride home, the pale, forlorn light
Decreed with some scorn: you, remember that night.
The heathen, tempter, electric light.

It said: remember how it smelled,
And who did.
Remember the silence, how she never yelled,
Though nearly you did.
That light that stung unrested pupils.

Remember the smoke's scent, remember its burn,
The screech of battery-powered decks,
The pressure puffing up your neck,
The sudden twinge telling you you'd still not learned.

And so I obeyed, and the images came,
And all became objects branded with my name.


>>20715808
Well, it matters because there's a certain rhythm one expects when one reads or hears a limerick, and for that to change is a little bit offputting. Of course it's your choice whether or not that matters to you, anon: I said as much. But this being a critique thread, I thought I would point this out. I'd want you to do the same for me, after all.

>>20715710
Not any of it? You don't get anything the poem you're replying to is saying?
My instinct says the contraction in the last line of your poem ruins the meter and you need to shove more alliterations in there.
>>20715726
>Last and first words of what?
The start of each line is supposed to mirror the previous indirectly. Quiver into arrow. Mirror into mirage. River into flowing.

Does anyone else get really tired from writing poetry? Only working out has the same effect on me.

>>20715979
Nearly all of mine is written in a manic state between midnight and 3 AM, sometimes after I've already gone to sleep and awakened in a haze

>>20716022
Damn. The more I learn about others' processes, the more I understand the concept of the muses.
I am a narcissist and suffer debilitating anxiety attacks whenever alone. I don't write all my poems in this state, but the difference is clear. I feel like a battery that gets used up a little bit each time.

>>20716053
The thinner the barrier between the conscious and subconscious when writing, the better
The unconscious brain is a much more perceptive and capable entity than the yammering imp at the control panel that calls itself "I"

>>20715802
Not that other anon. Thanks for pointing that out. I should edit them to fit the structure. Also, thanks for the easy revisions.

>>20715856
I like the poem that comes before. However, you can still create a stronger image that relates to electric light. I don't necessarily know what it will be, but I know that what you have is not it. I'm also curious why you wrote the first line of the second stanza the way you did, instead of like
>It said, "Remember how it smelled,"

>>20715866
Yes. I don't get what that quatrain was trying to say.
>>20715866
Ah, I didn't see it. I think that's something most readers won't pickup on. I'm sure it has a name somewhere, but what I was thinking of earlier was something different.

>>20715979
No. Sometimes I get a bout of inspiration before bed though, and I'll stay up late working on a poem

>>20691719
>Got a problem with that?
If you're translating a poem primarily for aesthetic enjoyment, and it feels more natural to use iambic pentameter, use iambic pentameter. If you want the original meter and rhyme, or if you want a literal translation, you'll need to accept mediocre poetry.

>>20716226
>I don't get what that quatrain was trying to say
It's just a reply saying yes while referencing structure and training >>20709738. I think it's good but explaining every detail doesn't leave anything left to explore.
>>20712833
This one in comparison is shit because there are no layers or ambiguity.

>>20717530
I value clarity over hidden meanings.

>>20717688
A poem with only a direct clear meaning has no value. It's dead and doesn't do anything. It's not about "hiding" but consciously playing with the subconscious. Like how patterns and structures you don't consciously notice still contribute to the experience. If you notice the mechanisms or at least focus on them too much instead of just letting them do their thing it can take away from what they're trying to do.

Ok. I have here my first rough draft of this five-parter. Much of it is stuff I've posted before. Looking for critique on all the individual parts, but also on how they fit together.

(1/2)

I.

What did you see?

Saltwater eating away at the concrete
Beneath our feet. Still sweat spills,
Oiling the crawl of the night’s drafting, damp heat
Across the windowsill.

The eyes’ blurred focus in the heat waves;
Currents that tow us through the heat waves
Towards long summer nights’ pirate-swarmed harbors;
Burnt rubber wafts; pigeons bathe.

Cardamom, vetiver, cedarwood, bergamot
Mixing with notes of vanilla and lavender
Crowd up and cloud the night’s course off the calendar.

Rhubarb juice, orange peel, fermented licorice
Conspire together to swell up night’s furtive wish,
Night’s knotted stabbing pains, night’s too-loud thoughts.

II.

Stop, you dictatorial eye,
In whose gaze images wither and live, but barely!
You are worse than the dead fly
Whose splotch makes the whole ointment unfit to give: unfairly!

Halt there, you thieving, idolatrous senses,
Who chisel away with your toothpick and file
Against all experience’s diamondoid denseness,
And hide with feigned guile
The truth beneath plain sight!

The light on the ride home, the pale, forlorn light
Decreed with some scorn: you, remember that night.
The heathen, tempter, electric light.

It said: remember how it smelled,
And who did.
Remember the silence, how she never yelled,
Though nearly you did.
That light that stung unrested pupils.

Remember the smoke's scent, remember its burn,
The screech of battery-powered decks,
The pressure puffing up your neck,
The sudden twinge telling you you'd still not learned.

And so I obeyed, and the images came,
And all became objects branded with my name.

>>20717986
(2/2)

III.

Was it enough? No!

Remembered sins can only shimmer
Just out of reach, and dart off fast,
Refract, pale as our days get thinner,
And forgive tacitly at last.
And whether we or nature end it,
We get better than fate intended,
For though at last our eyes slip closed,
A slighted world still bears our load.
The senses know no sense of justice
That does not fade or fly away.
So still we stand and face the day,
So still we lie, still others trust us,
And shake our hands, say wish-you-wells,
And hide what they’ve to hide themselves.

IV.

So what is to be done?

If one day my body should slip in the Hudson,
(Passers-by might say: He wasn’t careful!)
What was it? The cosmos cleaning themselves
Spit out a hairball.

If down through the decades, six if I’m unlucky,
It should be my duty to protect others from myself,
What was it? A would-have-been stopgap (alone very tiny)
Takes its smoothest course through society’s fluxion.

If any number of times by the hand of another one
Justice should strike me (and strike me well)
What was it? A sacrifice delivered with umption
Upon the high altar of sanctimonious-no-one.

A rough breeze that once would have roused up my passion
Hit me yesterday and agitated nothing.
I barely felt it; it didn’t even sting:
Who will for the guilty a better whip fashion?

V.

Justice is a white light too:
I caught a fleeting glimpse, only one time.
It isn't beautiful, it can't and won't rhyme:
Pity that I can't describe it to you.

>>20717986
Anon, did you rape someone

>>20717991
>Remembered sins can only shimmer
Now considering changing "remembered" to "reflected."

>>20718239
If I had I wouldn't be posting about it even here.

>>20717773
There have been plenty of poems who's meanings are very clear and they are still masterpieces. "Playing with the subconscious" is simply what you want to do with your poetry. It is not a necessity for poetry.

>>20718808
Third anon here. I think you're both being a little absolutist. "Playing with the subconscious" is not by any means a necessity; however, a poem that can only be approached from a single angle can seem a little flat.

>>20718817
How so? Is Byron's The Destruction of the Sennacherib flat? Is Hoods The Bridge of Sighs unclear and mysterious? No. I'm not being an absolutist. If anything, the other anon is. I only said I valued clarity over symbolism and mystery, and so have many other poets. That doesn't mean you can't have beautiful imagery and brilliant metaphor.

>>20718878
I don't think it's fair to say that clarity means the poem can only be approached from a single angle, nor vice versa. That's all. I don't think those poems are good examples of poems that can only be seen from one perspective: Rupi Kaur's would fit that bill better.

>>20718939
I would disagree about the poems, but by clarity I mean that they can be easily understood. Like the poems I referenced. Poe's The Raven is clear, but it's meaning is somewhat veiled. Whereas poems that are so thick with metaphor and focused on imagery we lose any sense of clear narrative is what I would call unclear.

>>20718817
I just don't add pointless cuck qualifiers like "in my opinion". All art is about playing with the subconscious. Music is pure structure but animals respond to it. They are not analyzing the structures and harmonies.
I agree the poem he didn't get anything out of would be too opaque alone but as a reply in a wider context like it was posted there should be enough information to get something out of it. At the very least just an affirmative reply to his question.

>>20710532
Anyone crit this

>>20691673

>>20710532
dang, you live in berkeley too? give me a minute to digest it

>>20712833
the meter is messed up

it's not her-MEES, it's hermes. just doesn't sound right.

>>20691750
too singsong

>>20691837
awful. awful. just awful.

>>20691846
this was kind of good for the first few lines, until hte tree trunk became a stag. don't make shit not make sense just to make it rhyme bro

>>20692149
terrible. poetry has to sound musical. your rhythm and rhyme are totally flat

>>20693860
you need more strucutre, teh rhyme scheme just seems random.

>>20694684
first stanza doesn't quite sound right. it's a bit too compact for me

Then it just horribly fails. "pit with you" does not rhyme with "defense will do," they inehrently sound different and the discord is butt ugly

>>20694734
hopkins mainly

>>20695678
again, excess of rhyme is fucking saccharine.

>>20696338
sex has no place in poetry, even if it's just a clever joke about tea

>>20696483
>hot and moist reaches

go fuck yourself. how do you not hear how ugly that sounds

>>20695386
fuck yes, finally something not shit. I don't get it though. But really. I actually read this one out loud.

So, good job. I think there are some awkward constructions maybe... like "interlope a savage dead king did"

but honestly, so much better than most stuff in this thread. Keep writing. and explain it to me? I don't reallly like this thing where a poem is supposed to be a puzzle. Good job. Good job. Keep going.

>>20696631
this is great. But even with this interpretive key, it's a bit hard to understand. that's another ciriticsm, I suppose. Jolly good show.

>>20699460
funny second stanza

but the rhyme scheme of the first stanza just seems corny and out on a limb to me.

>>20703466
bit too archaic but the conceit is kind of interesting.

>>20705667
this is good but not good poetry

almost sounds like prose at points

>>20705678
awful, don't write political poetry pls

>>20707713
damn that first stanza is good. good ass image and it gels with the meter.

But everything after is kind of boring.

>>20709447
talk and then talk gets more dense

>>20710614
nasty filth, I don't like it. it doesn't sound good, and I don't get it.

>>20711538
actually good, mainly because it fucking rhymes and the meter isn't broken. being and fleeing is cheeky enough to work. good job

>>20713637
if I'm not mistaken, the word is "lay"

You gotta read your stuff out loud man, the rhyme doesn't work. You have to hear where it doesn't. Poetry is too short to do otherwise.

lied there doesn't rhyme with body bare. fuck.

I like to listen to bolero with friends
On a drive, while studying
while finishing while riding death
While the flow takes us over
Where new language is created.
I like to listen to bolero while im high
The stream keeps on going.
Like watching the ocean,
smoking, or suckling as a baby.
The same difference,
And the increasing intensity.
I like to read while I listen to Bolero
by Ravel
By Maurice Ravel. Like riding a horse
Watching a tree grow,
Eating an apple, eating an apple.
I like to listen to Bolero M. 81 on spotify
While I’m breathing easy
curled up like a fetus,
The ending repetition
Like an angry spring
And the hint of chamomile
I like to listen to Bolero on repeat
catching all the notes I’ve missed
All the morse waves like rising
Ovation, living for the first time.
I like to listen to Maurice’s Bolero
Sitting down, meditating
Aged up, waiting.
I like to listen to Bolero
while watching the wheels go round,
I really like to listen to bolero
when I stare at the Horn Players
I like to listen to Bolero while my life
Crumbles. I like to listen to bol-
Ero sedating the day defacing
music.

>>20720163
This is the edited version from last critiques

I like to listen to bolero with friends
On a drive, while studying
while finishing, while riding death
While the flow takes us over
Paper boat on a creak
I like to listen to bolero while im high
The stream keeps on going.
Like watching the ocean,
smoking, or suckling as a baby.
The same difference,
And the increasing intensity.

I like to read while I listen to Bolero
By Maurice Ravel. Like riding a horse
Watching a tree grow,
Eating an apple, eating an apple.
I like to listen to Bolero M. 81 on spotify
While I’m breathing easy
curled up like a fetus,
The ending repetition
Like an angry spring
And the hint of chamomile
I like to listen to Bolero on repeat
catching all the notes I’ve missed
All the morse waves like rising
Ovation, living for the first time.
I like to listen to Maurice’s Bolero
Sitting down, meditating
Aged and wrinkled, waiting.
I like to listen to Bolero
while watching the wheels go round,
I really like to listen to bolero
when I stare at the Horn Players
I like to listen to Bolero while my life
Crumbles. I like to listen to bol-
Ero sedating the day defacing
music.

>>20720085
I'm glad you like it. It's part of a larger series of sonnets and pseudo-sonnets and sonnet-like-objects, each of which is supposed to describe a different major catastrophe or apocalypse. The meta-narrative of the series is that they're each an exhibit in a multiversal museum of tragedies in bygone worlds. I've toyed with the idea of accompanying each with a very dry encyclopedia-esque entry bluntly describing the event that the poem discusses.
I know that most of my poetry ends up very difficult to parse or contextualize, and that's a consequence of my usual state of mind when writing and the topics that I want to discuss. I'm generally far too stubborn to make real concessions for comprehensibility.

>>20720212
Good picrel

>>20720070
I wrote stag instead of SNAG, thanks for the heads up. And that fruit poem is clearly not meant to be beautiful in a grand way. It's one big innuendo. Meant to be funny.

>>20720070
>it's not her-MEES
It is in english

>>20720772
Not that other anon, but the problem is that the second syllable in Hermes is unstressed, whereas "trees" is stressed.

>>20720275
you gotta give me context, cause I don't understand it. maybe it would ruin everything but if you added some footnotes or something.

But you really got it, man.

Although weakly doesn't match speak-free (metrically). When you say them out loud you'll realize the stresses don't match. or something like that.

Can anyone guess what this one is about?

I vomit

The sun a little screaming coin
Through the blinds it bounces
On the mirror on the old round tv
My teeth hurt and my slush
Of a brain can’t sleep but won’t
Stay awake, fading. Sweat
Wet pillow, burning bones
My flesh is tender, my neck
It’s hanging from the ceiling
My head is pinned to the bed

>>20721698
>>20721698
Eating disorder?

Good day /lit/. It's my first time writing poetry, so please be easy with me.

Gay Nigger

"You are gay," said the youth, "and I saw your old pics,
you gave head for as cheap as a dime.
Every photo that showed you there's always a dick;
Pray, how did you manage the time?"

"In my youth," said the nigger, "I was taking a shot
for my passport renewal that day.
But I saw the photographer, thought he was hot,
and his dick is still there in the frame."

"You're a man who drinks cum," said the youth, "Yes you are!
To the point that the novelty's lost.
But how did you gulp down the cum from the car,
even clearing out both the exhausts?"

"In my youth," said the nigger, "I gave myself up
To get fucked in the ass by the pastor.
And I told him I'd cry if he forced me a jug
of his cum, but I came even faster."

"You are gay," said the youth, "and so loose is your ass,
you can't walk without taking a shit.
And you shat up the thread but you still had the class
to keep it on topic with /lit/."

"In my youth," said the nigger, "when I was still gay
I got fucked till my ass became loose.
Then it walked to the toilet and took the bidet
and tied it around like a noose."

"You are gay," said the youth, "and I know that you are,
but how'd you acquire your gayness?
Were you gay from the womb? Did your dad make you hard?
Did it pop in your head instantaneous?"

Then the nigger replied: "I was gay for the mass, but I now only like to fuck boys
And there's more than one way to fuck boys in the ass;
Come here let me show you my toys!"

>>20723021
No it is not about that.

When you use light in this one, do you mean God? I have trouble imagining a random light bulb carrying that much significance.

>>20723055
:'( I'm sorry I messed up the spacing in the last paragraph. It's meant to be
>Then the nigger replied: "I was gay for the mass,
>but I now only like to fuck boys.
Please forgive this terrible error :'(

>>20723060
Hm, I guessed so because of "gluttony's alter ego" and "free and expensive". Maybe another anon will get it. I guess so, or noumena, or the teleology of natural science

>>20699842
terrible

>>20721698
this isn't the prose poem thread bruh and I reject poetry as puzzle

sterile city, pulsating forests
slumped over and pilled out humans
living in the ruins

milky way above us
stretching towards infinity
blotted out by light pollution

>>20723983
Show, don't tell, Anon. And respect rules of verse.

A boring piece of bile I coughed up while reflecting on themes in >>20723983. Like vomit, it needed to come out. I probably won't save it.

We well-bred, pill-fed, suit-and-tied up
Sleep not too late, manage our time,
Set out to find the ocean dried up,
And cough exhaust, and stand in line
Where once the satyrs pranced about.

No bridge breaches this waste-land now.
The stars above us
Prove God still loves us
But brigand light-bulbs blot them out.

>>20724013
its nothing serious, just some words i shat out after spending the day reading about jack Kerouac and Oswald Spengler

decrepit world cities filled with restless numb people looking for distractions, separated from a vibrant nature


what i felt is that i had the themes but not the words

unlike this asshole

>>20724203

>>20723948
Ok

I look to my left,
A fan is blowing.

I look to my right,
A fan is blowing.

I look at the drink in front of me,
Ice melts,
and the condensation -
Ruins my puzzle pieces.

Now I look down,
and see cold feet.

I guess I should have never left.

Dialogus prancing
Prince of two meanings
In the details a devil dancing
Being who tear brings

here's an abortion of a limerick


A Program Consisting of Four Sets

A billowing circle of corsets
Have lace 'round their waists and some forceps
Are needed to pry them
Away from once shy men
Distending their hymens in quartet.

If one day my body should slip in the Hudson,
(Passers-by might say: He wasn’t careful!)
What was it? The cosmos cleaning themselves
Spit out a hairball.

If down through the decades, six if I’m unlucky,
It should be my duty to protect others from myself,
What was it? A would-have-been stopgap (alone very tiny)
Takes its smoothest course through society’s fluxion.

If any number of times by the hand of another one
Justice should strike me (and strike me well)
What was it? A sacrifice delivered with umption
Upon the high altar of sanctimonious-no-one.

All the while,
The yammering animal that I call “I”
Will keep mourning his tummy-aches to the vast sky
Which will brighten and darken just as before.

And unto my gluttonous eye may I lecture
On how dull it remains to sin and punishment’s texture
And pull down that infamous line from the shelf:
“You just have to make everything about yourself.”

>>20724690
Maybe a little too diaristic. This reads and sounds like the stuff I jot down over the course of my day and end up repurposing or throwing out. The line breaks also seem a bit random. Still, there's a clear emotional arc, even if the cause and effect are muddy and the language is plain. I'd like to see something refined over this template.

>>20724984
It's sure a limerick. Maybe you should write something slightly longer, anon? I like the texture of your language here, but I think limericks in general ought be a tiny bit shorter and clearer. Maybe giving yourself some (but just a little) breathing room would be a healthy exercise.

>>20725170
>A sacrifice delivered with umption
Do you mean gumption? Or unction?

>>20720029
I don't like the first two lines because I feel like supple fingers can't really be tucked between stains on teeth. The words are nice together, but it doesn't really evoke an image for me. It's probably just the first line, though. Fingers can run over teeth, but to say that they're tucked between them feels off. I would also drop supple, but that might be a personal preference. Dropping the adjective creates a stronger impression on the first line, too. I would write it as,
>You are fingers that run between
>pomegranate stains on happy teeth
dropping the "the" that starts line two, as well, just because I feel like it improves the flow there.

I don't know what ten twenty Keith means, but maybe that's just for you, so, whatevs. Besides that, I think it's a strong poem. Good show.

Burn and wait
Sit and oh and O and Om
Zen time breed
The neurona
Light the eye
Burn and stand
Born to breathe
Sit and see
Zen and you
Zone to zen
Om and O and sit
Burn and lead
Move and plague
Sink you’re lead
Zen and sin
Pineal sound and Om and Om
Burn and zen
Om and O
Zen and time
O and breath
Sensory and glands and Gland
Zen and I
Breathe and burn
Zen light time
Gland and Glands

>>20721893
Really good. I like the description on the sun. Only change I would make would be to write the third and second to last lines as
>flesh that's tender, my neck
>is hanging from the ceiling

My Lady shines through my shuttered window;
Attacks, alights upon my sleeping eyes.
Awake I tumble from the Sea Eternal
Over cascading waters. Magenta
Hues suffuse the morning mist,
A lunar sediment; plenitude resting in
The One above the One in All
Until their dissipation by her flaming tongues.
Steeples erected, verandas buttressed
The instant I throw back my shutters.
I raise my eyes to see My Lady:
A Fiery, Decapitated Head.

>>20725283
Unction. Must remember to edit sober

>>20725327
>flesh that's tender,
Tendered flesh maybe?
> my neck
>is hanging from the ceiling
This works better

>>20725190
Yeah it was pretty basic and shitty, I was just throwing words out there and seeing if anything stuck. Let's try again

The weather today
95 Degrees
30 Percent Humidity

Two fans,
As their blades hiss,
and the boxes rumble,
I can't help but wonder.

Is the weather getting to me -
or is it the twelve pack,
sweating alongside me.

I decide to crack open another warm one,
the sweat rolls off my brow,
and the foam rests at my lips

I look around,
"Maybe she didn't like the weather."

Me either.


Meh, can do better this one just isn't happening - thanks for the input

>>20726178
I can see this as a short story but not as a poem