/lit/ - Literature

>>4464343
>and vagina
u lost me gnight

The way you keep saying "the" is weird and distracting.

I can't tell if you're serious or not OP but that wasn't bad.

>>4464345
>autism

>>4464343
Are you Jewish?

Ah, Paris.

My name is [example] and I've lived here for the better part of the last decade, stealing away from my mistresses chataeu at night to roam the cobbled streets and parlay with the street ladies from underneath the white moonlight and yellow lanterns.

>>4464363
no, why?

The letters that you use are very distracting. Use other ones.

The words are fine, just use other letters to write them.

Dear Diary, the jews are getting angry. I have just driven a wagon of jews to the nearest gas chamber and they have ripped up the leather interior.

She stands in the corner clutching a book like a lover, and I find myself wishing that instead of embracing the case the encases it, she would chase the knowledge contained in it and scream: "I'm a girl, full of knowledge and discernment—the best tools to protect me from the roles you have assigned me. Objectified, commoditized, pacified, and sexified; I will no longer stand by watching my life fly by or let you personify me, like a rose pedal: innocent and true, great to look at but not talk to and always in need of protection provided by you. No!"

For this I am neither paid nor employed by anyone. My salary is my own satisfaction and my employer is my own will. On Sunday it was an old apartment downtown where my will employed me again not untimely because I had under my overcoat and I entered the building easily as there did not seem to be a guard and covered my face with a hood lest there were cameras and selected a random floor nine from a claustrophobic dank elevator and exited and knocked and the image of a beautiful young lady with short dark hair and a slender physique opened the heavy fire proof door and I smiled amiably and entered casually but without permission and she began to speak and I closed the heavy fireproof door and she screamed and I revealed the weapon and she ran and I caught her and a struck all the places that my will had asked me to, inside and out.

Alrighty then, seeing as nobody's critiquing.

>>4464343
It's E.L. James going through a stint of sobriety. I'm sorry, I just think that you could put a little more oomf into it, soup it up to be a little more graphic. It just seems very "then I did this, and then I did that" as it is now. Boring, in other words. I can't taste the feces, yet.

>>4464366
This is very well written, if a little wannabe Joyce, but that's no bad thing. It contrasts seediness with culture and beauty. Well done.

>>4464385
Oy, what a Holocaust, goyim. Apply yourself.

>>4464390
>Like a lover

I can't help but feel this is overdone. It's effective, sure, gives us a good idea of her personality, but it's stale. Then I realized it was el feminista super happy fun time, so I laughed a little and hoped it was just poorly written satire.

>>4464397
Oh, Ayn. You're not McCarthy.

>>4464440
ur stone cold
i like it
what do you think of:
Thomas opened his eyes. The day towered before him like a tidal wave, jutting out of the curdled ocean like a bone out of a broken-matchstick arm, retching and reeking with dead fish, whale bones and bloated grey-pink marshmallow corpses still clinging to splintered wreckage, swallowing the horizon whole, merciless, thoughtless. Thomas closed his eyes.

(excuse the punctuation/capitalization. i wrote it really tiredly and haven't really gone through it to edit it)

i want to dry up like an orange in the sun and leave behind thin skin and seeds. then perhaps the soil on which i lie will absorb me. i doubt i would grow into any tree but i would be comforted. the dirt would be moist and providing of all the necessities for my growth. yet my seeds would not burst open my roots. but that would be alright. i would wait for the layers of the earth to continue to mount until i am one hundred yards below where feet step. and i would continue to sink.
i want to burn up in the atmosphere as i fall towards an ocean. i will be removed from the vacuum of space, its coldness that makes my blood boil, and sucked into the air of my earth. the heath would replace all timidness i had once stored in my arteries. my shoulders would rip backwards, as would my legs, and i would be left as pieces of a body falling, until the heat destroyed me and absorbed me in its fury. i would not arrive at the ocean and would be gone mere moments after my entry.
i want to explode from my stomach and feel my organs one last time as they hit a pavement or cement. i want to anticipate the burst as my throat swells and my wrists enlarge. my eyes will go blind and surely my ears will pop. my skin will inflate and i will cease to feel, wading with wilting legs in this dolor. my blood will stain whatever unfortunate surface stands around or below me but i hope that it forgives me. my last breath will be a sigh of relief as the weight of fruitless organs is relieved from my mind, it too dehydrating and evaporating in the wait of the coming blast. i will leave, and leave a horror on those who watch me.
i want to find myself at the bottom of an ocean, along the black sand, which has never greeted any sunshine. i want the weight of millions of gallons of water to punish my chest. the pierce alone of the pressure will kill me. the drowning will be secondary. my heart will be crushed by the inwardly flexing bones of my ribs, as will my lungs. my throats attempts to suction are will be futile and i will immediately be condensed to a form more deserving of my sentiments. whatever sea creatures reside in these deep pools will have my body to call a hotel for their continuing living. i will gladly serve these creatures as their residence, even if it be temporary. i will have a purpose for many, at the expense of the removal of myself.
i want to obliterate the latitudes within me, the gigantic obstruction that resists any attempts of mine to tame it, to control it. i will manufacture the end of its habitat, even if it means removing myself from the tender life through which i reluctantly pass. i will not wake up one day, and i find a solace in that. i will sleep ultimately some night, and i smile.

Up among the mighty hills of northwest Pennsylvania, you might just come across the insignificant little town of Lennox Falls. If you'd happen to go a little further north, then you might notice a wide open sprawl of healthy grass thrusting from the dark earth below, fringed by the stubborn green mountains that skim the warm gray sky and the forest that stands hauntingly still, with crows swirling then cutting through its ragged branches before rising up toward something dying in the east.

>>4464468
If you were to take an extended glance at this scrap of land you would find an old, weather-beaten house, painted a murky yellow, with an ancient front door, painted white, that jams up in its hinges when the summer humidity descends heavily upon the land like a curtain over a stage. Look a little further and you'll see a barn, painted burnt red and playing host to more birds and wandering, confused forest creatures than functioning farm animals. Yes, this place is a farm of sorts, a cattle farm to be precise, but by the looks of it, its heyday has long since passed. There are three cows, which are the only animals that are permanent residents, aside from those that dwell inside that old yellow house. Like the cows, these animals intend to stay put until a creature greater than themselves deems them fit for slaughter.

>>4464366
this is so lewd. it would be lewder if you split up that sentence into a bunch of smaller clauses!

[LOTS OF OLD TEXT PLS SKIP SHAMELESSLY IF TLDR]

Then, suddenly, Catal found himself with a day off. Tairell was holed up with his incomplete thesis, and the others had convened at a distant friend's flat, where they had quickly settled into various stages of opiation.

For no particular reason, he went to see the old Lloyd's building, in London. The skyscraper (though, he thought, he really shouldn't call it that, as it was eighteen stories high, but wider than tall) had always struck him as strangely modern and yet obviously ancient, a bridge between the architectures of then and now.

Built in the 1980's, in the cries of the newly-born Silicon Era, Lloyd's was a stylistic blackswan at the time. It arose of a curious movement termed "bowellism", whose only other major example ended up being the old Centre Georges Pompidou, resting atop Paris like a modern salient punched through the city's ancient blanket of sandstone and wrought iron.

So odd and self-containted was this movement, incidentally, that Catal had been able to summarize it in a single paper, which he had then neglected to publish in "Architectura" or any other journal.

Lloyd's, though concealed somewhat better by the chaotic skyline of airside London, was no less strange on the inside. All of the elevators and ducts and wiring had been moved to the exterior, as if an ancient skyscraper had been turned inside-out; the remaining space inside was vast, and exceptionally empty, in an unnerving way. A renovation of 2110 had replaced the floors in Lloyd's with glass, opening it up to the city that was then being hollowed out beneath London; peering down through the glassy, blue-green homes and offices, Catal could see the bedrock beneath his feet, three thousand meters below. In some ways, it was as if the glass floor had allowed the essence of Lloyd's to leach out, leaking down into the dormant earth below and transmuting it into glass and steel.

Sitting down in a cafe afterward, idly people-watching, Catal found himself thinking of Tairell. The wonder and bafflement and unease that the people of then must have felt then, walking into Lloyd's, surrounded by this alien space - Tairell must have felt it too, passing out in one century and, unceremoniously, coming to in the next.

>>4464475
ps: please excuse "below" and "then" twice oh my f'ing g.
>editing in the comment box

>>4464472
>>4464468
Your prose is a little rough, but I like all this nature so far. It's charming.

>>4464449
I like the day/tidal wave analogy, though the curdled ocean let's it down quite a bit. If a bone is jutting from an arm, it's safe to say it's broken - therefore, it's a little repetitive to say broken-matchstick arm, not to mention stating the obvious, to an extent. I would find something else to compare it to: something more maritime related, maybe? The rest was good, gave the sense of great destruction (and death of innocents?). I feel like it would make a lot more sense in context, so there's not much more I can say beyond that. I liked it, all in all.

>>4464451
If you can't be bothered to edit it, why should I bother to read it? Regardless:

A little discrepancy that seemed obvious to me: you say, at first, that you'll leave your seeds behind, but then go on to prospect their potential future. I get that it's elaborating on your leaving them behind, but I feel that it would be better to cut out the first mention of seeds in favor of giving the following description a little more impact, if that makes sense.

I have to admit, I couldn't finish it. I got nauseous rolling my eyes so much. There's discernible talent hidden behind all this melodramatic outpouring, that much is evident, but it reads like the journal of a fourteen year old back in 2005 updating his Myspace page with pictures of his red-streaked hair and setting his background music as "Black Parade".

>>4464502
>If a bone is jutting from an arm, it's safe to say it's broken - therefore, it's a little repetitive to say broken-matchstick arm, not to mention stating the obvious, to an extent. I would find something else to compare it to: something more maritime related, maybe?
i feel this
muchas gracias, hombre

>I've posted these before, but I'm always looking for more feedback. Plus I have made a few changes.

"Are you a writer?" she asked without pretense. Her white hair suggested a wisdom and experience that instantly put me at ease. Maybe she could see how comfortable I was with words. In all her years of listening to stories told by sad people, she must have recognized something in me. When she told me to pick a chair at the beginning of the session, I first chose the one by the window. It faced the door and would have limited my audience to just one member, but provided a safe place to sit. I sat in a chair facing the window, though. I needed a safe place to stare.

I thought of the satisfaction I had felt the previous night, when the 900th word was staring back at me and I was reminded of the thing I forgot that I could do. The power to convert the misery and dissatisfaction into poetry is the only thing that makes another empty morning worth enduring. Sometimes I forget that I know how to graft sentences onto each other in such a way that plies the heart. In the moment between her question and my answer, I nearly had achieved a sense of myself. Before responding, I realized that this is the only question I might ever be able to answer honestly.

Passions and desires have not done me any good with their ephemeral tendencies. Tomorrow I am likely to despise the flesh I find under my hand tonight. Yesterday’s vows will be broken or fulfilled without resolution or consequence. Every mood is an artifact and each interaction a study in disappointment or misguided hope. With confidence, I can melt a feeling down to its essence and indulge in the purity of recollection. My vocation requires research and no exotic specimen was ever won without sacrifice and discomfort.

Objective truth swirls around a core of belief as I try to examine myself honestly; Am I a writer? I wondered if she was asking for her own satisfaction. Feeling potent, I straightened my back and controlled my breathing. Please, let her understand. All I need is to be heard clearly. My voice would boom. I looked through the window, opting to address the world that surely was listening by now.

"Yes," I answered meekly.

>>4464502
lmao, I feel ya. I figured I should just cut out a bunch of it and leave behind the two strongest sections. are there any that you felt were more memorable than the rest? (

>>4464515
Hahaha.

>>4464519
anon, please ;_;

>>4464516
I'd stick with the first and last, in my opinion. The first is the most unique, and for something so simple and natural to represent something so horrific is quite poignant. The last one I liked simply for the line "The latitudes within me". I love that line. You might want to tone down the language a bit, I think, like remove the word "obliterate" and replace it with something a little more quiet, if you get what I mean. Also, remove either "tender" or "reluctantly" - they kind of clog up the flow, as adverbs tend to do at times. The solace part I'm a little ambivalent toward, but I think "I will not wake up one day" is just a fine, impactful phrase on its own. Good luck with what you're working on.

>>4464542
thanks a lot. I appreciate it.

I'm currently writing a satire of YA fiction.

This means that anything I post in this thread is going to sound extremely horrible and stupid if I take it out-of-context.

But I still want critique.

Hard decisions.

>>4464551
A satire of YA fiction is the only context where I'd use the word "pretentious" and mean it. It conjures the image of the fedora-wearing literature student sat at the front of the lecture hall, who thinks himself better than commercial writers simply because he's studying literature, though not necessarily very good at it. Then again, you could be the only person actually capable of pulling it off. In which case, I'd suggest pasting it in it's entirety onto pastebin, then link it here, because hell, it could either be awful or very well handled. I'm actually quite interested.

>>4464581
It's not a cruel satire. I think YA literature, I think it's kinda fun. My guiltiest pleasure is the Percy Jackson series.

Essentially, what I'm trying to do is throw older kids (around 18) into the scenario of a typical fantasy story - They find a door to another world in a storm drain. As usual, there's a prophecy, the main character is the "chosen one", and there's a race of inhuman monsters he must defeat.

That's where I try to make it take a left turn. The protagonist goes back to Earth, gets his friends, and gets himself heavily armed (by convincing a senile old uncle with a gun collection that the USSR has invaded the US and they need to mount a resistance). Him and his friends then proceed to, essentially, massacre an entire race just because the human characters told them they were evil, while slowly learning along the way that there are no "good guys" in the conflict.

If you still think it's not shitty, I'll post some of it

I have always thought about the appearance of an inside-out penis. What would one do were the skin of the dick invert, reversing the direction of the muscle tissues outwards to inwards. What would it look like, would you still be able to use it? Would it like be fucking with an ueber circumsized penis, would you become the uber Jew? I have often thought this while engaging in pleasurable sexual intercourse with my three beautiful guinea pigs. Would it help penetration were my cock to be inside-out, or would it sanguinate uncontrollably onto the floor, leaving but a trail of human sperm, piss, blood and excess tissue?

The fact that so many books still name the Beatles "the greatest or most significant or most influential" rock band ever only tells you how far rock music still is from becoming a serious art. Jazz critics have long recognized that the greatest jazz musicians of all times are Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, who were not the most famous or richest or best sellers of their times, let alone of all times. Classical critics rank the highly controversial Beethoven over classical musicians who were highly popular in courts around Europe. Rock critics are still blinded by commercial success: the Beatles sold more than anyone else (not true, by the way), therefore they must have been the greatest. Jazz critics grow up listening to a lot of jazz music of the past, classical critics grow up listening to a lot of classical music of the past. Rock critics are often totally ignorant of the rock music of the past, they barely know the best sellers. No wonder they will think that the Beatles did anything worth of being saved.

For a critique of pop music I'm writing, any and all feedback welcomed!

>>4464636
Amazing

Goldy spectrum spectated by particles resting their hands in their laps with their legs crossed and hanging over the side of her personal continent(a map of rolling hills and valleys of cotton vulnerable to only Her, the almighty goddess of the top bunk bed: A desolate place, watched over by the peaceful particles but bereft of tectonic activity since She lost interest in most things soft.). Broken beacon in the corner of the world, left to project signals unseen, witnesses signs of organic innocence abandoned by time and lack of regard. Their empress has fallen, she's creating a broader landscape with meaning and with purposes as her Garden of Eden is preserved under watchful eye for the day when her overwhelming landscape torn with devastation makes her nostalgic for the little lego oasis that kept her company ....................................

I can't post enough of this to give it context, sorry

"to the street lamps, from a child"


dearest lamppost
those monsters pace patter
perch upon my desk
and sprawl
comfortable
upon my floor
but not one is apt to linger
into your fuzzy rectangle
of light, but it is salvation
and i pray
that you might stay
just one night longer
you who unflinchingly bears the night
the unseeming spectral waste of all our fears
it had lain so heavy upon me
oh it smothers, oh my god
i can't breathe in the dark
lamppost, shine your angelic light
reach your vaguened hand in
swat them away away these
shadows have placed their murky
pond-water hands on my throat
and squeezed so tightly
hold them against the wall
so i might sleep once more
giant you, who keeps me safe
i shall repay you duly, for,
when morning comes
I shall say
good evening lamp, your work is done
Time for you to sleep, beneath the sun.
Let Father fix you up, as good as new,
Soldered wire, and a brand new screw.
So perhaps tomorrow, perhaps tonight,
Perhaps someday, I shall need your light.
Til then, my dearest lamppost, goodnight.

Is it hot in snowman hell?
Do these visions ring a bell?
Of times well spent, a girl named Mel?
All are gone, burnt away in summer heat.
Mel, burning coat, cheeks ablaze,
Made you of ice, with demonic craze.
She forgets you now, but you forget her not,
I'll ask again, is it too hot?
Snowman skin, cracking and churning,
Slowly, slowly, oh so slowly burning.
And now you melt away,
Mel is so sad that she couldn't say,
"mr. snowman, try to stay another day."

bump

why is Roald Dahl so based?

>>4465963
Because dicks.

“Now face the battle,” said Badb, “and close your eyes.”

Pallas did as she was told. She felt the Badb step behind her, felt her cool, light arms wrap around her bare chest. And Pallas was compelled- forced- to take a deep, sharp breath. She gagged. She coughed. Her eyes came open.

The Badb was gone. Pallas' bare body was covered in swirling black and white spirals. She raised her arms; she was holding a pair of golden swords whose blades swelled at their tips. She breathed in through her nose and smelled... blood. She could smell the blood of all living things, even the trees had blood in their own way. But there was a great mass of blood far ahead of her. Shouts rose. Steel clashed. There was a war being fought. Pallas decided to join it.

>>4466344
She walked slowly at first, coming out from under the trees, feeling the soft grass on her bare feet. Her pace gently increased, breaking into a brisker, brisker walk, then into a jog, faster, faster, faster, she began to run, to sprint, racing across the fields, her golden hair whipping behind her. She passed the first of the fires, huge and orange, belching light and smoke into the night sky. The noise of fighting men was very close, and the blood- the smell of blood consumed her. She hungered for it, though not with her belly. It was a hunger out of her bones, out of her veins. The blood drew her onward, past the burning fires, through the scattered tents of the Romans.

She skidded to a stop on a hill, and there they were, thousands of men trying desperately to kill and not be killed. For some reason she couldn't tell the armies apart; her mind couldn't distinguish between Gauls and Romans. All she saw were mortal men full of blood. She could see inside them the sparks of their immortal souls, and there were bursts here and there throughout the battle where each man's spark was blasted out. Her body heaved and ached with longing. She needed to fight. She needed to kill. Battle. Slaughter. War.

>>4464397
RUN ON SENTENCES

YOU CAN ONLY BREAK THE RULES AFTER YOU'VE MASTERED THEM

>>4464515
Eh... I like the structure of your writing. Your sentences click together like LEGO pieces, and as a whole it's pleasing to read. But your voice is something I've heard quite a few times before.

Still, it's not bad.

>>4465718
I know this is a bit shaky, but what does /lit/ think?

A jade sea and an unrequitted plea
For good weather for this ship to flee

Harsh names and intermimably-etched lanes
Pinch the core of this mans heart

Alas! Land is near
And a welcome sign etched in cold air
And away I say
There can be a way in the clear!

One mans ignorance is anothers fear
That lives and breathes and coo's in his ear

These are really just incomplete verses, ideas that I think might be good for a complete poem. Theres this competition where the winner gets 500 dollars and I want to win it.

>>4467494
the rhythm clunks and stutters at points but it's a solid foundation. cut anything you can't make flow.
>>4466346
too hemmmingway to athena. not enough erotic and visceral for morrigan. joyce it up a bit.
>>4464728
if either of you have any sense you're doing as perverse things to each other in practice not just theory. without context it's not fit to publish, which is why you'll never attain true happiness.
>>4464632
good technical control but watch "I have always" and "I have often" when you don't modify other tenses.

He ran to the feild as the soft wet rain fellth from his head to his tows. Then in euporia it came to him It had all been a lie and the year was 1324. dun dun dun.

I wrote this first paragraph with the intent to later apply a double meaning to it, changing the tone of the narrator as the tense changes, and making it seem like it's not only his thoughts he's describing, but also ironically describing the illusory condition high school life has bred into him. I'm also considering putting the story in quotes and adding an interviewer to the story, for an added perspective.
Does it have potential? Should I keep going?

Anonymous Interviews: One Student’s Response to the Proposed Topic of Local Superstitions

Allow me a moment to think. I’ll need to search my memory, tracing back nearly to adolescence. Some images come to mind, but I can’t exactly sort them out. They appear almost as if they have been somehow prescribed by another mind, and behave like clockwork. Ah, it’s exhausting, attempting to recall information that has long since been integrated into a mind. This type of thing darkens the natural light cast upon most present phenomena, making it difficult to really distinguish between thoughts. So allow me to reassemble these vague and distorted ideas of people and actions that seem to have developed their own absurd method of categorization. I remember certain clothes, hair, and faces all of varying sentiments. But, I lack volition. I am bound by a perfunctory style of thought, one which grants nothing but a hazy, incommunicable atmosphere of fragmented objects bridged by ephemeral constructs. Allow me, then, to offer you the only relevant story discernible from these disjointed {cogs}
I first heard it from a past neighbor of mine. This was a man with a shriveled old pair of brown leather Spectators

would love a critique. 1/2

Four clicks, loud first, then quiet, soft, loud again, growing warmer each time. Syncopated by a brief moment between each, probably a bit less than a second in full.

A brief pause, pencil taps on the table click click. He scribbles something down on the paper.

Four more, pause, click.

In a spring of his childhood he sometimes plucked the wings off the honeybees which scuttled across the artificial slabs of the hive, hiding in the womb carved out of wax molded around wood upon their collective recognition of his presence. Or he would smoke them out when his father was sleeping and dig out handfuls of honeycomb, flicking off the docile bees and running to sit under a tree and eat and suck until he puked up the wax or felt it sit heavy and indigestible and fresh in the pit of his stomach.

>>4467837
Then, returning to his home to find his father watching television or gazing out at him plowing fields for new crop rotations or reading the TV Guide that came in the mail or on the phone with someone he felt his eyelids get heavy and his stomach full of sweetness so he fell asleep on the carpet. Then he woke up near a drool spot and shambled into bed, guided by vague light and his father's deep breaths, then one step to the left before feeling for the lukewarm brass door handle and peeling pinewood frame painted white with primer.

Each season fades together with one another, a million snow days and raking leaves and hot sunny mornings where you know that the day is going to be even hotter than it is so you just stay inside and read something exciting or play until you're too old to play. But independent of each other. The memories are categorically kept separate, but not chronologically.

The clicks, ongoing. Four brief lines scrawled on paper held unsteady by a soft tremor running through his hands.

Then he was 15 and watching girls chew gum or laugh or talk to anyone or swat at mosquitoes circling them, and then he tried cutting the hair off his cheeks because he was too embarrassed to ask his father to buy him razor blades with one of the soft malleable green plastic handles. He chewed on them like he did toothbrushes until all that was left was the plastic inside, pieces of rubber spat around the bathroom floor.


2/3 actually

>>4467843

He could feel a bead of sweat dripping down the side of his face gaining momentum as he frantically traced how the clicks look in his mind. He wiped the sweat away, felt it smear across his cheek and around to the back of his neck and instinctively returned his hand and pencil to ready position. A brief pause. Click. Slowly the mystery unraveled itself, the nuances in tone and texture became predictable. He noticed a twice rotation and plotted out points on a circle. A full clockwise rotation, gaining noise and texture each click, then a half counterclockwise back to halfway between here and there (where it was before), a full clockwise from the point so it ended up past the starting point, at which point it had suddenly dropped in volume and texture. Still, he'd made no sense of it but it was a starting point which he hadn't had moments before. Which was something. A cool draft made its way inward, bounced off the concrete walls and into his nostrils. As he breathed in he worried that the air might be growing stagnant, the oxygen used up. He rarely saw the slit in the wall open and wasn't entirely sure that his captors would be taking the necessary precautions to maintain his physical well being.

sorry 4chan plus was being retarded,
3/4

>>4467847

He felt for the walls, making his way up as he stretched his legs and found his bearings. He felt for the drain pipe which led out of the room straight down, followed it to the toilet. He let go, blind and all directions infinite. He took two quick steps, kicked out softly, felt wood. Back down to earth, to the room. He shifted his weight, swung over and sat on the elastic cot. Feet kicked up, he reached his arms out to feel around for the hard pillow. He inhaled from the pit of his belly, felt the air coursing through him and exhaled sharp through his mouth. Day's work complete, he thought. Sleep now. He repeated to himself four times "Nine. Nine. Nine. Saturday. Nine. Saturday. May 23rd. May 23rd." By the first time he woke up from sleeping he'd given up on maintaining any sense of time in the box. But he wanted a rough idea of days he spent there.

thoughts?

[doin' a sci-fi, this is a dream sequence in it]

Jan looked up towards his mother, she looked young and beautiful, tall with long silver hair like his sister Erra's. He wanted to speak to her, tell her how much he missed her, how alone he was on this planet. But no sound came from his mouth. Instead he eagerly went to hug her, nearly in tears. Just as he opened his arms she morphed into a wooden boat that he fell into. Bewildered, he rose to his feet. The market turned to an open sea. All around him people sunk beneath the water. A voice cried out,
"Jan! Save me!"
It was Erra. Jan saw her far away, clutching to a piece of driftwood. There were no oars, Jan moved to the front of the boat and dipped his arms into the water as paddles, and with one great row pulled all the sea's water and everything in it behind him. Silently, he fell into the great chasm he had made, towards dark mountains and ravines. A wall of water was now rising behind him, it stretched far above him into the sky, and came below him too. Its thundering sound deafened him, and with a great crack it came upon his wooden dingy, breaking it into a thousand pieces. His body was broken, water was filling his lungs, Jan was dying. Eyes wide with terror there was no one to help him.
"Jan! Save me!"
Deep sea turned to deep space as stars lit around him, his body froze and his organs melt. It burned to look anywhere as his eyes dotted to and fro, desperately looking for the sound of his sister's pleas. Jan could feel his body turning slowly, as if another person were moving him, until he turned nearly all the way around. Walking towards him was a great wildcat. Beige and massive, it walked as if it were standing on a plane of glass, invisible and untouchable to Jan. With each stride Jan could see its muscles rippling, with claws extended, and fangs bared. Frozen solid by pain, he could do nothing but watch it race towards him.
"Jan! Save me!" The beast shrieked in his sister's voice, just before leaping for the kill.

>>4467779
pic related
>>4467810
From Ah, you're starting every second sentence with break that takes from the rhythm. Cut "Ah" if you don't plan to have that character sound like he read too much French shit to not turn faggotfedora enough to be dead in high school, and you can keep the reminiscences of clothes and hair. Place a comma after So and remove the one after But. You shouldn't be starting your sentences this way even if you want to critique; Huysmans still retained his skill despite the same characterisation.

>>4467856
I appreciate it, but i was looking for some analysis beyond just grammatical correction. What do you think of the concept?

I thought about it, I'm going to post an excerpt of my work. Please note that this is an early draft.


I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies. My posture is consciously congruent to the shape of my hard chair. This is a cold room in University Administration, wood-walled, Remington-hung, double-windowed against the November heat, insulated from Administrative sounds by the reception area outside, at which Uncle Charles, Mr. deLint and I were lately received.

I am in here.

Three faces have resolved into place above summer-weight sportcoats and half-Windsors across a polished pine conference table shiny with the spidered light of an Arizona noon. These are three Deans - of Admissions, Academic Affairs, Athletic Affairs. I do not know which face belongs to whom.

I believe I appear neutral, maybe even pleasant, though I've been coached to err on the side of neutrality and not attempt what would feel to me like a pleasant expression or smile.

I have committed to crossing my legs I hope carefully, ankle on knee, hands together in the lap of my slacks. My fingers are mated into a mirrored series of what manifests, to me, as the letter X. The interview room's other personnel include: the University's Director of Composition, its varsity tennis coach, and Academy prorector Mr. A. deLint. C.T. is beside me; the others sit, stand and stand, respectively, at the periphery of my focus. The tennis coach jingles pocket-change. There is something vaguely digestive about the room's odor. The high-traction sole of my complimentary Nike sneaker runs parallel to the wobbling loafer of my mother's half-brother, here in his capacity as Headmaster, sitting in the chair to what I hope is my immediate right, also facing Deans.

The Dean at left, a lean yellowish man whose fixed smile nevertheless has the impermanent quality of something stamped into uncooperative material, is a personality-type I've come lately to appreciate, the type who delays need of any response from me by relating my side of the story for me, to me. Passed a packet of computer sheets by the shaggy lion of a Dean at center, he is peaking more or less to these pages, smiling down.

We are not enemies, for now I am the most miserable man living. If what I feel were to be distributed across the whole human family, there would not be one single happy face. For among the people in which we entrust ourselves to sleep, they have produced a knife and stained our sleep red with sinful blood. A crime against nature, and from this murder, so too shall sleep be extinguished.

inb4 it insists upon itself or something.
To be honest, I was just reading a bit of Shakespeare and some Lincoln speeches. I fused them together....very badly

>>4467851
Hey man, I like it. In some sentences, I think you do a bit too much of tell and not show, but It's pretty good overall

>>4467928
Thanks meng, I've definitely been trying to write less filler

The mans words boomed over the crowd with great intensity and anger.
"Do you really think captain Sigrid is fighting for you?! For our people?! The Alvari have lined his pockets thick with gold, so much so he cannot move!"

The gleaming crowd of iron clad soldiers fell deathly quiet. A low murmer was drifting through the people. New recruits anxiously shuffled here and there, palming their swords, or observing the way their gauntlets caught the dying afternoon sun and cast a small beam on the man in front of them.

The man observed his product with a knowing grin. "You are all here to die!" We are not here on a peace keeping mission! We are not the forward scouting party!" He took a deep breathe before summoning his words. "We are the main force!"

The crowd again was blanketed by heavy silence as the notion that their commanders had treated them as fodder set in. Slowly, as the tide rises, a great calamity was built upon the anxieties and frustrations of the men. All the worse, the sun had grown in intensity and strength as the day wore on. It was an oppressive and stifling late summer beaming, one that decimated clouds and denied the slowly advancing shade an inch of ground.

>>4467954
No problem m8

>>4467898
It's a good concept, if an old one. I offered the comments on grammar because doing it well will be key if you want to satirise tryhards without becoming farce. What you have could become solid, but you need to avoid unintentional rhythms and tropes because the audience it would appeal to has probably read similar but more meticulous things. (cf. Huysman's research; Proust's; Flaubert's Bouvard and Pecuchet)

>>4467744
>joyce it up a bit.

So douse it in gallons upon gallons of rampaging id, then?

No, that's actually a very cogent observation. Sometimes I feel like I'm on the verge of going Full Joyce, just surrendering to my descriptive imagery, abandoning most elements of narrative progress.

I actually have a novel I'm trying out, trying to see who's interested in it. Here is the first three chapters, what do you all think?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GKNYAMxKZzbZD3z9Fa8qAY3FlqCzu6zIIxCgc_GPeuk/edit

Dad

I’m a cliché…we all have to face it
sometime, son.
Look at Maricopa, resting her tongue
in the barren, oiled sky.
The stars dot the landscape, the house,
the dreams…I’m a sinner.

Are you a sinner? We’re all a sinner,
boy, now get back in that fuckin room
and do ya math homework…
Pops is a nice man. He drinks whisky.
He’s a strange man, though, and occasionally
his eyes crust over like a burnt pancake
in the summer sunshine, pulling weeds in the yard,
blue eyes basking in serpentine rhythms of Suburbia.

He got shot in the Gulf, Saudia Arabia, 1991.
Calls Muslims camelfuckers, no matter what/why/who
they are…like Preacher, basically a good guy.
He screamt in the dawn, and the men carted him off,

half-crazy and raving and leaking mustard gas
from the ears.

Methinks I couldn’t pull weeds and mow the lawn
and eat meatloaf and pot roast for dinner
if my brain was tucked into a tough pocket
of poison gas, and insanity.

But Who knows

.

>>4464343
>I looked upon the ass, and licked my lips lovingly. I slowly peered into the moistened crack and pried apart the soft buttocks, feeling the warmth against my palms. I breathed in the warm musk of feces and vagina and dainitly flicked my tongue against the slightly hairy butthole.

Isn't this Chaucer?

Guess my age based on my essay. 1/5

Races, faces, and places are not always as they seem in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring; the reader becomes acquainted with many, and learns of few. In each new adventure of the ring, more is revealed about the heroes inspired by moral obligation to protect it, and how they handle the unique challenges presented by the harrowing quest ahead of them. We also meet new enemies, each fully testing the intellect and resolve of the heroes. Throughout the story, we see that the ring bearer Frodo is never actually left to his own devices to handle situations. This is where Gandalf the Grey comes into the story: like a wise puppet master, the strongest, wisest, and most knowledgeable protector of the ring, Gandalf, is the chief agent of success. Gandalf is the hero of The Fellowship of the Ring.

>>4468315
2/5

Whether by using feats of high-level wizardry or simple leadership, Gandalf single-handedly
led the Company through the depths of Moria. When the Company stumbles upon a "guardroom" and the small Hobbits are over-eager to lay their heads to rest, Gandalf insists that: "You do not know what is inside yet. I will go inside first." (p.200). His careful thinking was well rewarded, and enough to protect the Hobbits from falling to their untimely demise. He risks his life to protect the Company twice more, always with lingering confidence. This situation later proved ironic while on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, where Gandalf alone perishes in a bottomless abyss after defeating the admittedly more powerful Balrog, Durin's Bane. Gandalf's remarkable battle prowess and creativity allow him to defeat an enemy that only a mile back sent him flying down a flight of stairs out of breath after applying a successful "counterspell" (p.209) to his "shutting spell" (p.208) (referring to doors) in the Chamber of Mazgul.

>>4467957
This is good. I don't like the "gleaming" in front of crowd, though. Your description of the sunlight and the "small beam" a few sentences afterward make it unnecessary. It sounds very slightly childish at times, like "It was an oppressive and stifling late summer beaming..." But that's alright. Maybe childish is the wrong adjective, just a bit more...easy reading? Your syntax is superb in some places, specifically the phrase "thick with gold".

Don't open the piece with "The man's words..." that entire sentence. The first line of dialogue is too good of an opener to let that line in there. Move it somewhere else or delete it entirely.

Overall, I like this. I'd read more. Strong work.

>>4468327
3/5 hopefully someone's dere

Even though he possess a massive amount of power, Gandalf retains a humble disposition, as
we first see him delivering a cart of fireworks in a Santa Claus like manner, with young Hobbit children chanting "G for Grand!" at his legendary creations(p.19). Being a wise and mysterious Wizard, Gandalf has learned to not judge a book by its cover. He is both a friend to plebeians and patricians – or as he puts it, "all that is gold does not glitter" (p.111). He is able to enlist the lowly innkeeper, Barliman Butterbur, as well as the mighty Lord of Rivendell, Elrond, to assist Frodo on his quest. It would be beyond foolish to forget Strider, the pithy and rugged Ranger who Frodo prudently dismisses as a "rascal" and a "rogue" that actually turns out to be invaluable to the Hobbits once they leave Bree (p.107).

>>4468333
4/5

Gandalf possesses the ability of causation, and this because he possesses a large amount of
intellectual wealth. By the time Frodo had arrived to Rivendell, a council meeting was already arranged with men of all races and kingdoms – save savages – waiting to discuss diplomatic matters. Evidently, by that time Gandalf had already discovered the complete history of The One (Frodo's Ring), the ring of power being sought after hungrily by the servants of the Dark Lord Sauron. For this reason, Gandalf himself is chased by Sauron's dark servants, known as Ringwraiths or Black Riders. He is also captured by Saruman the White, the "greatest" wizard of his order, who unfortunately turned evil (p.165). While trapped in the tower of Orthanc, sitting in the Kingdom of Isengard, with time swiftly running out, Gandalf manages to escape captivity in swift heroic fashion, taming both Gwaihir the Windlord, the "swiftest of the Great Eagles" and Shadowfax, "the best horse" in Rohan, and quite possibly the entire Middle Earth (p.168).

>>4468338
5/5

The raw power, sage-like wisdom, calculated leadership and immense influential value of
Gandalf far exceed anything Frodo and arguably Aragorn have done to ensure that Sauron does not retrieve the ring. Along with that, his humble, genuine personality gilded with wisdom and expressed through his sympathetic nature all combine to debunk any arguments against Gandalf being the hero in The Fellowship of the Ring.

>>4468329
Thank you, m8. I'm a bit of an amateur and I appreciate the feedback

>>4468342
>touting Gandalf's actions above Frodo's

Congratulations, you completely missed the point of LOTR.

>>4468351
Hey man, I'm as much of an amateur as you. I just go off what I'd like to read, as I suppose you do. Your genre is a little bit out of my taste (idk though, I only got a fragment from a larger story/novel it seems)---some sort of fantasy or historical drama I'm guessing? But good writing is good writing is good writing.

>>4468379
Thanks. yes, it's a fantasy piece. Of something larger, I'm not sure.

But to return the favor:

>>4468296
This is extremely well written. Good imagery, word choice is nice and hints at a story by not outright saying it. I only wish it were longer, to be honest with you.

Is this a song or a poem?

>>4468342
>Raw power

This is good, although you missed the point completely, and you're using so many fucking adjectives, it's distracting. Don't use "-like" in an essay, fag.

I'm guessing you're smart enough to write how your teacher wants you to write, and you'll probably get a low A. I'd give it a straight up C, maybe a C+.

>>4468391
Thanks man, appreciate it. There's a story...it's part of a larger poetry chapbook/collection I finished a while ago, sort of a "concept collection" as in a concept album. I like to think of it as a novel in verse, but that gives me weird flashbacks to reading "Crank" and other assorted bullshit. Just a book of poetry, so yeah, it's a poem.

Oy, I have a couple in need of critique.

There are a couple of thoughts that go through your head when you're taking a very colorful variety of drugs while you're doing eighty-five through a small town on your way to work. Those thoughts vary from day to day, drug to drug, but today's choice of drugs left my mind wondering why there was a bumblebee, larger than my car, trying to race me.
"Get the fuck over!" I yelled.
"Buzzzbuzzzzzzz," it replied.
"Get over, you goddamn mutant!" I was waving my middle finger like a caution flag, not trying to intice the rage of the maximized stinging wonder.
It was then that I noticed that it wasn't a bumblebee, but instead a bus full of young children on their way to school. The bus driver honked and I could read 'fucking degenerate' forming on her lips as she passed.

and


I had just finished the bottle of liquid pine straw, and was reaching for my Bacardi, when I heard a knock at the door. This was a moment of sheer terror. That rapid succession of knocks followed by an eerie silence sent chills down my spine every time. It was either friend or foe. It wasn’t uncommon for someone to show up in the asshole hours of the night, but there was also the chance that it was the police, and judging from the amount of paraphernalia and alcohol on the table, we would all do some serious time if the knocker were an officer of the law. I used to be very paranoid about such things in the first days of my drug abuse, but my mind had been long since engulfed in a miasma of don’t-give-a-fucks that the knocks were just a reminder that the party wasn’t the only life in the world. That we weren’t alone, that other depraved bastards were spending their time either sleeping, working, or romping.
Dragon opened the door, and a bear wearing a green hat walked in. His eyes were as red as the devil’s dick and his clothes smelled like jägermeister. He looked as if he could pass out at any moment.
“Hunter!” he yelled, in a voice so loud that one of the guys on the floor woke up for a minute, scratched his ass, and fell back into a blissful drunken sleep. “It’s a party now!”

If you care to know the second bit has about four chapters.

>>4468414
You're on a mixture of Pineapple Express, William S. Burroughs, and Denis Johnson, aren't you?

Not that those are objectively bad, in fact I really enjoy all three, but try to hide your influences a bit better next time.

Oh and Hunter S. Thompson too.

As a standalone work, it's alright...
Couldn't read 4 chapters of this blathering, though. Sorry man. :(

>>4468433
It's a piece about all my pals and I and our drunk adventures, never ever meant for others to see really, but this is /lit/ and I love all of you.

>>4468433
I agree with this fellow. Heavy HST influence.

But I like that. The world needs more Gonzo echoes.

>>4468438
Nah that's cool man, really not trying to be a dick. I get what you're trying to do, and I'm sure some people would dig it. Just..."find your own, unique voice", you know?

Same As It Ever Was

Take a look at these hands,
they feed on each other my hands.
Eat me, bathe me, feed me,
and drink me.
Preacher is basically a good guy
with a dogtooth smile, a bouquet of sermons
and demolished rectums
hung up on a clothesline in his dirty nose.

---And I’m still waiting…

For Christ to come, I want to let him
lie in the sitting room and watch television
with me, and eat Cheetos, and talk crops and chickens
over a game of croquet.
---Arizona…

Is not a nice place, I don’t think.
Methamphetamine is rotting in the gutters,
in God’s ovaries…the lights shine dense neon…
we live in a desert.
I rest among the citrus, spread
my fickle limbs out as a cross.
There is a woman there,
Her name is Mary.

I adore her and I wait.
And nobody shows.

Last post of the night guys. Enjoy.

>>4468451
Yeah, I know, these are older as well. Currently I'm working through sounding like Pynchon. So just imagine how confusing it is. I'm just glad I'm writing. Eventually I'll find my own voice, but all I have now is the little bit I've developed and what I've taken.

>>4468483
>Currently I'm working through sounding like Pynchon.

You should work through your hilarious delusion, first.

>>4468505
I didn't say it was good, just a phase.

>>4467849
Would anyone mind reading this and the preceding posts over? I'd love some feedback

>>4467517
Please respond

>>4467927
Isn't this Infinite Jest. I'm too lazy to check.

None of you virgins know that anus doesn't smell like feces?

Bamping this thread from last night. Looking for some critiques.

Born Under Light

You’re an IBM computer.
You chuckle and whirl,
you twist and you shout,
lick your knotted fingers
into the corner of a daydream,
devour flesh and books…
but your knuckles are still dirty,
brain’s still dirty,
psyche and reproductive organs
still rotting.
---My eyes are still buzzing.

Perhaps all pleasure is relief.
And the snow crumbles at our feet,
driven by a mindless passion of movement,
buried in a thin film of homeostasis.
And the birds caw in our ears,
twelve feet above,
superimposed against virgin darkness,
crying their acidic polyrhythms,
aiming for the nose, aiming
for the nape of our necks.

But we’re almost there,
or maybe closer.
It got better all the time (for a time)
and then we were caressed
with all his stupid passions,
pornography, veiled hate,
angular softness of technology, rising
like a crescent dawn
over broken lands,
and there was Bobby.

I think he’s new here, but he’s so old.

>>4467927
>yfw you realize DFW was a talentless hack.

>>4471317
You know, he killed himself because he knew he hadn't any talent.

>>4467927
reads a bit like Tao

bamping.

>>4464366
>mistresses chataeu
apostrophe?
>the street ladies from underneath
from is not just redundant; it doesn't make any sense

Run-on city, but I feel it could be expanded and built up into a solid opening.

Yet it was so simple, a plain flash of light attacking my peers and just rolling down like tears. Just a bit of sadness, I thought. I couldn't stop it, I was there to see the brilliant star, so not anymore, no more cowardice.

>>4464390
>the case that encases it
redundant much?

Superfluous punctuation everywhere.

Would still sell well as a period romance involving "strong woman who don't need know man," Victorian style.

>>4464397

Has there ever been a novel (of merit) without punctuation?

>>4464472

Better than 90% of what I see on lit. An editor could sharpen this to a very keen edge.

>>4464475
>Then, suddenly,

Killed it in the womb.

>>4471398
Ulysses

>>4464515

Mediocre. Banal subject and forgettable voice.

Finna drop another poem on you'll cowards. I don't know if the line breaks will be formatted differently from how I want them, but whatever.

Parkridge

I apologized already,
in the back of your truck,
which was smelly and female
all at once. I crammed sweets
and tea into my ears, to buzz
languidly with the cockroaches there.

We were unique all in your room, all at the sides.
The walls were chalked, guilty in disposition,
a struggle of texture against thebaine,
tomboy against tinfoil---Mosquitos glanced
into our bare feet, drank plasma and Modelo…like us.
Alcoholics of the world, unite.
There, we united, fondling whisky
whisky whisky, and baying Natives
tonguing the dirt near Tuba City
and we were mostly burglars,
rummaging in a sigmoid of booze.
And heroin too, ever-present,
a recurring dream, lucid
in the back of a Toyota
sucking soft drinks from a spit cup,
digging ‘neath seat covers searching for change,
touching thin straws, each other’s shame…

Dealing with the taste
because we know what’s coming
after.

>>4467779

Why do you even bother?

>>4467837

Over-reliance on commas.

I need opinions on the concept for this story. It is a very simple concept, only going to post the central idea.

The sun ceases to produce light in the visual spectrum, instead producing much more high energy and harmful wavelengths (to the point that staying outside too long in the darkness will cause radiation sickness) and society collapses as a result. it follows a small town cop trying to keep his community from falling into anarchy.

I'm thinking of calling it "Three Weeks Till Dawn"

>>4467927

Thanks for clogging the thread, trip-san. Yet again.

Yeah the line breaks are fucked up, each stanza is supposed to be five lines, not that clusterfuck in the middle.

The last stanza is correct.

Author of

>>4466344
>>4466346

here. Still writing along the same lines, have a sort of coming-of-age fantasy novel that later features hints of a struggle against a violent nature. Nothing major- not at this point- but it's there, and there's a chapter where it all comes to a head. Here's an excerpt.

As she wandered up the road toward her house, Pallas tried to shake free of her urges. It wasn't like they were new. This cold, the chilly wrath that cleared her mind and drove her to hurt things, had always been with her. She could look back and remember it being with her as a young girl, coiled round her spirit like a snake. But it had only ever come out in spurts. Now it ebbed constantly, a pulse of ice in her heart. She knew what had awoken it- she could still feel her fingers closing around the troll's neck. Now she couldn't put it to sleep. Nor was she certain she truly wanted to, and that was the most unsettling thing of all.

“... completely awful. Well, best get to the bloody business.”

Blood. Pallas stopped in her tracks. She was standing by a great pen beside one of the smokehouses. It was filled with pigs rooting about; when she peered closer, she noticed an odd color to their saliva. Three men were just outside the fence, all of them bearing hatchets. They turned toward her, and she tried to keep her composure. “You mentioned blood?”

“Oh, hello, Lady Pallas,” said one of the men with a tiny bow.

>>4471434
“Blood,” Pallas said, hands squeezing open and shut. “What did you say about blood?”

“Oh, it's these pigs, my lady,” said another of them, gesturing into the pen. “They've all come down with a blight. Just terrible- we were counting on their meat for the celebration of Odin's Day. Now we'll have to slaughter them all.”

Pallas' eyes flickered. “So you /have/ to kill them,” she said.

“We have no choice,” said one of the men. “They'll spread it to the other animals if we don't.”

“Let me do it!” Pallas said, heart going frigid. Thrills coursed through her. “I'll be happy to.”

“It's going to be dull work, my lady,” said another of the men. “We don't-”

“I insist,” Pallas said, stepping to him and taking the hatchet from his hand. “I'll get it done faster. Just leave it to me.”

The man looked up into her face. His expression changed curiously- what did he see in her eyes? But he shrugged. “If you really want to, I suppose there are no objections. Just be sure to-”

>>4471436
Pallas didn't hear him. /Kill them!/, her heart crowed. The urge was upon her and she had no reason to hold back. So she didn't, vaulting into the pen and hurtling right at the pigs. She brought her hatchet down upon the first one's head, splitting its skull open and sending it toppling to the ground, billowing blood.

The pigs scattered as their comrade fell, and Pallas could taste their terror. She drank it and it made her strong, filled her mind with clear, sharp purpose. She fell in love with their squeals, their shrieks. She hurtled into the driving throng, swinging her hatchet with focused precision. She didn't just kill them. That would have been easy. She hacked their legs off and slashed open their guts. She used the tips of the hatchet bit to gouge their eyes out, then sliced off their noses. She cut them along their sides, splitting their skin and sending their organs spilling out. Her hatchet got stuck in one of their skulls, so as in the arena she began to work bare-handed. She tore their bellies open, ripped their throats out, smashed their skulls with her boots. The icy, wintry thrill kept racing through her, making her feel so fantastic, so alive. It was a joy unlike any she had experienced before.

>>4467957

Trash. There is nothing more birdbrained than a speech having greater impact than it should. Typically done by young men with deficient social skills.

>>4471440
This is needlessly descriptive. The imagery is strong but cliched, and you aren't really doing anything for the reader. Most of the sentences in this piece could be condensed into one or two; otherwise, it feels like you're rambling on and repeating yourself, repeating yourself.

"It was a joy unlike any she had experienced before" is particularly meh. I feel like I've read it a thousand times and lets the plot "bleed through" too much. You're spoonfeeding the reader by using a line like that.

The dream world flickered on and off, as it always did. The dream was the same one that had visited him each night for several weeks now. He couldn’t remember where it had been now. Somewhere in the southern provinces. Some ditch town. Some pack of hovels. They had made their first and last stand against the invaders. The sand was limitless as always, a sucking vacuum, waiting to devour the unprepared and unsuspecting. The gun batteries had caught fire, their crews fleeing in terror. Flames leaped up to the sky, which was devoid of sun, moons, or stars, terrible and ominous in its blankness. Screams and moans echoed, as if from a great distance, along with claps of thunder. He felt a tremendous dread fill him, and knew that he was about to die.

Something cold upon his neck began pulling him upward. He opened his eyes, and saw the blade pressed against his throat. It was his own.

It was a beautiful thing, he realized, as it caught the first rays of morning light. Other fighters possessed short knives, but none like this one. While theirs were crude, often serrated tools used for everything from eating to whittling to cleaning ears, this one ran for seven smooth inches, its edge uninterrupted and kept devastatingly sharp. Unlike the others, he only unsheathed his blade for one purpose, and it did not get put away until that purpose was fulfilled.

“Come now Eli. You know what the penalty for falling asleep on watch is.”

“Death.” Eli said quietly.

“If it were anyone else, I wouldn’t have bothered to wake you up and explain, I would simply have done it and rolled your corpse off the edge.” Tycho said.

>>4471467

Those assembled turned and picked up their packs with a sigh. The other troops joined up with them and they all fell into the double-line of march once more. High above a single cloud was moving off across the great blue emptiness, as though it had somewhere to be and was running late. The trail wound gently back and forth between the crests of the mountain, each fold of the terrain bringing more into view. Not even an hour into their march, they spied the top.

Their lungs sputtered at the thin, cold air and their eyes marveled at the view. The trail leveled out into a wide valley between two peaks. At the far end of the valley a statue of God faced them. He was depicted in the classical form, with the body of a man and the head of a crow. As he followed the statues’ gaze back down towards the village they had destroyed he could see that odd stone still lying there. Beyond the statue, however, was the real sight to see.

The mountain range was entirely circular, like a crown emerging from the earth. Between its points lay a gently sloping bowl of sand that ran all the way to the very center of this great circle. At the center, jutting up like the mouth of some terrible sandworm still submerged was Hermah Tor. Even at this distance he was awestruck by its size. It was circular and perfectly smooth, rather like the odd stone in texture but vastly larger in scale. From the top of it he could just barely make out little spires poking above its bulk. Innumerable trails of smoke rose into the air from it, causing a noticeable shimmer against the featureless backdrop. Its base rested upon a mighty plateau that must have been at least several hundred meters tall. From this plateau shiny streaks of metal diverged and reached out into the sand in lines too perfectly straight to be the work of nature.

>>4471469
“Eli!”

He turned at the sound of his name, and found the mechanic for gunner troop squatted in the dirt pursuing more worldly ambitions. One of the militia’s automatic rifles was carefully disassembled, each part arrayed neatly on top of a length of fabric. Competent mechanics were a rare and valuable commodity, and there were only three in their entire company, one for each troop. Each one of them had spent countless hours maintaining all the weapons the militia had to offer, and as such could easily take over another mechanic’s job if he was killed. Or confounded, in this case.

“Look what Horst did to this fucking thing.” The man griped. “I told him that shaving down the sear pin was a bad idea, but did he listen to me, nooo…”

Eli crouched next to him and rubbed a finger along the entire length of the spring. They were brutally simple devices, in some ways even simpler than the standard issue repeating rifles. A hammer kept under tension lit off the first round, and then the entire assembly shifted around the free-floating barrel, harnessing the recoil from the first shot to load and fire the second, and so on and so forth.

“What is it doing wrong?” He asked.

“He says it fires the first round, but then it stops. It’s like it suddenly decided it wants to be a semiautomatic.”

“If the sear pin was shaved down too far it wouldn’t fire at all. If the hammer drops on the first round and not on the second then there’s something wrong with the recoil mech-“

He halted abruptly as his finger reached the final few inches of the recoil spring and found a jagged break in the metal. There were now two springs wrapped around the barrel of the weapon, one very long and one very short.

“There’s your problem right there. It wants a fresh recoil spring.”

The mechanic smacked his forehead with an oily palm, leaving a large grubby print behind.

“I can’t believe I didn’t see that.”

>>4471471

Eli shrugged and stood up, staring back at Hermah Tor distractedly.

“I didn’t see it either, until I put my hand on it. Tell Horst to stop firing such long bursts. It’s hard on the mechanism.”

It was one of those halts that nobody called, it just happened. Blankets and cloaks were spread out on the ground and they all took a brief rest, exhausted from the climb. Weapons were cleaned. Canteens were passed around, some containing water and others holding stronger drink. The wind had a different murmur as it squeezed through the rocks above their heads.

“How do you suppose they forged that entire piece of metal?” He wondered aloud.

Gunner troop’s mechanic, a very practical and forthcoming man by nature, interpreted this as a direct question rather than a musing.

“I have no idea. Perhaps it is made up of many small pieces. Perhaps it is actually stone.”

“But what stone grows like that?”

“Like I said, no idea.” The mechanic replied. “Can you tell Tycho that the next time we encounter civilization, we could definitely use a blacksmith?”

“Why can’t you tell him?”

“Because you’re his favorite.”

“Come off it.” Eli said, incredulous. “The only thing Tycho likes is seeing his enemy cry before he kills them.”

It was the mechanic’s turn to shrug, but this was accompanied by a sarcastic eye-roll that screamed “if you say so, favorite”.

>>4471436
I like most of your dialogue, although like your imagery it seems fairly dry and old, and there are, again, particularly bad snippets/phrases in this. I hate your use of "heart going frigid" in the middle of two lines of dialogue. Something seems so off with that, maybe you should go with "her heart frigid". The syntax just seems too...syntactical.

Please don't ever use "my lady" in a piece again. Don't even use it when it seems applicable. It fits the tone/mood of the piece, but it's just bad.

You're still being too descriptive in the breaks from the dialogue. It's implied to the reader that thrills are coursing through Pallas. We don't need you to tell us.

Cut the description to a minimum between the lines of dialogue and this is okay. Still a pretty mediocre piece.

>>4471459
It does get a little repetitive, doesn't it? I suppose I was going for an overflow of emotion, so I tried to hammer things over and over again. You're right, I could take some of the sentences out.

>>4471477
I'd go for 3 or 4 sentences there. Like I said, your imagery is very strong, but if you can give me just as good an image in a more original way, I'd probably love this.

"More original way" is up to you. Don't fuck with it too much and end up ruining it, because it's not bad.

>>4471483
I'll keep that in mind as I rewrite it, and in my future endeavors. Thanks for the constructive criticism.

>>4471429
Nothing, does this sound remotely interesting?

>>4471492

It does, as long as the sun actually comes back in three weeks. Otherwise the title means nothing.

'Don't touch, just watch. Just watch what happens now!'
And she gets my arms in this fucking judo hold and a guy in a Batman suits jumps out of the armoire! He's got this Batman suit on, fucking mask and ears and utility belt and everything, except his dick is sticking out, and it's huge! And I'm looking at him over my shoulder, but I can't move, 'cause she's got me in this judo hold, and Batman comes up behind me and starts fucking me up the ass! He just starts banging me, fucking my ass, and I'm screaming! -snort- I'm screaming, 'What the fuck? Fuck you, Batman! Get the fuck out of my ass!' I'm screaming, and she's laughing and she lets go of me and starts working herself, her pussy is right in my face, and she;s masturbating and screaming, 'Yes! Fuck him, Batman! Go Batman! Fuck his ass!' And I'm screaming, 'Fuck you, Batman!' And he's just banging away at my ass, and she's shrieking, 'Yes! Yes!' And getting off, her pussy is right there in my face, and my ass is like splitting in two, it's killing me, he's huge, and right up in there, I thought it would tear in half.

>>4471500
Of course it would. It would be to see just how far society can fall in only three weeks. The entire idea actually started with the final scene, the sun finally rising over a burning city and a man crying over the body of his son.

>>4471429
I like your first idea. It sounds like a pretty neat way of creating a dystopia, even though I (almost as a rule) dislike dystopian fiction.

The "small town cop" story sounds like it would wear a little thin. How many novels feature a small-town cop trying to help the community from _____? A lot, I'd bet.

Maybe I'm just picky. Pretty cool concept overall, but probably not good enough to write a story about. Unless maybe it's a really really short story, which I don't see it being.

>>4471502
And now I'm just screaming 'Help! No! No more! Get offa me!' And she's like 'Yes! Yes! Come Batman! Come!' And Batman pulls out of my ass, and it's like spasming, I mean like I just shat Batman, you know what I mean? It's like throbbing and burning and Batman just shoots all over me, it's a fucking full-on Batgasm, and it goes all over my back and onto her stomach and face, and she's screaming, I mean, she's just freaking out, she's getting off so hard, and I'm in agony and like covered in Batman's cum, and he's fucking laughing, and she's laughing, and they throw me on the floor...

>>4471510
Honestly my favorite in this thread so far.

Actually hilarious.

>>4471503

Research different types of radiation, is my advice, otherwise you will have to have a story full of people in full hazmat gear.

>>4464375

I love you.

>>4471517
I already have a fair amount of knowledge on the subject, but I was planning on doing more research as well.

>>4471502
>>4471510
This is like if HST wrote porn. It's great.

>>4471510

>>4471421
>digging ‘neath seat covers searching for change,
>touching thin straws, each other’s shame…

hella workin it man
i may be interpreting it a bit too widely, but if everyone did then everyone would think it was p. brilliant.

i think the rest could be worked on imagery wise. it's pretty but not too much substance when you get down to it. be more blatant but less blatant@@!

when I see drugs I hit the gas pedal
I do so much pot they call me the black kettle
catch me in the haight ashbury smokin acid
I hit some ecstasy twice and pass it
then grab a morphine bong and take a fat hit
hit the gas too hard I'm gonna crash it
gotta pop a meth pill to chill now
ahhh shit gettin sleepy gonna pass out
sip of special K wake me up again
but now I'm hallucinatin, shit was spiked with Vicodin!
take a puff of DXM and hop in the Enzo
SF to Miami up 50 hours off the benzos
Neon city, legendary for the peyote
I take 6 tabs of it and cruise with my shorty
She tells me she wants to drink some cocaine
I say shit girl time to hop on my plane
first class flight straight to China
I hit some weed lines off her vagina
My private jet touch down in Tokyo
Yo grab the shroom needle and poke me ho!

>>4471771
worldly

>>4471771
>morphine bong

>>4471771

Aight doc, give the mic up a second.
The rhymes fit the times
Personal development is lyrical
Reject the all-consouming
Not religious- but spiritual
Keep science class empirical
Keep blood rituals clerical
Lines molding and unfolding,
With the awesome power of a miracle
A hysteric flow
Not something you always show
But something you always know
Luck is not a driving hail,
its closer to a gentle snow
Ask your parents 'bout it, they the ones that oughta know
You scrapped their whole bucket list, still claim to love you though

Technology is calling me, changing life for all to see
We're all at sea, isolated in our private colonies
Adrift- alone and free, like a queen without her worker bees
Old folks still ask me: what does it say in Deuteronomy?

We've used the knife before, to make better lips and perfect tits
It's time to use the scapel to fix up and correct some other shit
I'm not talking liposuction, tummy tuck or crass cosmetics
The answer lies with tubing, wires and implanted cybernetics
What if we could save the life of a man who's forever diabetic?
What if we could augment ourselves with forces of energy kinetic?
There's nothing to that Dianetic, it's an entire book of fraud
Then again, so is anyone who tries to claim they talk to god

Here's the rule as I've seen it, I find it really kind of odd:
When you talk to him, you're fervent, no need for the padded pod
But once he talks back to you, suddenly you're sniffing glue
Even zealots call you crazy and they say your friends are too
It's a mixed-up world, so kick back and crack a brew
Too much chaos to worry now, pick heart attack or grey goo
Terrorists unleash epidemics of a potent killer flu
If visitors come down upon us, what will they do?
Will they help and train and guide us, or will they squash us under-shoe?

The Singularity is coming, surely shatter all conventions
Some people think its scary, but I'm down for new inventions
Once we're all invincible, can we stop these interventions?
You know what they say though-
The road to hell is paved with good intentions

In the deepest windless doldrums,
in that sleepy port of call,
we drew many straws to see,
who would sail before the squall.

Would they carve the King of England
in his sacred, helpless side?
Would they call out vile curses
in the time before they died?

Would they stick the voyage through
to the aching, bitter end?
If they were caught with no way out
would they screech, and would they rend?

Would they stand and fight?
Or would they run and hide?
Each man thought he grasped
the answer deep inside.

At last the message came,
the order to depart,
that filled each man with joy,
and sent a thrill into each heart.

They cast off their soggy ropes,
pulled the gangplank clear,
that was the last we saw of them,
after that they disappeared.

Come hither my boy
And I'll tell you a tale
Of how good and bad wither
Of how life is for sale

Of how children cry softly
And big bankers laugh
Of how life is segmented
The wheat split from the chaff

But its not as bad as all that,
And if you come you will see
The only way to be happy
Is to find a way to be free

I want you to discard
All the things that you knew
And see the world unfinished
A group of fools with one shoe

A crowd of the high-class
The ones called well-to-do
Peek through their cracks, son
And see- they're like you

They have flights of fancy
At times they hold all the cards
But you mustn't take that, lad
No- you've come much too far

I want you to learn things
And I want you to do-
I might bring you the spotlight
I might bring you friends too

I might bring you power
And I might bring you regret
I'll sure make you sorry-
If in your ways, you are set

I'll bring you the good times
And I'll bring you despair
Just don't ever ask me-
If my way of choosing is fair

I'll buy back remorse
And I'll fix your mistakes
Don't hurry, go slowly
No such thing as too late

For I know the keeper
Of a gold without shine
You have the watches...
And I have the time.

>>4471779
Bucket list? My parents wrote Schindler's List
Chose me before my sis on some Sophie's Choice shit
I'll throw your pretentious flow in Auschwitz
With Bear Grylls and make you consist on your own piss
I'm the Third Reich fist, smashing all post-modernists
first target, wack merchants on /lit/

>>4471798
Look at that, that's so cute,
This kid thinks his burner shoot,
This kid thinks that he smoke loud,
I bet he done his daddy proud
When he buy my shit, by the pound
Think twice G, word gets around,
You hear that? That's my sound.
I am a king, here's my crown,
I am the rock, fuckin' solid ground.
Your shit's a dog, take it to the pound.
Your shit is sick, noise not sound,
Have some mercy and put it down.

He's the original original,
A suburban aboriginal,
Rhymes tight like a dirigible,
Limelight for no individual.

Not to say he's got no heroes, but all of them are dead,
The rhymes are a little window, to the things inside our head.
The times are a little window, to whats beneath our beds,
Buried under outdoor gardens, locked away in rusty sheds.

Moses brought them from the mountaintop,
And Biggie made them fit the lean times,
Checking closely on this bounty crop,
Record is hospital spotless- clean crimes.

Everyday there's a couple scratched faces,
Waving signs, claiming they've won the rat races,
Not a single one legit, every move is counterfeit,
Only a pathological liar could come up with that shit.

No outs in this maze game they've got us playin',
Just straight ties, caffeine, shaved heads or prayin'.
Wish he was Malayan, or maybe Austrayan,
at least they knew where their saviors were strayin'.

u better duck, cuz
i know you a quack -
my rhymes be whack, so
don't echo my flow back

These are the rhymes that get you off your ass,
Offer still valid only while supplies last.
The rhymes that remind you that time is moving fast,
We're now in the present, but that's soon to be past.

This modern world is crazy, topsy-turvy you might say,
Hard to see a brighter future but we continue anyway.
Tireless erections on top of wireless connections,
Mindless collections of manufactured recollections,
Memories you thought you had, really planted by Big Pharma,
Ad execs with credit checks who don't care if they harm ya.

A scary world in motion, keep an eye out for the future,
Lest you end up in a coffin, face stitched up with suture.
A reckless autopsy, to discover what was wrong,
Damage wasn't physical, it was mental all along.

Purely psychosomatic- the reaction of a life addict,
Every day for two decades I thought I mighta had it-
Turns out that I didn't, now I can't kick the habit,
Avert the last act before something turns tragic.

I have dreams too, I want to double-team Michelle Malkin.
As my partner in crime, its gotta be Christopher Walken.
See, now that's a real fantasy, other rappers just talkin'
Some people call me weird, some think this shit is shockin'
Some think my game is unrefined, behind my back they mockin'
Jokes on them when out of their shitty jobs they are clockin'.

I'm going to stop dumping now, because we're getting into my older poetry and it gets even shittier, if you can believe it.

If anyone cares to read my novel excerpt and give me their thoughts too, it would be much appreciated: >>4471467

>>4471801
Only thing I buy by the pound is uranium
half I deplete and aim towards your cranium
the other half I enrich and sell to Iranians
you are forced to resort to reaction imagery
as I tear you apart with epirrhematic syzygy

As I was walking through the Lord’s enlightened garden
The sun reflected on my shaved head
My azure eyes noticed a nigger begging pardon
And so I knew the last disgusting vermin aint dead
I raised my burnished sword without pity
My other hand erected in a proud salut
The nigger’s skull has cracked under my boot
This primate’s face was now even less pretty
And as I hoped the nigger race was gone for good
I once again woke up and realized that im a nitty.

>>4465753
Anyone want to critique this?

>>4472419

I have no criticism-

But I have a similar style and some people have told me it's "too rhymey", which I find perplexing.

>>4471509
The cop was just an add on. I'm not yet sure who is a good perspective.

I toyed with the idea of both a sewage maintenance employee and a college student.

>>4465753
>>4473090
The reason people say it's "too rhymey" is there are a probably lot of commonly used perfect rhymes.

>>4465753
This isn't bad, but it lacks substance. It doesn't really dig into why the time was "well-spent," why the snowman has gone to hell, if this is parallel to a person, how Mel "made" the person, and why Mel couldn't say the final line. The base comparison between a snowman melting as a man melting because of a relationship's dynamic has flipped from the man loving the roman, mel "ablaze" and the man "of ice," from the man melted and the girl gone is compelling.
Your meter and your rhyme is competent, though there isn't anything here sonic-ally that's really impressive, though the lines
"She forgets you now, but you forget her not,
I'll ask again, is it too hot?" are memorable. Some of your rhymes are boring, like churning and burning, say and day.

Sitting in a chair listening to words of self-doubt and discouragement.
The words filled with poison and negativity.
He stands at your left shouting them hoping to light some sort of fire.
Well, unfortunately for him, they did.
The mind accepts the words and turns them into feelings of hate.
Blood boiling, rage inclining and begging to take action.
The pent up hate finally cracking the bottle it’s been stored in from the inside.
We all know what hate is: Black toxic goop that’s in one’s heart mixed with anger, agony and an intention to bring merciless harm.
Hate is the fuel that encourages one to make things right in the most convoluted manner.
God help the one that the hate is aimed towards, because you have no plans on holding back any longer.
Thoughts of slamming a sledgehammer to his face with no remorse.
Forgiveness has left the building.
Hearing the bones crackle under the weight and seeing the body turning limp becomes arousing.
Patience not found, please try again.
Fist clenching, breathing becoming paced strategically.
The mind, soul and body all rooting for you to end him.
Electric signals in the mind have made things clear.
Rage has reached the point of no return.
“Murder” becomes an elegant word of what should take place.
Bringing the source of the words, that implants anger in one’s brain, to a sudden tragic end sounds delightful.
Reality is now processed as insignificant only the overwhelming need for a peace of mind.
Obliterate at an unyielding pace at all costs.
Who the FUCK does he think he is talking to you like that?
The utter nerve to use such pessimistic critiquing bullshit and call it helping.
Assaulting you by yelling every word like you fucked up.
Assumes you’ve made mistakes that you didn’t even do.
And yet, he has an excuse for his fuck ups.
Acts like he knows every-fucking-thing.
Enough.
Enough of his bullshit.
It’s time to take action.
It’s time to put him in HIS place: The grave.
The world will be a better place without him.
Let that twisted smirk cross your face.
Let your fist collide against his jaw like he stole something.
In actuality he did steal something: Your peace of mind.
Remember the only consequence is you not doing a damn thing and letting him get away with it.
Surely you’re fed up of him by now.
Hold him accountable for his unacceptable actions.
Ladies and gentlemen I present to you…
The Joy in Rage.

Critiques welcomed.

I'd fallen a lot lower before, that's for sure, but Id always landed. I have scars on my cheeks and forehead from the impacts, and my neck is just slightly linked to the left. My left. But I walk with my right leg slightly bent, and I sit leaning on my right elbow. That is why it is hard to notice.

I'm not tying to hide my scars. That's impossible. But neither are you. Are you? Don't worry, I don't give a shit.

>>4473143

Is it hot in snowman hell?
Do these visions ring a bell?
Of times well spent, a girl named Mel?
Old games of chess, beachside retreat.
All are gone, burnt away in summer heat,
Mel, burning coat, cheeks ablaze,
Made you of ice, with demonic craze.
She forgets you now, but you forget her not,
I'll ask again, is it too hot?
Snowman skin, cracking and churning,
Slowly, slowly, oh so slowly burning.
You who came down from the sky,
You who wept, drank her lies and lye,
then laid dying on kitchen floor.
I curse thee now, and forevermore,
To walk my scalding, hellish hell,
and remember your true love, Mel.

I think I fixed it, maybe? It was a while ago that I wrote it, and I think I've improved somewhat since then.

>>4473223
I really like this

>>4473223
Not gonna lie, I am feelin' this.
Damn, please tell me you've written more of these kind of pieces.

>>4473243
>>4473239
Thanks guys, it means a lot to me.
And yeah, I've written a couple other love-ish poems.

>>4473259
Well, sir. Please, feel free to share.

When we were lovers, you called me names
But time goes on and you were gone
I got told you, you're a big shot for the ties
And take it from behind
Now you took a new flat in a different town
And rumors are you're wealthy now
For that high class dress shows you earn well
Where strangers come and go
Do you feel good, do you feel fine?
Did you achieve what you had in mind?
Do you live cool, not too confined?
What can you tell this old heart of mine?

Do song lyrics count? I actually wrote some fanfiction recently that I was compelled to write song lyrics for, because the original story was a musical. I found I really enjoyed it- it's a lot of fun trying to whip up a song that's catchy.

>>4473163
fuck off this shit sucks

>>4473265
Here you go, the last one may or may not be on this computer.
A poker face is hard to keep,
When dealt a hand of hearts.
My cheeks grow red,
And my hand does quiver so,
When dealt a hand of hearts.
Thump, thump, thump,
Goes the rhythm in my chest.
And I can't get you off my mind.
I love you so dearly, so dearly, it's true.
But you only go for winners
And this hand of hearts won't do.

>>4464440

Are you the greatest /lit/ troll of all time?

>>4464468
Great. Maybe wouldn't combine the mighty hills with might com across, sounds a little unplanned

>>4473319
It's genuine criticism. Nothing troll-like about it.

She had felched upon my face; pre flight pre flight; rocket man took it upon himself to break her neck after I she had felched upon my face.

Awaiting the adoration of all

>>4464343

>>4473120
Critique or response?

>>4473120
I like it excpet the 'that thus drives' part

'thus' feels out of place but other than that I like it

Sorry if this feels a little out of place in what is now, apparently, a poetry thread.

“I like you better when you’re asleep.” In which case, he’d gladly lie here and never dare get up. He’d lie here until he couldn’t get up. But the proper reaction is to take a cerebellar turn, fold the covers inward and exhale slowly. “You’re easier when you’re asleep.” For her, maybe. Did that mean something? She’d find anyone easier when they were asleep. Their toes are touching at the end of the bed: hooked in place, hers atop his, and for once he is grateful the covers are old. She wriggles them, holstering nails, cowgirl kind of confident, as if she’d just shot a man. Like off the TV: same performance and everything. “Good thing you sleep so much.”
‘’Do not.”
“Like hell.”
Dana, dungareed, sits at the foot of his bed in the morning. She is every shade of purple. Light is knocking through the netting, and curtains glow a little brighter, but it doesn’t break through just yet. A warm breeze from the window behind feels right at home. “You were late last night.”
“How would you know?”
“Because every night I brush my teeth and see you walk in from out my window, and every night I wonder what you’ve both been doing out there so late, and I go to sleep and wonder if you’ll ever ask me.”
“Ask you what?”
“You’re useless awake.” He squeezes her toes. The clamminess works as adhesive, and they can’t be separated. Through the netting, out in a white void comes laughing, swooping as a passing bird over the ocean, fleeting twitch of the head and interest below, then just as quickly snapping forward and further into the sky, gone. “Why’re you in my room, Dana?”
“Why? Don’t you like me in your room.”
“I don’t care.” He shifts a little, adjusts to a position more comfortable. “Just thought it polite to ask a guy before coming into his room.”
“You would’ve said yes, though.” He groans into the pillow and they sit quiet for a while. More laughing comes from outside, the indiscernible laugh of either young male or all ages of female.

>>4473421
Good point. It's an archaism.

>>4473440
I know

And it feels out of place, not that using archaism's is a bad thing or seems old because of it

>>4473312
Everyone is entitled to their opinion.
I'm not gonna say it was my best work.
Just wanted to see what other folks had to say in means of why it's good or bad.
It was never meant to rhyme, if that's what you're getting at here.

Now, how about you give me a real reason why you didn't like it, instead of some vague 'this shit sucks' comment?
I'd rather you tear my work apart on why you didn't like it instead of that useless comment.
I'm trying to improve, that's why I'm here.

>>4473316

Ah, thanks.
Damn I love you conveyed that.
The image was clear in my mind, kudos to you.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17aROmrY-1ZpkqIQ2bfm9t3WgiHEuSgxbx7dN-IGx8y8/edit

u kno this is hot shit so critique it man:
----------------------------------------------

the selection committee appointed you to behead me. you usually dread seeing me but today your gray hair popped in early after smokin' a joint and using the company gym to get the adrenaline pumpin', surely.
burly men get me hot & i got memories of the times you'd lick my tangy clit. at least i know i'll go down with a bang and a nice slit - 'cross my throat that is.

man, this is some miserable shit. i'll serenade you with it beforehand all delusional, get your ax hot and heavy so it'll land unafraid per usual.
i guess i wish i'd stayed in bed that day they decided i only led to trouble, but that's a story i may have to delay. sorry folks, i need another double! and maybe few more tokes, but i'm broke and you'd never smoke me out.
i'd lay there and pout and you'd say 'hey baby you gotta put out first, i'm about to burst!' then you'd press your lit cigarette against my thigh and i'd sigh and show you my tits.
and it's too bad i gotta die but at least you'll be the one to kill me. you were such a catch, you lech, but you know you still thrill me.

'i'll see you in hell', i say in my vex voice (you hate that), then whisper again in your ear, as my final words, with my sex moist.

Excerpt, is the diversion retarded?

August walked down the street. He kicked a piece of concrete that had chipped off a broken sidewalk square, hitting it with the side of his foot so it would skid and tumble far enough ahead of him so that after taking the next step it would be right ahead of him and he could kick it again and repeat. But it was an oddly shaped chunk and didn't always go where August directed, so he had to hop around a bit and make small leaps to clear the distance when he kicked it a bit too far ahead or make sideways lunges to keep it from flying into the traffic to his right. This became a game and under a creased brow August's eyes darted back and forth following the piece of concrete as it skittered across the pathway. He had begun kicking it for lack of anything better to do and a desire to keep his body occupied so his mind might wander the streets, but slowly the game reeled in his attention and he found himself invested in the fate of the pebble, the deformed chunk, barely two square inches and dotted with the same bumps and texture as the surface it bounced across, the chosen piece - no, it had not been a peice, had not existed as anything other than an indistinguishable part of a whole until some single event or slow erosion broke it off and gave it a singular identity apart from the whole, so that due to an unfathomably complicated chain of events a boy would come along and kick it. August considered this in the vaguest of ways and felt good for giving the chunk a chance to have a more exciting existence than most concrete chunks have. He felt a degree of pride and responsibility for the chunk, and he felt that it was grateful for his guidance as it ran and skipped over cracks and minute ledges. Then in a moment of distraction August kicked the chunk and it bounced directly onto a sidewalk grate. It clattered against the iron bars and fell between them to disappear amongst rotted leaves and fast food garbage, glossy labels and catchphrases long since faded into muted blurs in that dead and dark pocket of the city, and the concrete chunk would lay there unseen forever, and tiny streams of melted snow navigated the coarse sidewalk to the edge of the drainage pit where they fell as droplets onto the debris below and it was not a metaphor and it meant nothing.

When August passed above the grate he glanced down but did not slow. His slight disappointment at losing the piece paralleled a slight sense of lifted responsibility, both minor sensations that didn't evoke strong emotions themselves, but feeling anything for a chunk of concrete was novelty enough that he felt that he had viewed for just a moment some great complexity. He didn't pursue that line of thought but was aware of it's passing in a vague way but his mind quickly wandered. Always with one foot in his world of imagination, even if his young mind was able to articulate in coherent thought what it had held for a moment it would have no reason to.

>>4473508
What're you writing Anon ?

>August walked down the street. He kicked a piece of concrete that had chipped off a broken sidewalk square, hitting it with the side of his foot so it would skid and tumble far enough ahead of him so that after taking the next step it would be right ahead of him and he could kick it again and repeat.

>>4473514

Sorry I couldn't explain better in the original post I was at text limit.

The story is, so far, about an eleven year old boy who has skipped school on an unseasonably warm day in winter and refuses to wear anything other than clothing appropriate for the season (i.e. heavy winter clothing).

I know that this scene is kind of ridiculous and maybe a bad idea, that's why I need critique for it. Even looking back now it definitely borders on pretension in some places but this is a first draft so not a huge deal.

I could go on explaining what I'm trying to convey with this scene but I'm not sure I could word it right in straight explanation (that's why it's told through the story) but the idea is somewhat existentialist, in that the boy is projecting meaning onto a pebble, and is, however slightly, invested in its fate.

>>4473527

I understood the scene
>existentialist, in that the boy is projecting meaning onto a pebble, and is, however slightly, invested in its fate.

I love how you made something so simple so real. Like a stone being kicked

Is there anything else to the story?

i get so lonely at times :)

here i am :)

>>4473536

That's exactly what I was looking for, that people wouldn't find it absolutely ridiculous, at the most just have to consider it.

Not much, that's the end of the only page I have so far. I just started this yesterday. I'll post the beginning though:

It was winter but it wasn't cold. It was cold the day before but on that day it was seventy degrees. It didn't smell like flowers or rain; it smelled like the cold, but it wasn't cold. It was warm and the trees were bare and the birds were silent and the grass was dead and yellow and the small patches of snow melted quickly. They were all puddles by noon.
The men and women on their way to work appreciated the mild temperatures and didn't think much about it besides the necessary considerations when getting dressed for the day. But August was worried by the weather and refused to wear clothes inappropriate for the season. August was an eleven year old boy with hands stubbornly balled in his coat pockets. Sweat shined on his forehead and he panted through a grimace. He watched the traffic pass by sitting on the edge of a food mart parking lot. All too exposed to car horns and sirens sitting there in empty air, he made sure to keep his hat pulled over his ears. All August wanted was for the day to end. He hated the winter, especially when it acted up like this. Hopefully it would rain and fill the city with something other than unseasonable warmth, but rain wasn't likely. The few clouds above were stretched thin against pale blue. The sky should never be pale blue when it's so warm out.

And yeah that's all of it so far, thanks for your interest by the way it means a lot.

>>4473547
I like it

It's different and explains things properly

No Problem

They came by hook and crook, by gaggle and gape. An unprofessional, colorful unit, drafted to serve a desperate purpose of which their age made them blessedly unaware. Banners and flags proclaiming the revolution festooned every tank and personnel carrier. If the troops they were reinforcing did nothing but stare into the distance and shrug them off, they took no notice of it.

The Lieutenant watched from underneath his camouflage netting, the sunlight creeping steadily over the map-laden table before him. He was a different class than them, and they knew it. The old guard, from the old background. Moneyed, professional, of aristocratic background- possessing at once a great scorn for the new revolutionary ideals and also the great wisdom to keep such thoughts to himself. Yes, he was wise, but it was a dark wisdom borne of experience and pain.

The fat black brick that was the field phone rang and he picked it up.

“Headquarters element.”

“Hello Lieutenant.”

Despite the fact that he had been expecting the call, waiting for the sun to crest the mountainous terrain to the east all day, the implications still made him cringe. There was a static-ridden chuckle in the silence that followed.

“Having second thoughts?”

“No sir.” He replied.

“Good. Any of that and you’ll go right back to the dirty cell I found you in, understand?”

“Perfectly.”

“Glad to hear it. Begin the assault.”

There was a faint click from the other end. Still, the Lieutenant held the phone to his ear, frozen. The receiver began to buzz faintly. An aide approached him.

“Sir? Was that the Chairman?”

“Yes, that was your glorious leader.”

“What are his orders?”

“You mean what are MY orders?”

“Of course… what are your orders sir?”
The Lieutenant gave the kid a stern look up and down.

“Get everyone into the trenches. Bring only as much ammunition as you can run with.”

The aide turned and dashed down the slope of the command post, alerting the men. The Lieutenant looked out over the battlefield, pockmarked into a moonscape by endless explosions. A length of dead earth, stretching out before them until it slid upwards onto the slopes of the mountain into the enemy camps and entrenchments, where similar activities were taking place.

When everyone was ready, the Lieutenant took one last look through his binoculars. There they sat, each one of them eager as they were unwashed. The words of one of his teachers, a veteran commander of many conflicts, echoed through his head.

“How many men is a piece of ground worth? A river crossing? A mountain pass? How many men? How many lives?”

There was a long, high pitched whistle. In anticipation, the enemy opened up with mortar and machine gun. The teeth-shaking chatter of high powered rounds mixed with the battle yell of the vanguard, charging from their foxholes to meet their end. The Lieutenant’s answer to himself was drowned out by the cacophony.

“As many as it takes.”

>>4473508
This is nice, except for this bit:

>It clattered against the iron bars and fell between them to disappear amongst rotted leaves and fast food garbage, glossy labels and catchphrases long since faded into muted blurs in that dead and dark pocket of the city, and the concrete chunk would lay there unseen forever, and tiny streams of melted snow navigated the coarse sidewalk to the edge of the drainage pit where they fell as droplets onto the debris below and it was not a metaphor and it meant nothing.

>>4473650

Thanks, what don't you like about the last part? I was definitely doubting this:

> and it was not a metaphor and it meant nothing.

I feel like it could go either way though, part of me likes it.

>>4473645
Breddy gud

Only thing holding it back was some clunky clauses, like: "drafted to serve a desperate purpose of which their age made them blessedly unaware." I understand what this is meant to imply, in the larger context of the story: these young, idealistic soldiers don't understand how they're so much meat in the eyes of the leaders they're fighting for -- they don't realize that cannon fodder really exists in warfare, or that they're it -- and that's cool, really, I just feel it could be worded a little better. I'm afraid I can't give you an example of an alternative, though.

At the same time, there are some clauses I really liked: "The fat black brick that was the field phone," "pockmarked into a moonscape by endless explosions," "each one of them eager as they were unwashed," the final line, etc.

>>4473645
>posting on /lit/ with a video game picture

>>4473829

Thanks. I always end up a little more purple than I intend- usually I can cut out the excessive bits later, but sometimes my eye just rolls over them.

>>4471398
Saramago

I'm back in this thread because nobody seems to be responding.

Gameshow

Watching “The Price is Right”,
the thing near my hungry left nipple aches---
it greens and folds unto itself
like gnarled, buzzing parchment,
parchment inked with an unbearable lexicon
of sarcasm and methadone.

Who are these people? I wonder.
The camera jibes and tilts,
in particular towards one woman---
thin, her deadish roots blonde,
her mind cracked into tiny crevices
filled with Drano and madness.
Her angst is one that only the Heavens
can bring, usually in a paper bag
bought from Circle K for 67 cents.
Worry lines, glam lyrics, train tickets
crease my pickled thoughts
when I look through her budded body.

When, where, and to whom did she lose
her virginity, veiled innocence?
There is the mindless fervor
of a thousand young females
etched across her armpits
like a hieroglyph of the ocean of loss.

Now, she tries to look happy
on her game show---38, clumsy, riled,
two kids and a dog named Rover
(who she calls her “Special Boo”)
from musty smoggy rusty
Carbondale PA.

Her teeth shine like gummy clean
stamps, she answers
nearly every question
correctly, and with a chinchilla’s whimper.
A furry, caged animal presides
over the thick symphony in her eyes.

Like my mother, she is somehow old.
Matriarchal, they reign thru joyless suburban
orgasms, and a willingness to get thru
tarnished worlds, desert,
rusted over and over---
through game shows.

“Invested in my future”, I plan
to permanently latch myself,
my adolescently small penis,
and a cup of Kirkland water
to the Vistancia hot-top, begging
little boys for ten seconds of their time.

Watch the streets go to ice cream, young man.
I know I will.
Landing feet-first off the back of a METRO bus,
my Brooks Bros. suit, (finely crafted
from taco sauce, dog shit, and $200 bills)
is ruined. (I think!)

(I’ll be old, resting there
on the Phoenix tar…
old is happy I once heard.)

Brenda Huggins, 38, of Carbondale PA,
will lick at my boots.
Both products of the suburbs.
Both old. Fat. Happy.
Then, and only then, can we die together.
Nuzzled in each other’s bosom,

Loving tenderly, each other.

>>4474024
There's a lot going here and I like most of it. a powerful indictment.

on a receipt #3

One soda and a bottle of rum,
If I'd said everything I wanted
then
I wish I'd said it all again
I sold your love for arrogance
And routine
And new friends
And other things I'd missed

I don't want to be alone
when I'm drinking or watching a movie
And now I'm afraid of
Everyone I meet,
to not give them what I gave you.
A proper burial with every
one of your favorite flowers
And words you'd long ago
Made empty

"Song of life"

There was a time once,
When I was a man of life.

I lived alone with many others
With dark skin and cautious eyes
Little clothes and a bamboo flute,
I played a song for every person;
but not all at once.

The natives would talk and mark my song
Between work and sweat and aching bones.
One said my song was entrancing and long
Nostalgia pains the heart and, and it brings her
To ages passed.

Another said it was harsh and wild,
Like the tiger out of stalking,
Falling to its destruction,
Preying on man with his tools and fire.

A girl said the flute was like many birds
Talking from the highest heaven
With sharp little words,
Playful and scared and precise
In mind and flight.

Or like daily rain, a warm pitter-patter
On leaves as large as the lion's paw
A rhythm so soft and light as the air,

Or anguished and mournful, dirge of despair
A baleful tune, melodic scare.

I played the song of Life
To the Earth and its tenants, who
Hear what they feel,
Know or believe
And evolve without change
Hear without ears
and Speak without mouths.

>>4474061
I actually really like most of this, your rhymes are really odd and the meter is uneven, which makes the poem all the better. The imagery is delightful, your story is strong, you play with sound and rhythm nicely. I don't like the uneven number of lines per stanza, but that's just my obsession with a poem's "shape".

The overall "arch" and "theme" of the poem are a little trite and maybe sometimes a bit boring, but overall, almost everything is at least pretty good.

Probably the strongest poem in this thread.

The Ages

When no evil, nor here nor there
To glean the graces of the ol'
Highway wandering masses whole
And a devil's brace of woe ensnare
A sheen of sadness upon the soul,

Travel light and far be your reach
To touch upon all stories told
And trap the sights of ages old
For much along your way do teach
Of grace and beauty to behold.

Keep for me the best you see
Along the way you roam.
At my behest, though dull for some,
Enlighten me, I ask of thee,
And do swiftly come back home.

>>4474056
Thanks man, I really appreciate that.

On a receipt #1

I feel you, Mark
I buried my first victim
when I was 21.
She had no jeans, but had a mask on
It's all I think about,
Driving through parking lots at night
Where a chill wind blows
Where the dumpster cats hide.
Where I feel more like a person
and less like a killer.

But she was nowhere to be seen,
only heard and felt.
And that's the best I could ever do.

>>4474072
Thanks a lot. I've never cared much for the shape of a poem, I just think poetry should be all expression. It comes out how it comes out/how it's written. Sometimes my poetry has meter, sometimes it does not. I think that's okay though.

>>4474088
Last line is boring as fuck, great imagery though.

>>4474101
Thanks, I agree the last line is weak. I suppose I just wanted to end it and didn't much feel like continuing. Which, in that case, I guess it's a fitting line haha. maybe this one suffers the same issue.


On a receipt #2

One hot chocolate
I saved this after I left you,
hurting and alone
At the Miami airport
I was okay and for that I felt terrible
and always will
I'm home and things are like I never met you
You're dying and I'm looking forward
To the life I'll live
Without you
Driving alone,
Cold weather, loud music
Sleeping through classes I stopped caring about
Hoping you're okay while I
Spend my days less alone
than I was
At least, that's how I feel

"We have at least five thousand in there at any given moment. Not that big of a feat."

A pause.

Maybe that was too harsh?

"Ah cool. But check out this thread I found."

Another banal statement. So she'd won, if only by forfeit. He probably expected her to spit out something equally banal in response after an equally long pause.
That's how their conversations usually went, anyway. It was as if Sunday morning had never happened, as if they were still the bored stagnating couple living on minced words and frayed edges.
The only signs that the argument had ever taken place were the same ones as before: passionless discourses, awkward silences, and dull, staticy resentment.
"I just like spending time with you," he had said over the phone. It might as well have been a recording.


I'm stuck, should I give up and overhaul it at this point?

>>4474126
There's a steep drop in quality from Receipt #1 to #2, man.

You lost all the imagery, which seems to be your strongest aspect.

Where's the sound? The rhythm? Musicality? The story is alright but very flawed. Not even any attempt at structure. The last line sounds very "High school creative writing class" "edgy teenager". You're writing a poem. Don't tell me "That's how I feel", you fucking cop-out. I know that's how you feel, you just wrote a poem about it.

>>4474126

I'd drop the last two lines, or rearrange them. Because those last 3 lines are just stating what the entire poems about and aren't particularly good anyway.

What I would do is combine lines 14, 15 and 16 and drop line 17 completely to make the final line "Hoping you're okay while I spend my days less alone than I was." It also makes the last two lines the longest and you have a subtle internal rhyme with "okay" and "days."

I do really like it though, and I fucking love the title. I almost think it would be a better title without a #1 though.

>>4474159
Hm, harsh criticism, but I certainly appreciate it. I posted #3 before the other two, what do you feel about this one?

>>4474057

>>4474164
it didn't have the #1 originally, then I ended up writing more I considered to be "sequels" or in the same "series", I suppose.

>>4474057
Much stronger than #2, still a bit dull. Not as good of imagery as #1. I like your kind of "thematic tie-in" of the 3 receipts, even if there's not really a "story" (there doesn't need to be, by the way). Gives the poems some needed unity and cinematic qualities. Your rhythm is mediocre at best. Why is "then" on its own separate line? Unnecessary, why should you draw attention to "then"? Doesn't really further the piece enough to warrant an entire line.

Last three lines of the first stanza are bad, dreadful, even. A friend once told me "Every line has to be poetic" whether in its incorporation of a trope or a temperament (tropes = metaphor symbolism irony, IMO, but I bet you know that). Every line should give some image, some sound/rhythm device, etc. You get what I'm saying? Those lines are devoid of poetic trope. That's not verse, it's boring prose.

"A proper burial with every/one of your favorite flowers" is the strongest part of the poem. I like the image and rhythm.

Definitely edit those receipt poems and turn them into something better.

>>4474174

Nah it's cool, don't take my advice too seriously. Those titles really add another dimension to the story though. It seems like you pace and build up to the endings very well in #1, #2 and #3 but every time the ending is very underwhelming in my opinion.

I did enjoy them though

>>4474166
Hey, sorry, didn't see this reply, had seen #3 earlier and went back to check this out.

No problem man, your writing is definitely good and with some editing could be strong as a cohesive whole. I like the idea of your series...Just keep working on it.

Don't feel bad because some faggot behind a computer screen (me) criticized your poetry. I dislike 90% of the poetry I've ever read, and it's my "main hobby". I don't even dislike the poems, per se. They just need to be worked on...a lot.

A few of my shorter poems together. I write a lot more prose than poetry but I'd like to improve.


Welfare Children

He joked...
About being poor a lot
I think he wanted to be poor.
I don't blame him
I'm poor and it's great
Welfare sandwich right here, actually
Cheese - $0
Ham - $0
Whole Grain Wheat Bread - $0
But we paid for the honey mustard
and the rehab, too


Cockroach Diaries

Still cry under flawless mountain sky
Still weep and lose sleep over imps I chose to keep
Petty demon brothers, insecurity and obsession
Crawl around between skin and muscle tendon
Every finger twitch and every manic mention
of my antibacterial brethren
wiping beneath the surface
trying to determine
if I am fit for public
or hopeless vermin

But it's an excuse
It's all an excuse
Responsibility dodging, hodgepodging rainforest logging
in with coffee shop blogging
blaming other people, scraping up some anger
paranoid schizoid insectoid
confined to my room to watch the moon
and hope that I get better soon
I hope that I get better soon


Welfare Children Part 2

The rich
Don't get to feel bad
The poor won't let them
The songwriters and poets and hallmark cards
and holiday specials say:
Money Doesn't Buy Happiness
and it costs you our sympathy
Money Doesn't Buy Happiness
but if you have a pool and a car and a mansion
You don't get to feel bad
We won't let you

>>4474180
They're written they way they were scribbled down originally, on different receipts I had kept in my wallet for whatever reason, so I type them the way they were written. they're unedited and not a lot of writing effort went into them. They are kind of like a stream of conscious, only more thought out than that.
I suppose they were never meant to have rhythm or meter, since I think they are best read as if you can hear my thoughts out loud or something.

I disagree with your friend's opinion. I'm of the belief that every word/line is a part of a whole and should play its own part no matter how big or small.

You have good criticisms though. would I be asking too much to link to another of mine in this thread, or post something more, and ask what you think?

>>4474193
final 2 lines of Welfare Children are really good. Dat volta. Goddamn. Gonna go smoke and read the rest of these, I like the first one, though I'm not getting any great images. Scrolling through quickly, your titles are excellent. Excited to read.

>>4474193
The first one is brilliant and I like the second one a lot. The wording in the second one is clever and catchy. The first one is made by the last line. The third one is less strong and less mature than the others, but it's alright.

>>4474202
>>4473120
Do me ?

>>4474196
I'll post some anyway.

The air is thin where you once breathed,
Where I still sleep

I was once a ghost, drinking the tears
Of others, and growing stronger
By the day, falling to weakness
By night.

Then I was a turtle
Crying in the pond, where the ghosts
Fed on my misery, and grew stronger by the day
Stronger by night

Under water, the sky is low
And finite, the same as clouds
Holding water, and letting it go
The same as the turtle
in the pond

Now the water has run dry
Leaving only sand,
and the ghosts have left me alone.

The waves of sound,
once flooding the pond,
can't find the air here,
thin, where you once breathed
Where I still sleep

http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=292812

My alternate history timeline. You may have (probably not) seen it posted here before. Just, uh, see what you think.

It starts off a bit slow, wait until update three for way less exposition and more action and dialogue. Those interested in Roman history and who loved Colleen McCullough's "Masters of Rome" series need apply immediately.

>>4474202
>>4474212

Hey thanks a lot guys, didn't think too much of them honestly but that's very encouraging. Anybody want me to critique anything? Unless you post it in the next few minutes I won't be able to comment till tommorow.

>>4474266

Could you do mine, please?
>>4474149

These mostly don't have titles. I know they aren't that good, but I've wanted to share them with people.

__

Sometimes I want to go to an airsoft arena with real guns
And paint the tips orange
So people don't notice that my guns are real
And that my guns shoot real bullets
Not fake shitty plastic pellets
Anyway
I'd go there with my real guns
And never fire them
And get shot with shitty plastic pellets
And lose the battle
And go home

__

I want a necklace of your teeth
But I don’t want you to die
Maybe if they grew back
But they don’t so I’ll wait

I like looking at your teeth
Even if they are a little yellow
At least your face isn’t yellow
And I don’t mean “asian”
That would be racist

If I die you can have my teeth
You can make jewelry with them
Or grind them into powder
And brush your teeth with it

__

I want to ride a tornado to school
And then destroy school with it
Someone will call in a bomb threat
But it’ll be too late
Because school will be gone already
And then no one will learn ever again
Maybe I’ll destroy everyone’s cars too
They should be riding tornados instead

__

Chad Davis
Ched Devis
Chid Divis
Chod Dovis
Chud Duvis
And sometimes Chyd Dyvis

__

"wes welker"

Themed McDonalds are fucked up
Themed anything is fucked up
Themed McDonalds are really fucked up
More fucked up than any other themed thing
One time I was in a 2-story McDonalds
One time I wanted to jump in the ball pit
I totally expect for it to be full of Big Macs
And the souls of trapped children
I really want to own McDonald’s Stock
I expect their stock to be Monopoly money
Monopoly money with golden arches and fries all over
The fries are in the arches even
And I want to arch my eyebrows at Burger King and Wendy’s
They aren’t fucking McDonalds and should feel bad.

__

I want to get Chicken McNuggets on the way to school tomorrow
I want to take pictures of each McNugget right before I eat them
My favorite will be the McNugget that looks like Italy
Sometimes I even get two McNuggets that look like Italy
I want to feel emotional attachment to each McNugget before I eat them
And Then I’ll eat them
And it will feel great
And it will taste great
And then my tummy will hurt
So I’ll wash it down with a giant frozen coke
And I’ll smile and my teeth will be stained by the frozen coke
But that smile will be more genuine than if I smiled without stained teeth

__

Fuck McDonalds I don’t know how it still exists
They try to be really fucking healthy
And offer apple slices in their kids meal
But those apples slices are probably soaked in blood
And McDonalds doesn’t even have frozen cokes
I don’t know why I always say they do
I think I want them to offer frozen cokes
They’d probably be good if they had frozen cokes.

>>4474280
The first one is the strongest imho, although they all seem more like literary doodles than anything.

While I do like how raw and personal they are, you might want to try for some more polished works.

>>4474276
>>4474149

Yeah I got you man. So I'm guessing he didn't say I love you back? Because you did a good job of getting that across if so, I got that immediately without feeling forced or like I was solving a mystery. You use the word "banal" twice; I'd say not to use it twice that close together, but "banal" sounds really condescending and maybe (assuming this is limited omniscient with the guy as the MC) overusing words with those kind of obnoxious implications would work really well to characterize him. Make sure you use those key words in strategic places, maybe to cover up the MC's insecurities or make him have to avoid admitting something about himself.

Of course I'm assuming a lot after only reading this one paragraph.

>I'm stuck, should I give up and overhaul it at this point?

I can't really know with only this little bit to work with, but it's definitely not bad.

Also, she mentions a thread. As in a thread on 4chan? That would be consistent with a narrator who calls small talk with his girlfriend banal.

From this little bit though I'd like to see you keep going, I liked it and would read on.

>>4474280

Please continue writing poetry like this. I laughed so hard at the first one.

These poems remind me of lyrics to folk punk songs, in the best way possible.

Really dude these are clever without being pretentious and funny/violent without being edgy, self critical without being terrible self pity.

The entire McDonalds series is my favirote.

I'd say continue with these types of poems and doing something with them, I sincerely enjoyed them. Now good luck trying to write with this much praise and pressure, sorry about that.

Not even saying it's genius or the best shit I've ever read but you'd fill in the niche currently and unfortunately occupied by unclever obnoxious twats really well.

Goodnight everyone

>>4474314
Well hot damn, I wasn't expecting anyone to be that on point about that paragraph. Yeah, the banal bit was meant as criticism, so I will try to be more sparing in its use later. Thanks for the critique, anon, I was losing interest in this thing pretty quickly and now I'm more motivated to continue.

>>4474266

Pretty please with a cherry on top?

>>4471467

>>4473308
Fuck it, here's a sample.

The Winter calls me quietly,
It doesn't need to shout.
It begs me open up the door
To see what it's about.
It tells me it has things to show me,
Secret, weird and strange.
It asks if it might make suggestions
So that I might change.

The Winter calls me softly,
But it might as well have yelled.
I find I can't ignore it,
Even with the tolling bells.
My friends, my sister and my people
All have their own cries,
I say they're most important,
But my heart knows my head lies.

The Winter calls me gently, tells me
“You belong out here.
Your place is with the drifts and glaciers
Hard and sharp and clear.
Fling off your shawl! Embrace the ice!
Leave mortal flesh behind!
Be one with all that's cold and white
Until the end of time!”

The Winter calls me tenderly,
As with a lover's tone.
And how I wish that in this hour
My heart was as a stone.
I eat, I sleep, I live, I laugh, and
Do what people do,
But still the Winter calls to me.
I can't ignore- what to do?

>>4473499
hey man i critique words. are my words the type of words that are automatically erased from memory after reading? if so i guess that may be a good thing <*v*>

"Forget my name"

Step alone through the night,
All the way into day
Mornin' light, the mornin' light

Travel light, on my own,
With a knife and a phone
Break of day, the break of day
Steal away, steal away

Make my way to the shores
Of the beach two towns away
Walking sand like shattered glass

Say goodbye to my father,
Threw my phone into the water
Who needs friends anyway?

Forget my name, forget my name
Lay on me
all the blame

I ain't nice, I just like to smile
Your teardrops stain the tile

In my mind I'm drawing curtains
I wanna sail my bathtub across the ocean
But I know that I ain't clean

I'm turning lights off in my house
Kiss my best friend on the mouth
Tell her "Hell, I can't leave"

I can't leave

>>4474314

thanks man! it means a lot. I have a few other mcdonalds poems. I'll show you in my next post.

>>4474313

I tend to agree with you pretty much exactly. They mostly are just doodles. I put the paintball one first because it was the first one i looked for when I went through my folder.

>>4474314

I want to have McDonalds French Fries with my Whopper
But Burger King is too far away from any McDonalds I know about
And by the time I got there, my fries would be cold and soggy
I’d probably even eat them before that even happened
I guess I could get the Whopper first
But then my burger would be cold and soggy

___

In the future, braces will be fitted to take on hamburgers and bubble gum
And all the dentists will be owned by McDonalds or something
I don't know why they care about bubble gum
Maybe they put gum in their kid's meals instead of toys
Because in the future, kids will love to chew on things and smile gladly

The Burger King will get sad because McDonalds bubble gum is a happier hit than their whoppers that they never changed in 30 years.
And then the Burger King will start making his burgers out of bubble gum and it won't even be food anymore but the kids will love it nonetheless and chew on it nonetheless and never eat real food again and they will smile gladly and then everyone will die

__

I want there to be a McDonalds Super Mall
Much like the Great Mall of America
Except the roller coasters will be better
And the samples will be Big Macs
And there will be Golden Arch Fountains
And everyone will be smiling and have Frozen Cokes
And everybody will get a toy with their meal
Even the adults.
And everyone will be equal

__

I wonder if there's anyone who masturbates furiously and then just stops right before they cum
To like punish themselves for being bad in some way
"That'll teach me. I'll never do that again. Ever"
Of if they just do it for fun
I don't know
That doesn't sound very fun to me
Talk about masochism
I think its weird when people get off to not getting off

__

I want every McDonalds in the world to be in one place
And I want a tornado to run through that place
I want everyone there to be terrified and scared
I want them to think that their lives are over
That many McDonalds was too good to be true
Something bad just had to happen
But something bad didn’t happen.
The power of the Golden Arches protected everyone
And everyone realized that McDonalds is a good thing
And they would be thankful for McDonalds
Because without McDonalds, their lives would be over.

__

I always ask you who your favorite character was
And you always say
"Walt Jr."
I always say "Walt Jr. is pretty great"
And you always say "Walt Jr. is beautiful"
And I always thought you meant this metaphorically
Since he is beautiful and great
Then I realize that he has these really thick eyebrows
And then i realize again that he has really brown hair
And I already know that I have thick eyebrows and really brown hair
And then I realize that these are both features that you say turn you on
So now I think that you think Cerebral Palsy is hot
If you're into that kinda thing, that's cool, I guess.

- I have a few more I like enough to share. I'll share them later, hopefully.

Another Personification of the Ocean

My mistress only knows two steps
Though her feet are numbered more
She has perhaps some millions
When counted shore to shore

Her footstep are so dainty
They evaporate at once
No living choreographer
Could organize her dance

Nor critic prop’rly judge it
Nor ballerina try
To mimic all her graces
Lest her ribbons missaply

At night she beckons to me
At high noon I’m pushed away
By the gentle salty cadence
That soars about the bay

When I approach too closely
She pulls the sand from ‘neath my feet
Brine soaked punches clobber —
Our relations — bittersweet!

>>4474521
These are great. My two favorites were the one about "getting off to not getting off" and "walt jr".

Both have the same trait of seeming to be an easily followable train of thought, with approachable concepts and simple things that make you chuckle and think a little bit. Tiny philosophical moments.

I did however think the rest were a bit contrived and trying too hard, especially the first 3. I think you were trying to achieve the same "thoughts at a bus stop" effect but ended up getting a little bit too abstract and off the mark.

>>4474537

Yeah sometimes i just go off on a tangent and it doesn't work.

My worst poems are like 3 different tangent/rants in the same poem and they are usually not clever. Sometimes i hit gold, though.

Thanks for the advice and stuff. (Although i do especially like the mcdonalds one about everyone being equal. I don't know why, but that whole notion fucks with me hard).

Here, have one more McDonalds one that I forgot about until now. It may be my favorite:

I want to flirt with McDonalds
And make her my bitch
I want her to smile at me
And I’ll smile back at her
And eventually
We’ll be smiling together
But then I’ll frown
And then she’ll frown
And I won’t know what to do
So I’ll tell her to go away
And she’ll go away
But I’ll still see her
Standing across the street
Looking at me
While we eat McFlurries
And we’ll both smile again
And everything will be alright
Even though it wasn’t meant to be

-I dont know why, but McDonalds really messed with my head. One week, the only thing I wrote about was mcdonalds.

>>4474536
You don't speak or even think in this idiolect. Elevation's fine, but elevate your own voice.

"It's a lot easier to write semi-sarcastic bullshit than something that actually supports itself on the base of it sown merit," said uncle Clit.

I had to agree with him.

There’s a place in the sidewalk,
On the way home from the bus stop,
Where it curves a little bit,
Shady and gentle,
So that if you weren’t paying attention you might
Walk right off
Into the street.

I’m almost home at this point,
And it’s already getting dark,
As the year methodically sputters out.
And I’m listening to the Velvet Underground,
Like a pretentious shit,
Pale Blue Eyes, through my
Electric blue headphones,
That I bought this summer
In Hong Kong. And I’m a little bit sad
And a little bit happy.
So it’s just another afternoon.

Except this time I notice the way
the sidewalk curves in that spot,
And so I almost stop right there,
And I nearly walk out into the street,
Diagonally across the neighborhood,
So that soon I’m jogging,
And then I’m sprinting, lungs heaving,
Like I’m being chased,
Because I just can’t stand the stillness anymore.
And I’m making a beeline to nowhere in particular,
Only the great unknown that lies
Just past the asphalt and concrete.

I don’t though.
Instead I walk along the sidewalk,
As it bends softly home.

>>4474604
exactly the kind of competent, well-made poem that makes me question the point of poetry

>>4464343
Cold Linen feels of sterile chalk.
Burnt toast toast wakes me
as I wait for sleep
again,
in the suffocating freedom.

Promiscuity is what makes us human. The deviance of our subconscious defines us. By day we gather in suits and ties and dresses over coffee, spewing about stocks and trading. But as the light drains so too does morality. We drink and fuck and steal and hurt. In the dusk hours though, when the light has not faded and colour has not drained, lies humanity. Humanity is blurred, an old man without glasses who has experienced so much but through a lens smeared by opinion.

>>4474630
Beautiful.

I think the intercourse of human beings is the most naturalistic, humanistic state.

>>4474630
this is amazing...

>>4474618
A little piece of toast

>>4474630
Go to bed Sasha Grey. Humanity is best defined in the act where we overcome the animal.

>>4474967
you can't hate on toast.

Not sure if anyone will be bothered to read all of this, figured I'd post it anyway. WIP, so the title doesn't make sense as of yet or anything

>>4474536
"once" and "dance" is a little bit of a stretch for a rhyme

>>4474604
Yeah, I quite like this

bump

I am just a cranial vat of radioactive ooze
Kept alive by the necromancer known as caffeine
My liver is writhing and decrepit
Both sustained and tortured by the shit I put in.
The four horsemen of my apocalypse have names:
Dramamine, dilaudid,
Tramadol and Diclofenac.
My deadly seven sins are my closest friends
Cocaine is my wrath
Secobarbital my greed
Fluoxetine my sloth
Alcohol my pride
MDMA is my lust
Special K my envy
Marijuana is my gluttony

The neighbours are taking a shower
Just one shower for the two of them
They’re yelling
And fighting
Making mock romance
The faucet keeps dripping
The pipes run behind my basement wall
Down into the ground
Carrying every noise
Words and fluids like punches
They love each other
And it keeps dripping
They’ve been at it four hours now
And it keeps dripping

>>4474580
So? No one speaks in the idiolect of any metrical poetry. I don't understand the criticism.

>>4475013
>what is slant rhyme

>>4475013
Those brick wall paragraphs are giving me terrible flashbacks to college.

>>4474536
I like it. The sense of being swept up the other two critiques focus on is apt, but I would advise eliminating some of the Dickinson in the last stanza to clarify your meaning.

>>4475709
I hate to explain what I was going for, but if it can help me I guess I will.

The ocean's waves rolling in and out become the steps of a simple dance, complicated by its immense scale. So I tried to distance the dance from what we would normally think of it using the critic and ballerina. Maybe a stretch, but the beckoning is the sea breeze and land breeze respectively. One pushes towards and the other away from the ocean. A kind of secret lover. In the last stanza, where I assume you have some confusion, the narrator gets too close to the ocean, and as the wave retreats the sand is dragged back into the ocean and he loses balance so that the next round of incoming waves humiliate him.

And yeah I've been reading alot of american poetry, so the dickinson/hymmnal comparison is unmistakable.

>>4475739
>She pulls the sand from ‘neath my feet
>Brine soaked punches clobber —
>Our relations — bittersweet!
Here is the part there's a problem with. Because you're leaning on Dickinson but not enough for it to be direct how this actually reads is unfocused. I can see you want to say that your relations are bittersweet, but it comes across as neither the sand nor brine soaked punches being synonymous with your relations so much as clobber. I'd recommend another break at sand so that which is bittersweet is what she pulls the sand from, your relations, and the punches. Or else you can change the first of the hyphen breaks in those lines to a larger stop and have bittersweet relate to the relations described in the previous sentence or clause.

>>4475775
it is commonly disputed what dickinson's hyphens actually imply, so I must be especially confusing if we have different interpretations.

With the last stanza, I don't want to say that she, the ocean, is bittersweet; I want to say that our relationship with one another is, because I appreciate her beauty but she still has something like a temper. the break in the last line is more like an appositive or you can even think of it as a linking verb [our relations are bittersweet]. I meant the preceding line to be its own clause in a matter of fact way. Like the waves clobber me, not that they clobber our relations.

Maybe I need to be more thoughtful with how I use those breaks if I do decide to use them frequently.

Thanks for your thoughtful criticism though. Still if you have any more suggestions, or if you think I'm misunderstanding please tell me

There he is. He’s walking on the pedestrian lane while the opposite road was dense with metal. The jewel blue sky was marked with the scars of momentary etches made by the passing, roaring Jet engines that in them, housed the luxury of extra ordinary furnishings. Inside of him he felt a great distance. He felt his mind miles away, under the canopy of tree limbs, housing himself from the screaming sun and the empty sky. His body, though, was on the sidewalk, covering distance, and turning corner to corner to escape the day. The day was at his heel. He could feel it. He could feel the thoughtless hours he entered re-formatted the spreadsheet endlessly until his mind numbed and he was calmed by opiate thoughts.
He wished the opiate thoughts would come now, they were sitting in a lounge with something sweet playing, and his hair was wet. On the sidewalk his hair was dry and the cars were honking.
He was in an ocean of bodies and heads. Silent and motionless, they all wandered down the streets looking for a cure from the streets, they wanted out, they wanted into some unknown thoughtless institution to preserve them for the exchange of their organic fuel, for their mechanical or social ability to break minerals or people. There was also the process of preparation, something that those dense heads call art. It is not what they want. It is nothing that they want. It was either vastly bad deals or no deals at all, while the deals up above, the narrow tube of the capstone, always got juicier. Those up at the capstone bear the horrible and selfless burden of consuming the majority of what was produced in the industrial square. The demon union had left its mark by the circle of sitting laughing men.
He crossed the threshold, the wax thin line between sweet consumption and over to industrial production.
The air was black and worn thin, stretched to each end of the brain ending spectrum, going back and forth with a nerve-like speed, etching the rotational path of extreme to extreme.
There was a congress of workers on bottom and toe, chuckling and grinning as they leisurely consumed the day’s last lunch. This is customary with strenuous roadside work, atleast, those that are done legally and with union.
Held in mind, and contained ire, he wondered whether or not the roadside laughs stretching through the unnatural air were directed toward his person. This was a fault he held through primary school. There was a comfort in his paranoia, that he felt was a result of his own construction, an invented perception.
As he rounded the edge of the path he couldn’t help but shout out to answer the laughter, a quiet and breathless; “What’s the joke?”
Chuckling, giggling, roaring, crashing of internal waves answered.
“Show us your hands.”
“What?”
“Show us those clean hands, you deaf palmwhite,” one squeezed out.
He extended his pair of soft hands.
There was a wave of sound, a sort of, sonar tsunami roaring miles above him.

>>4475824
It might be easier to see this in this form:
>She pulls the sand from neath my feet brine soaked punches clobber - our relations - bittersweet.
What you you probably want is:
>She pulls the sand from neath my feet- brine soaked punches clobber- our relations - bitter sweet.
[or]
>She pulls the sand from neath my feet, brine soaked punches clobber; our relations - bittersweet.
There's other means to do it to change the clause positioning like
>She pulls the sand - from neath my feet, brine soaked punches clobber - our relations - bittersweet
The break as it is is too close to standard punctuation to not change the implication; you need either more to make it Dickinson where the breaks don't look like clauses, or to make your clauses sharper so you convey the meaning. I'm pretty sure I get what you mean (I didn't mean that she was bittersweet as an entity, but that her pulling of the sand is bittersweet as an action) and what you're aiming for, but for right now it's neither here nor there. I haven't copied your punctuation exactly in those examples because it's to convey the grammatical sense the breaks make when read.

>>4475882
oh so you thought i used bittersweet as a kind of quasi adverb.

When I approach too closely
She pulls the sand from ‘neath my feet —
Brine soaked punches clobber —
Our relations — bittersweet!

This is the best way I can imagine it being fixed without rewriting the whole stanza. I know you might not like the break in the last line, but I think without it, there's no humor or levity in the poem.

The third line definitely is suspect though.

>>4475945
Now we're on the same page and I think that works. The break in the last line does work; I'd sacrifice the others before it. Maybe strip the third line and replace it but I'd consider it strong enough with just the additional break.

>>4474536
>At high noon I’m pushed away

Doesn't scan nicely. Think your feet are off here a little. I like it I guess otherwise. Always nice to see someone who has a bit of a clue about form on /lit/.

on a receipt #4

30 dollars at the pub
I'm up late again
Missed class, for all the frost
my car was frozen in place
I could not see where I was going
Like always.
I tried to sleep and I dreamed
of other girls I knew once.
I'm reaching out to fill the void you left
in my life
I need company, but
They'd rather be sleeping
While I sit alone at the pizzeria,
Thursday night
Talking to the bartender about
Physics and biology
They'd rather be sleeping
And I'd rather fall down sideways

ithin Chicago's heart- its beat the steady staccato clacks of a thousand keyboards punctuated by the steady thrum of the rhythmic clicking trains passing over silent streets- the downbeat begins. Slowly at first the lucky few are told they're done for the day, and the unlucky that they're finished. A tiny trickle of profitable blood emerges from its glass paned chambers, doors open and suits flow. They clutch briefcases, phones, books all containing the life giving oxygen of knowledge. They flow outward along streets and into bright yellow cabs that carry them to airports, trains, and cars of their own. The flow begins to intensify as more clocks tick by. The doorways once sieves, become choke points. Commuters squeeze past each other carrying on conversations with loved ones in the extremities. I should be home by 7. A chorus seems to sing. The flow continues. Doors become clogged awaiting Tokyo style angioplasty that will never arrive. The chorus turn from declaration to argumentation. Hey watch it asshole. I have meet my mother. . Excuse me. The cells begin to clog and coagulate into a self destroying cancer. Cabs begin to the fill the street like sand in a buried coffin. Bikes weave snakelike through the stalled passage. Horns begin to bleat out a work Schoenberg would be proud of. The beat slows. a great burst it breaks, and the beat continues. The suits begin to flow to extremities along great arteries of concrete. They drive their many colored cars, swearing and swerving in and out of lanes as they rush home to the blushing and aging brides alike. They being to move through the first ventricle long ago outdated and first on the list. It's great curves twisting beneath and above each other: a great concrete ouroboros.

Some of the complete and utter horseshit I wrote yesterday. I haven't even given it a once over, so be prepared for the horror.

Clouds swirled above, being blown off the sea by a stiff wind. Out in the bay choppy waters forced in all the fishing vessels, angering the captains, who suffered in missing even a single day of harvest in the peak oyster season. Their carriage trundled down one of the numerous streets. No rhyme or reason dictated the placement of these thoroughfares, they had sprouted up mostly as old buildings had fallen, either demolished or simply rotting with the time. Far away, in the lower district, came the chime of church bells. It reverberated through the city, signaling 9a.m., and only seconds later the sounds disappeared back into the restless pouring of factory machines.

Sitting on the front of the carriage, Ned surveyed the road, and beside him Matilda glowered. Last evening, over dinner, Richard had summoned the maid, informing her that she would lead his guard. Looks very seldom were capable of killing, but not for lack of trying. Children dashed along the streets, some having just finished shifts in the factories, their faces covered in soot, to jump into the deep puddles clogging the drains lining the walkways. Clogs of sticky refuse kept shut the grating, only ever fixed by the occasional muck raker, basket affixed to their back and pronged fork held ready to not only shovel sludge but jab at the hands of the more persistent homeless beneath the grating.

Bags now hung beneath Ned’s eyes, having not gotten much sleep the previous night. Richard has been kind enough, or paranoid enough, to give him the guest room beside his own. Mattresses in the city, if you had one, would be at best stuffed with straw. In contrast the one housed in the canopied four poster bed enveloped him in a world of uncomfortable softness. Not only that, but a servant had come to change his bedpans, the hot coals nearly singing his back through the feet of compressed feathers. Dressed in a white apron, young and petite, she had seemed like a nice enough girl, but watching her eyes he could tell she brought a more sinister purpose.

Though his sleeping arrangements were not the only thing to keep him awake.

“Now, what secret do you want me to steal?” he had asked the night before, enjoying a custard tart, topped with delicately sliced fruit he did not recognize.

“I don’t know,” Richard had replied, shoving a large slice of pie down his own.

>>4477247
“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“Very simply that. I do not have any idea what hidden things you may find. Why would I even go through the trouble of hiring you if I knew the secret, or even an idea of what to look for, then it would merely be a matter of price. No, this is much more heavily guarded, with locks that no key, much less one made of gold, can open. Instead we needs a man who can pick the tumblers.” Shooting a sidelong glance to Matilda beside him, Ned gave a brief moment of wonderment at how the woman could fancy one who bore bore the eating habits of a starved dog. Behind him muffled voices spoke to one another within the carriage.

“Nothing? You have nothing? How am I supposed to work with absolutely nothing, this is ludicrous."

>>4476124
What does scan mean? I know some of the metrical stuff is lousy, but I've only recently started to try to be serious about poetry.
So far I've just been emulating and studying different forms. I think I need to get comfortable in that realm before I try something more free. Anyway, I think the most beautiful poems I've read are ones that pay careful attention to form. I like Elizabeth Bishop, Octavio Paz, and Thomas Kinsella quite a bit, and their accomplishments are due in part to knowledge of form.

My friends seem to like this one the best, but I think of most of the stuff I'm writing now as exercise.

Anarchist Barber

Mi compañero (do you mind this term?)
All of Spain thinks I’d look good in a perm.
The Aragonese and Catalan care
So, por favor, won’t you tend to my hair?
I talked with my captain, spoke to the nurse;
Even the cav ‘lry supports me on this.
This proposéd style may not suit your wont,
But you are skilled so no doubt will I vaunt.

Picture the looks of the fascist faces
When on the battlefield, of all places
They see my shimmering boundless black hair
Waving proudly as the flags you now bare,
And if I should approach one at his post
There’s one thing I should hope he thinks most:

"Perhaps there’s something deeper
in that black I cannot see.
Will this cryptic sentiment
be always lost from me?”

He looked at me with starry disbelief
And in effect, told me to “come back soon.”
I carried out with me tremendous grief,
And never again felt unlike a loon.
I heard the snoring of the street-side bum;
He knows as I, mañana never comes.

bump

Did you know that she has 47 hazel flecks in her left eye and 48 in her right eye? It always annoyed me because they were so close but one off, and when she saw me counting she asked what I was doing and I told her I was wondering whether surgery was a viable option but decided it wouldn't be preferable because it's a good thing that it annoyed me. I tried counting all the hairs on her head but she interrupted me at 148 with a kiss and it completely broke my train of thought because all that I could think about was cherry lipstick: I never liked cherries before but now I do.
I told her I loved her 257 times.

She did the same 43 times,
but those 43 times were sincere and they were the 43 best moments of my life.

She said her favourite language was Italian so I lied and said I spoke it fluently.That afternoon I got out a book on Italian from the library and I learned Italian. So ancora tutto quanto. Ti amo is Italian for I love you and whenever I said it she would giggle and give me a kiss.

We were sitting in seats J-11 and J-12 when she first said there was something between us and we were sitting in seats L-08 and L-09 when she first said she loved me. It was during Thor 2 at 00:48:05, I pirated the movie and skipped to the exact part where she said it just to see exactly what was happening in the movie then. Nothing much.

On the Resene colour chart her eyes are Moroccan brown and her hair is Brown Sugar.

the last thing she said to me was 'one last kiss?' and I didn't say anything and got out of her car. Because I didn't want it then. Technically, the offer's still standing. I'm saving it for some time special.

She said that our priorities were too different and that she felt she didn't have anything to talk to me about apart from work and how she was going to uni. I wanted to grab her and tell her to shut up because she was my only priority and that I would do anything to make her happy and she should think the same about herself but instead my eyes were glued to the negative space between us and i just nodded slowly and kinda sigh/grunted because that seemed like the thing to do.

The trees sway from left to right, the birds are chirping and the sky is blue yet I don’t feel the slightest bit of bliss, just melancholy. My mood is no longer a product of the outside world, but one of inner turmoil and self-loathing. Knowledge comes with age yet the older I become the more I learn, and the more I learn the less I understand. I am plagued with uncertainty. The world is spinning at light speed around me, all this clamour and chaos is deafening. I can’t even hear myself think. Only the desire to escape the rabbit hole I’m living in gets me out of bed. I wake up, disoriented, ignorant of the problems that dictate my sanity for a few blissful seconds. Then as my mind returns to the land of the living it hits me like dozens of needles in the back of my head. I smile, I beam, I joke around, I laugh and I let hopefulness dictate my words. The metal screeches, the buses howl and the children shriek yet I keep my mask plastered on… never letting my guard down…

>>4477310
How can you know of the forms when you know nothing of scansion?

>>4477809
It's like "The Curious Incident" has grown up and found love. I like it, and it's cute, but it would start to irritate me if it went beyond the brevity of flash fiction.

WIP of a map for a short story that might evolve into a full novel later on.

God I love world-building.

did this thread die yet? im always late to these threads and they're my favorite

>>4480223
It's not dead if you contribute.

The stone was blue, and the light reflected off it in a mysterious way. Kadan flipped the smooth, hard object over in his hand. He felt its weght, it weighed about as much as the normal stonea from the creek. The odd part was that it was blue. A bright blue. It had a strange, almost luminous, quality to it. As if it not only absorbed the sunlight but synergized it. This was the stone he was looking for, he could just tell. He placed it in his pocket and walked briskly back to where he came from, an open clearing, a wound in the pine forest. Tents were set up, and men and women were walking towards destinations with urgency in their stride. They all but noticed Kadan, who swerved silently through the commotion of midday. He was increasingly aware of the weight in his pocket. He felt, illogically, like he had a secret to keep.

The reached a tent on the far side of the field, a small one decorated with laces of colorful flora and seashells. Kadan had no worry of losing his tent in this sea of brown, maybe that was the only benefit to being apprentice of Shak.
"

He was speechless, his hands were cold, and his heart was pounding. He stood completely still, attempting to not show any weakness. He stared at the judge's eyes, praying to god that she would show any type of sympathy. Little did he know that the mistress sitting in front of him was completely cold hearted.
The teenaged boy was wise, very intelligent, and very talented. His only flaw was that he was different. This was what led him to his down fall. The world's people do not like uniqueness. They are scared of difference.
The kid was brave and bold. Many authority figures hated him because he would do things no one else dared to. They found ways to make his life a living hell. In return, he as well found ways to be challenging.
The judge was baffled by the presence of the boy. She was confused on how such a sweet and innocent looking kid, could be accused of such vile accusations. She didn't seem to grasp the idea why so many people wanted him locked away. Outside, people who wanted their voices heard, shouted awful things, such as, "Burn him by the stake!" "Cut him up and feed him to the dogs!" "Poison his food so he can rot in hell!"
These people do not realize how cruel they can be. This boy does not deserve to be treated like a criminal. He has done nothing wrong. It is amazing what a group of people can do.
The judge thinks for a long period of time. The room becomes tense. Sweat drips down the boy's cheek as the judge announces his fate. The room falls silent.
"We the people, outraged and shocked by this boy's actions, find him guilty."
The whole courtroom celebrates. Everyone besides one girl in the very back, tears race down her cheeks as she stares into the boy's eyes. She knows very well on whats bound to happen.
>better than all of you

The steam rose up majestically as Carlos peed his name into the snow. There was a little bit of splash-back due to unfavorable wind direction, but on the whole it was a quick and efficient way to get fired from his job as a kindergarten teacher.

>>4480266
You should use more indirect personalization, it's pretty boring, like reading a character outline. I don't mean to be dickish

The sight of Andy’s black Volvo has always stirred up my memories. I often imagine it surrounded by his gang of junkies. I met Andy not long before my EMDR therapy; which was not long before my Electro-Shock therapy. I used to say if it wasn’t for Andy, I would have killed myself. I had tried to kill myself twice before I met Andy, but I’ve never attempted since.

His posse would gather daily around his Volvo, and extract secrets from one another. This consisted of the daily gossip we could never get from a paper source. Brent’s abusive relationship or Collin’s poor track record with women; all secrets were spilled. We did this until matters became more crucial. It wasn’t long before the whole city had one name on its mind. Not as much a name as an epithet. - Though for all we knew, the guy’s name was actually King.

i slicked back my hair, pinrolled my jeans to allow maximum visibility of my burgundy newbalance 420s, and confidently walked up to my mark, ignoring the cries of annoyance that i was cutting in line along the way because if there is one thing a woman loves, it's a man who knows how to cut lines if you know what i mean. when i got in front of the window, i cleared my throat and assumed my 'alpha male stance' by standing with my knees bent, shoulder length apart, and holding the corners of my unzipped hoodie above my head in order to make myself appear larger and more physically intimidating. finally, i threw back my head and released a primal, undulating cry into the night air which succeeded in scaring off any rival suitors and gained the attention of my desired female. the crowd ceased their initial complaints and nervously backed away, obviously intimidated by powerful alpha male display.
"sir, im going to have to ask you to leave." said the ticket lady. i had her right where i wanted her. i released another scream into the night, "TIICKEETSSSSS" i bellowed, rhythmically pounding my fists into the window. it was no use, though my display had been impressive it was clear that this female was not interested. yet.

>>4480266
>He was speechless, his hands were cold, and his heart was pounding.

There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti.

Author of
>>4466344
>>4466346
>>4471434
>>4471436
>>4471440
here.

I might as well have you all review the first three chapters of my novel. Let me know what you all think. It's fantasy, and yet it's historical, and I'm not sure if you'd call it young adult or not.

Let me know what you think.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jIEFwqpb-8_zuD8rvkaufxIbztL0oIZZYaUPAchuURI/edit

>>4480513
>The story that would change the fate of the world...
Done.

>>4480517
How should I start it off?

>>4480535
I would go with "our story begins" if you're going to do something like that

>>4480544
That's... yeah, that's a lot better. Simple and direct. I'll fix it, thanks.

>>4480535
>IT was on he misty streets X
>The story that would change the fate of the world began in a small, ramshackle village on the cold shores of the East Sea.
>Waves smashed into the rocky shore sending a fine bone-chilling mist into the air of the small, ramshackle, village that hugged the coast for not only for protection but food as well.(Needs to be trimmed but a decent set up with information of village.)

You don't need to foreshadow the story to come just set up a subtle checkov gun if you need to push the story along.

http://pastebin.com/GCEm9SsC

First few paragraphs of something I have mostly written in a cheap composition notebook.

oops, posted this in the wrong thread

http://pastebin.com/1xR4qJ26

I haven't been able to work on this at all lately, but hopefully somebody will have a fresh take on it since I've posted it before but with some minor changes.

>>4480564
Wow never type advice when you haven't slept all day. I'm surprised I even made capcha.

>>4480564
Honestly, I'm just going to go with

>The story began in a small, ramshackle village on the cold shores of the East Sea. It was poor and run down, a motley collection of straw roofs and stone hearths. A temple in its southeast corner was its only substantial feature.

Sets the mood and doesn't try to foreshadow anything. The scene that follows establishes the tone well enough.

>>4480582
It's good for future group reads or one on one critiques really. Obvious foreshadows disgusts the lot of the more pretentious on this board but if it grabs my attention I'll keep reading.

Most importantly though don't write the story someone wants you too write, write the story that you want to write. Not to say ignore criticism but don't change your writing style because one person has a problem with it.

>>4480591
No, I'm totally going to listen to them, because I've been struggling with the opening paragraph of this story for a while now. I'm never quite sure how to begin things, so I may as well just say "The story begins this way," and set to writing.

I'm not a big fan of obvious foreshadowing either, to be honest. I just kept writing it because I felt I needed to have it, given what sort of story I wanted to tell.

>>4480608
Honestly I would just skip the "story begins" part and be like

>It was a small, ramshackle village on the cold shores of the East Sea. It was poor and run down, a motley collection of straw roofs and stone hearths. A temple in its southeast corner was its only substantial feature.

It sounds more writerly, and is more engaging. I don't think I've ever read "the story begins" in anything but childrens novels

Fuckin shit man
I don't even know
I don't want to do anything
Or be anything
Or just be at all anymore
Just want to curl up and fade out
No bang here, no way
My life was a fucking one-hit wonder
They played on the radio a couple times
When I was driving to San Diego
In that fucking American Dream traffic
All these people in their cars
Living their lives too
It's like everybody's the same
You know? One big organism
Or like some giant ass cancer
Enveloping the whole universe
In a blanket of sadness

Hello my name is Chole I'm 16 and I just moved to London with my best friend. My mom died in a car accident when I was 6 and my dad's a drug addict that doesn't care about me.

I'm hungry I thought. I decided to go to starbucks. When I was ordering I felt a hand on my ass and I turned around and saw Harry from One Direction smirking. He was staring at my boobs with his green orbs.

"I hate One Direction" I said

"I love you Chloe" he said (((how the fuk does he know my name I thought but I didn't say anything)))

He touched my boobs and I was like :) then he took my hands and we led me to the bathroom. We fucked.

He brought me back to his flat. His band mates fell in love with me. I giggled :) :) :)

Harry had a show in London that night. He told me to go with him and so I did.

During the concert he couldn't stop looking at me!!

Then he stopped singing and went "I have an announcement" he pointed at me and said "Everyone meet Chloe mynew girlfriend..." I smiled :) "...Chloe I need to ask you something babe..." What was he going to say???? I thought "Will you marry me?" I nodded and he told me he loved me :)

Then the girl next to me started beating me up and everyone joined in. I slipped into coma.
TO BE CONTINUED...

Chris awoke to the sound of passing automobiles cruising by the sidewalk on which he slept. There was a mild chatter coming from the bar, which lay parallel to the road and the sidewalk."What did I do?" The first thought rattled from the slowly accelerating cogs inside of his mind."You’ll find out in due time, little Christopher." Another voice rang out from inside his head. He sighed a defeated sigh. The kind of sigh you would hear from a man who has just been disarmed by another man in combat."Let’s get you home, Christopher. We have guests, you know?" He closed his eyes, imagining all of the possible implications of such a statement from such a malevolent being."Time’s ticking Christopher, and time is something that shouldn’t be taken for granted. You’ll learn that soon enough."

>>4480661
Chris was a boy plagued by nightmares. All of his worst fears, all of the ways he wished not to die, they all found him in his dreams. No matter how frightening a scene appeared before him though, it always ended the same. A man, out of focus, off in the distance, yet whispering seemingly right into his ear,"Christopher. Christopher? Come with me, Christopher."This was always the point at which he would wake up, frustrated. If he could just reach the man, all of his nightmares would vanish, he figured. One night as Chris slept, he heard the voice again. He looked over to see the figure of irradiating light, standing out against the darkness that loomed overhead. The dream didn’t end this time. Chris took a step, then another, then broke off in a sprint toward the man. As he got closer though, the figure began to look...off. Something about him was unsettling, mysterious, scary. Chris stopped in his tracks. He tried to run in the other direction, but he had become as a star, too close to the black hole to escape its endless reach. He fought the great tide that tried to pull him back to the figure, but soon he learned that he could not resist.

>>4480668
He awoke that morning feeling different, in a way. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. Something within him was angry. It wanted blood. It wanted to kill. It began to speak to him within his mind, but that was as far as it would ever go. He knew it could take control of him, but not without a major drain to its energy. He knew this because it had told him so.

>>4480673
As Chris grew, he went on with his life, did his homework, played football, had friends, went to prom, got married, and had a child. But deep in his mind a war was taking place. "Break his neck!" The voice would shout as he wrestled an opposing player to the ground. "Slit her throat!" Came the voice as he cut his 30th birthday cake in front of his now ex-wife. Chris had spent the better half of the last 8 years distancing himself from his young daughter. He wanted the parasite to know as little as possible about her and it pained him to have to push her away. The voice would taunt him, "Where’s Katie? C’mon Christopher! Where’s Katie? You know how much I would love to meet her…"

>>4480675
"Hey! We’re here." There was excitement, almost anticipation, in the voice. Chris slowly creaked the door open and went inside. He stood in silence for almost a whole minute. "You know, I couldn’t help but notice that you were thinking a lot about Katie on the way here." A sinister snarl this time. "What if I told you she’s closer than you think?" His eyes grew wide as he rushed upstairs. Every door in the house was opened, except for one empty room. Katie’s room. Chris sprinted to it, tears starting to form at the corners of his eyes. As the door opened, he heard the click of some kind of mechanism. He saw his daughter restrained in one chair, blindfolded with a syringe in each arm, obviously sedated. In another chair was a man in the same position as Katie, but with only one syringe in his right arm.

>>4480681
"A man returns home to find an uninvited visitor,"the voice riddled. "This guest wishes nothing but harm upon the man’s family and withholds the only thing that could save his daughter’s life." Chris was through playing. "What did you do to her?" Chris let his disgust be known."I think you mean, what did YOU do?" It snickered in enjoyment. "Your daugher...she is allergic to bees...no?" It was obvious it already knew this for a fact. "The syringe on her left carries a small dosage of this variety of venom, which you so kindly delivered into her upon opening the door. As for the location of her epinephrine...well, I’d suggest going with your gut." Chris rushed to the drawer in his bedside table only to find the pen moved from its normal home. He returned to the room, now noticing the solitary knife that had been left on the ground, pointed toward the man. "No."

>>4480684
Chris took his frustration out on the walls of the room, as if the voice came from the house itself. He knew where the antidote was hidden. Chris shook his head, fighting tears as he picked up the knife. "Christopher, you know what you have to do. It’s either him or her." With a shaking hand, he plunged the knife into this man of whom he barely knew, who probably had a wife, kids, dreams of the future. It was all gone now and he was only a vesicle for the fate of a little girl who meant nothing to him or his life. Chris somehow managed to hold back vomit as he dug inside of the man. A part of him was enjoying this. The part that wasn’t really him. Finally, he felt something abnormally hard and plastic. With one swift motion, he ripped the pen out of the man, as if expecting Excalibur itself to appear in his hand. He quickly ran the pen under water in the bathroom sink, careful not to look at the murderer stood across from him. He ran back to the room and put a comforting hand on his daughter’s shoulder as the needle delivered the antidote into her veins. "You know what? That was fun and all, but I’m not really...satisfied yet. That was all just too easy for you, you monster. So, You’re going to kill her too." Before Chris could do anything, his right arm flew toward the dirty knife which lay delicately on the floor a few feet away. Chris struggled against the invisible foe inside of him, against himself. The hand and knife moved as if magnetically attracted to the little girl. Chris used what control he had over his legs to bring himself to the window a few yards behind Katie, using his elbow to shatter the glass. "This...isn’t your body anymore Christopher!" The voice sneered. "I...am your life! I...am your everything! You would...You would be nothing...without...ME!"Chris had never heard such noise that did not exist. He felt as if the being was trying to burst him from the inside out. He knew it would never let him simply put the knife through his heart. In one fluid motion, he leaped from the window, face toward the ground, knife to his chest.

>>4480691
Katie now sat alone, to be happened upon by a caring individual. As she waited she slept. It was just her, her dreams, and a figure far away, out of focus, yet whispering into her ear, "Katie, Katie? Come with me, Katie..."

>I wrote this when I was 18. Probably the most emo thing I ever wrote.

When I was young the City was concrete arteries with a body of green; segments of city melted against the beach as a forest coursed seamlessly into the dunes. I grew to watch the green waste away into memory as this industrial claustrophobia constructs its foundations. I saw a creature fade before my eyes and a monster arise in my mind. The fresh carcass of a city ripped open for the circling scavenges; setting their teeth, ripping memory away from history and carving a highway through the inert earth. Suddenly, a sundering cataclysm engorged the heart of a city rapidly consumed the cherished ground. The grimaced face of what was yet to come. Faded memories of a gentle civilisation crushed by the violent foot of excessiveness. And it became.

Billions of years of development had been thwarted by a decade of destruction. The City had grown a mechanical heart and iron longs. The walls were padded, bleached white, a heartless home. Suffocation caused by a persistent beat of banality by a world green to grey. The amputated trees and grass fade away into a shadow as the pendulum hypnotises my mind. The city became steel and smog. And then it lived.

Steel and smog and concrete arteries, ventricles of white lines and capillaries of churning metal chains and skin stretched by the unrelenting expand of civilisation. Starless tomorrows as our triumphs conquer the sky. Severing the horizon of every new day as our blades set their teeth; burn the ground, boil the sea, consume the air. And it was.

I find myself reduced to life’s imitations, dragging me down, burdening, chained to concrete in a sea of lies to find a grave beneath the ocean of progress. A world’s architecture is by a wall of artificial numbers; zeroes and ones, nothings and nobodies, faceless and heartless somebody’s. A cold terror of tomorrow grips my mind like a dead hand reminding me of an uneasy fate, of an uneasy life of a world not forgotten but ravaged, raped of all resources.

The air is dense, the smell is stale and I feel synthetic.

>>4480714

I like some parts. Other parts, not so much. It's better when you're concise, when you are wordy it comes off disjointed.

That being said, I wrote this. Uh, it's about my last boyfriend. He was really pretty.

"See the knowing smirk at the edge of my lips? Or the corruption that swims in my eyes, stirring eddies in the swirling, celadon pool that is my iris? If you do not, I have no vague esotericisms to offer you; save these: your blindness will deafen your heart to the pulsations of the tide. Walk with quick steps, and avoids the malice that spurns men’s backs with scars decorative and vain.
Tear your flesh and kneel; forfeit your thighs and the wiry muscle of your arms. Your lips are a stimulant and the sweet alcohol of your groin is a narcotic that dulls the mind like water over iron. Be impartial in the presence of my unforgiving androcentricity. But the pendulum of my being will never cease its primitive beat of subtle, sensual movements- it is you who should be faulted for stimulating the air through which it swings.
However, I experience merely half, for sensation is a deadly adder; it’s mouth ajar to reveal a puzzle-piece clutter of delicate pink flesh and bone-splinter fangs dripping with caustic sarcasm. The liquid is opaque and odorless, but it will not be the shards that strike your throat. Sensation in entropy is not of a striking nature- merely a corrosive one.
In brief, it is slavery that births freedom of the highest order. Remember that if you forget everything else, but come closer regardless. It is only through comingling that sensation is of a worthwhile nature- share that with me. Such wiry arms you have…"

>>4480745
Yeah my biggest problem was never being concise.

That's really fucking good. It actually sounds familiar and I'm not sure why.

Just a few grammatical errors. I can see you're really into the cadence of sentences and for the most part you capture it, but it's dropped a couple times. When you read it out and you change tone.

I feel like this is more a spoken piece, though, so I can't entirely judge. Beautifully written, though.

>>4480820
>Your lips are a stimulant and the sweet alcohol of your groin is a narcotic that dulls the mind like water over iron

Yours lips a stimulus, and the sweetened alcohol of your groin a narcosis that sullies the mind like water over iron.

Eh, I don't know. What I mean by cadence is that I feel the sentence I linked has sharp changes in tone, so I tried to round them off slightly. I also prefer sullies over dulls. Don't know why, mainly because water over iron creates oxidization and removing some of the purity of the metal.

>>4480830

Thank you. I'll pay more attention to the cadence in the future. I noticed my writing gets very blocky in some segments.

As for yours- i really like the last line, for instance. "I grew to watch the green waste away into memory as this industrial claustrophobia constructs its foundations." also stands out to me. Well, I'm sure your current poetry is good. I feel your less emo poetry would be very stylistic and fluent.

Thank you for the critique.

>>4480850
Best piece of advice is to read your writing aloud and when you seem to stumble on something, that's what you need to fix. Writing should roll off the tongue easily and fluently.

Feel free to post any more writing you have, I enjoyed reading your last piece.

"You a filthy nigga boy"
"Blow me, sir!" He did. Thank you, may I have another?
Then they romped forever and ever in the gay sex they both knew to be forbidden by their peoples and their creeds. God surely must have passed judgment on the poor choices made by this, a poor boy nigger and a rich white pedophile. All the while, we cast bad lots and voodoo upon them, they who live their lives we don't accept, and we still preach Socrates from the pulpit and the porch.
He pants, pants like a filthy little dog. His rich black boy skin shimmers like melted chocolate. Coupled with his spicy attitude, he must surely be an Aztec's steamy wet dream. The man, too, would burrow his flesh into the void. He was rich and savory as a fresh fish scaled and scalped. Only bristled white hairs occasionally flopped about the top of his head newly matted with sweat. Liver spots on his bare, wrinkled back did little to reflect the gaze of the longing Sun and the attention of the whole moon. Their lust did not make the Earth tremble, but it did make their anuses quiver in heavenly delight.

Bump. May post some shit in a little.

I have a question, though. Has the "begin the story with them just waking up" thing been done totally to death, or can it still be pulled off?