/lit/ - Literature

>>4829703
First time writing anything, so go ahead and be a dick. I'd prefer an honest criticism.

Jonathon Marquis was, by most definitions of the word, a rather successful individual; he had done well in high school, gone to a good university, and even completed his graduate work. Unfortunately, there still seemed to be something wrong. Jonathon, or “Jon,” as we called him, was still stuck in a sort of rut. At the age of 28, Jon was a clever and witty guy. Whenever you were around him, you can just tell that there was something there that a lot of other people lacked. Some might say intelligence, others arrogance, but I thought he was a damn smart man. I’ve only known him for a couple years now – he and I used to know each other through work a while ago, waiting tables, and now we’re still good pals – but I’ve been doing a great deal of talking with him, and I thought you, the reader, ought to hear about this most peculiar friend of mine.

As the eager red makes its way around the mouth, I look up to see hands reaching down, and clutching my hair. Fingers scratch and drag, out of pleasure or pain - not important.
Noises dribble from shy lips. Soft tummy rises and falls.

>Manic Man

I met my Prince Charming in a mental hospital.
Tall, dark, and manic-depressive.
Sweet and suicidal.
An angel cycling through Hellish dreams,
Heavenly nightmares,
No Purgatory insomnia to save him.
Somnambulist by day,
Daydreamer by night,
Floating through waves of mood and mind,
A victim to unkind extremes of each kind.

He was a paradise of paradoxes:
A perfect confection,
A lemonlike lemon;
He was syrupy citrus and saccharine acid:
The immaculate blend of sugar and sin.
His own pro- and antagonist,
Rival of his reflection
like a self-sick narcissist.
Melancholic martyr in morning,
Manic egomaniac in eve.
Equal parts devil and daredevil,
Victor and villain, friend and fiend.

Never faint, always fierce.
Never mild, always wild.
Never subtle, always severe.
He was my paradoxical paradise,
My heroic villain,
Caressing me like meth,
Holding me like heroin.
He was twice the roses
with thrice the thorns.
More woo with more woe.
More rush with more ruin.
More high with more hangover.

We were a duet of delirium,
A bittersweet, bipolar tragedy.
Spiritless soulmates and frantic heartbeats,
Circling madness, sadness, insanity.
We were Adam and Eve
and Eros and Thanatos
and God and the Devil
and Juliet and Romeo.
An endless repetition of
crash and climax,
crash, climax,
crash climax,
Crash.
He broke through the mirror
and murdered his rival.

No manic depression,
no Hells and no Heavens,
no heroes or villains,
no rush and no ruin.
Purgatory insomnia—no leave either way.
Trapped in grey prison,
no black, white, night, day.

Sometimes I see him,
The few times I sleep,
I'll have Hellish nightmares
or Heavenly dreams,
Momentarily rescued from
grey apathy,
Then wake to the world
of Purgatory.

Satan made God,
And he was my blood.
He was Hell who gave Heaven,
Death who gave life,
Rest and resurrection,
Dark in day, light in night.
Even one rose is worth all the world's thorns,
And it's better to live than to never be born.
There's no sweet without sour,
No "end" without "began,"
And no world to me
without my magical, manic man.

Yes, my eyes are shut against your light. I'm an animal, a nigger. But I can be saved. You people are all covert niggers, maniacs, savages, misers. Tradesman, you're a nigger: Judge, you're a nigger; General, you're a nigger; Emperor, you old pus ball, you're a nigger: you've slugged down contraband liquor from Satan's still. This nation runs on ague and cancer. The sick and the elderly fawn and beg to be boiled alive. - On a continent where madness prowls in search of hostages for all these woeful characters, the smartest way is out. I shall enter the true kingdom.
Have I begun to understand nature? Do I know myself? - No more words. I shall wall up the dead in my stomach. Whooping and drumming, dance, dance, dance, dance! I haven't yet foreseen the moment when the whites come ashore and I'm pitched into nothingness.

>>4829716
unoriginal
unimagined
boring

>Jonathon Marquis was, by most definitions of the word, a rather successful individual;
ive seen that sentence over 1000 times

basically the whole paragraph is uninspired

>>4829753
alright, fair enough.

>>4829716
I don't like the first sentence. I mean, why are you saying definitions? Words don't have definitions, they have meanings. And I don't agree that "doing well in school/college" means success. So I disagree right off the bat. A better way to phrase it would be "he is your typical American success story", which is an ironic phrase or maybe literal. Gives you useful ambiguity. If you, the author, thinks the character is successful or if the character thinks he is successful, show me that, don't tell me.

>>4829716
It sounds synthetic at times:
>[He was an] individual
>At the age of 28, Jon was a clever and witty guy

There's also a lot of telling and little showing. If you want to paint a genius, you need to be more specific. Doing well in high school and going to a "good" university are so general that he sounds like your average Joe, maybe with a little extra. What makes your character unique, sets him apart from the crowd? State the extraordinary.

That being said, I think you're off to an alright, albeit somewhat conventional-sounding start.

I also know that the shock of Father's death consolidated the frustration of that nightmare summer, made of it a permanent obstacle to any further romance throughout the cold years of my youth. The spiritual and the physical had been blended in us with a perfection that must remain incomprehensible to the matter-of-fact, crude, standard-brained youngsters of today. Long after her death I felt her thoughts floating through mine. Long before we met we had had the same dreams. We compared notes. We found strange affinities. The same June of the same year a stray canary had fluttered into her house and mine, in two widely separated countries. Oh, Mother, had you loved me thus!

>>4829716
>by most definitions of the word
scrap that
>rather successful individual
get rid of rather
>he had done well in high school, gone to a good university, and even completed his graduate work
>even
why 'even'? scrap it
> Unfortunately, there still seemed to be something wrong
scrap unfortunately
>Jonathon, or “Jon,” as we called him, was still stuck in a sort of rut.
scrap 'sort of'
>Whenever you were around him, you can just tell that there was something there that a lot of other people lacked. Some might say intelligence, others arrogance, but
scrap all this, leave I thought he was a damn smart man
>but I’ve been doing a great deal of talking with him, and I thought you, the reader, ought to hear about this most peculiar friend of mine.
change this
dont address the reader

>>4829733
Aimless and sort of try hard, I mean, alliteration and word selection should be more natural. Your verses flow awkwardly. You should focus on meter and pacing in poetry too

>>4829758
Ok, I get what you're saying. Thanks man.

>>4829763
>That being said, I think you're off to an alright, albeit conventional-sounding start.
Yup, I didn't expect a whole lot more. Sounds like you're hitting on the same things as the other anon, thanks.

>>4829766
Lot's of scrapping, ok. Time to rewrite. woooohooooo

>>4829770
your main problem is you are relying far too heavily on the conventional first chapter
write in your own words, not some template you think is suitable

my advice would be to delete it all and start from scratch

>>4829767
Could you tell me what about the poem was aimless?

Whenever my verses rhyme and flow perfectly, people tell me that I should let go and am sacrificing style for meaning. How should I consolidate such criticisms with the one you gave? Would you mind providing examples of parts that specifically didn't flow well?

Thank you very much. I don't mean to deny your criticisms, if it sounds like I am—I'm just trying to get them to be more specific so that I can make likewise specific changes.

>>4829770
every part of your writing should have a purpose. Don't put in words that do not belong.

>>4829774
>my advice would be to delete it all and start from scratch
Yea, I was thinking I would end up doing this.

>>4829778
Duly noted.

Thanks guys.

>>4829778
what if the purpose is purposelessness

>>4829782
you would use better language
not adding words like an 8th grade student trying to bring up the word count

>>4829723
There's not really much to evaluate here. You're off to a good start. The description creates fine imagery, but there's just not enough text here where a firm image can be created. Write more and I'll get back to you.

>>4829740
Troll, go back to /pol/.

>>4829800
im not trolling

>>4829777
Talking about feelings and abstract poems is just generally bad - I mean, expressing things metaphorically with concrete details is better. Right? So you are constantly expressing abstract ideas and they don't connect. I mean take a poem like this:
You denied me
You wouldn't speak to me
Now I feel miserable
I feel bad for what I did

Compared to:
You locked me out of your home
You would not answer my call
When I cried to the cold stone walls
Now I know regret

The first poem is just explicit and rather boring, but the second one is metaphorical (you locked me out literally/you rejected me).

You do have style, and the style is good. But the ideas being expressed are too vacant to grasp viscerally

>>4829765
Too many polysyllabic words before the first comma even appears. I'd suggest replacing "consolidated" with a more literary word and removing "frustration" altogether.

>made of it
say "made it"

Going from Father to love interest without explicitly mentioning the love interest is confusing, find a way to introduce "her" earlier. Maybe mention the love interest before Father, and make Father lowercase, so that he doesn't feel like the focus of the paragraph.

I'd remove "youngsters of today" (and remove or replace "standard-brained").

>same June of the same year
Unless repetition is an important literary device, I'd suggest saying this with only one "same".

>Oh, Mother, had you loved me thus!
This seems unnecessary and awkward, and the "thus" makes it sound try-hard.

>>4829836
He's trolling you. That's Nabokov.

>>4829811
Ah, I see you. Yeah, I was struggling with how to make the reader sympathise with the narrator, either in her affections for the main character or for her suffering caused thereby. What would you suggest to enhance the effect? Would it be the sort of thing that only took a few changes in word choice or an extra stanza, or does the poem itself need to be redone?

On another note, does my theme require an emotional effect, or are there other, more effective ways of embodying the themes I chose?

Thanks again, so much. :)

I was going through my rambling notebooks and found this. A little tryhard grimdark.

Your children fuck and drink
They take multi-colored pills
Uppers and Downers
All Arounders
To escape the long arm of Life.
You don't protect
You only condemn
So kiss the poison off your children's lips
And die along with them.

Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Nietzsche. The 'N' gnaws at 'T' and chugs the 'Chuh'. Nietzsche. My gnosis, my Dionysus. Neet-chuh.

It started on the tenth Tuesday of the twentieth century at a bookstore in Cynica. I was an undergrad on summer break and I was looking for some meat to nurture my bones between abusing my brain when having fun in the sun. That's where I first read "Beyond Good and Evil". Would I have the choice to go again and avoid that book, well, I think I wouldn't. But Nietzsche is an abyss one stares into, and that summer the abyss swallowed me hole.

>>4829866
It's almost there but it feels too critical without understanding

Feed your children pills
They are a behavior
Maintain order
Go to school and work real hard
We promise you the future
Reagan said it would be so
Now make me some profits
You goddamn fucked-up generation

>>4829865
Swallowed me whole* that's what I get for free writing on my phone

>>4829860
The best way to make metaphors is to describe the feelings in relatable ways to people. I mean, I don't feel what you feel exactly, but saying "it was confusing like the first time a loved one dies", then you're going to strike a deep chord within a person. I would rewrite it and try to capture each emotion with a concrete scene

In the American Southwest, amid the mesas breaking free from scalloped sands, live the squat Utes. Sangrial inheritors of the lost rock palce people, the Anasazi. Who, when they commit themselves to their usular dance, atop the man shaped Ute mountain, a mount that will someday rise to pulp beneath its boulder feet the alien children of far eastern ice gods, do cut themselves with obsidian and flense their red flesh with sandstone blades giving in sacrifice the last drops of mother earth's gift. With hair so blue black and flesh prone to pox, they tell the story of the skin walkers. Great champions, sons of the mischievous Kokepelli, who ate the flesh of horse and Anglais rather than sit upon the former and be sat upon by the latter. They were chosen and eternally damned by the gods of sky that watch over the elevated funerary pyres of human beings. Never would they hunt mule deer in the clouds with their people. Always would they hunt Anglais that walked upon their broken potsherds without cognizance. Given unto them was shapelessness. As the coyote, as a desert fog, as the magpie would the make war on the sanity and dreamlands of the one godded Anglais. As a toll, taken from them was their coups, their high feathers, and their great names. But when old mother, queen of terra firma, favored them these red menaces were granted the coporeal dominion of father owl; for every man knows that when the owl calls your name thrice the boatman Chiron must answer and set sail in firm posession of your phantasmagoric identity, underway upon the River Styx. He who possesses the stygian bone cock that haunts you will say as he seduces you, "Don't worry about your reputation bro, it isn't gay if you're underway, Navy rules totally apply."

Been working on that. It's kind of a stream of counciousness prose `:

It's kinda painful. Losing your apparent friendship just because you have been an ass for a day. People were like that. They will always notice the black dot on a white sheet of paper. I have atoned my sins already for being depressed back last holy week and even attempted to kill myself. I tried to recover once and jump back to life but still it hurts. Like c'mon, Losing someone special for you (but you were also uncertain if YOU have been also that special) is quite a pain. You can't bring back those times you shared easily and I guess she's already moving on and trying to forget those things (and apparent enjoying hurting me than anyone else). So I think my reprisal and my redemption is to completely forget about her existence and move on, look for another significant someone and have a real good ending. That's being an asshole but it's the normal response for situations such as this. Or maybe I was solely created for the foil of everyone. Well never mind that. I'll just have to carry on and take this burden that once I have been a complete dork. I guess it shouldn't matter anyway if I leave her behind. She's chasing stars anyway, not me.

>As-yet untitled

Life is short, but time still lingers,
The moment passing me by;
I only wish it could last a little longer,
But someday, I must say good-bye.

Maybe it's not all that it seems,
And perhaps, there's something more—
But all I can do right now is dream
About the next world I'm to explore.

My heart will have to stop someday,
And my soul will be set free—
Lord, this—to you—is what I pray:
That death won't be the end of me.

Ah! That life - the life of my childhood, the open road in all weathers, uncannily sober, more self-effacing than the finest beggar, proud to have no country, no friends. What junk it all was. And I've only just realized.
- I was right to scorn those simple souls who couldn't resist the chance of a fling, parasites on the cleanliness and health of our women, in these days when men and women are deeply at odds.
Right, too, to have scorned so much else - because I'm about to disappear!
To give you all the slip!
Allow me to explain.
Only yesterday, I was lamenting: 'God, we're a full house down here - us, the damned! I know everyone. There's no mistaking each other; we disgust each other. Charity is unheard of in our circles. But we're civil. Our dealings with people are perfectly proper. Does it surprise you? 'People'! Boors and tradesmen! - We are not dishonoured.

Sitting on her father's shoulders, Vivienne was the tallest person in the world. She was five and a half feet from the ground. Now she could save kittens from burning buildings and crush everyone from the cockpit of this machine. The machine held its pilot by the toes, which tickled a little because she had ditched her shoes back at the car. Her feet were more like a platypus's than a person's, the machine would say, but its fingers fit snugly over their taut webbing. Sometimes she would lean back all the way and bounce like a human backpack, but not today. She was too tired, too tired. Vivi had to stay awake, though, if she wanted to see the shower.

Opening paragraph. I have no idea what this story is going to be about.

inb4 no replies.

He is affection, he is here and now, because he has opened the house to the mullings of winter and the buzz of summer; he has purified our food and drink; he is the spell cast over elusive places, the superhuman delight of things in repose. He is affection and the future, the strength and love that we, mired in our fury and boredom, see overhead in the storm-filled sky, in banners of ecstasy.
He is love, his proportions perfect in reinvention; he is reason, marvellous and unforeseen; he is eternity: cherished machine of whatever is fatal. We have all known the terror of his forbearance and our own: our health and pleasure, the vigour of our faculties, our selfish attention and passion for him - whose unending life is the love of us . .

In the wood there is a bird; you stop and blush at its song.
There is a clock which doesn't strike.
There is a dip in the ground with a nest of white animals.
There is a descending cathedral and a rising lake.
There is a little cart abandoned in the copse, or coming down the lane, covered in ribbons.
There is a troupe of little actors, in costume, spotted on the road through the edge of the wood.
There is someone, finally, to chase you away when you're tired and thirsty.

>>4829896
Whoa, weird. I was once on the utter opposite side of this sort of situation. Did this really happen to you? Care to go in detail?

I'll say that the prose doesn't really feel convincing and you sound like you're self-victimising way too much. You come across as a martyr—would you be willing to reduce that impression somehow?

>>4829906
is lit not beyond all hope?

>>4829936
This is lovely, but looks incomplete. Is this supposed to be a finished product?

>>4829960
?

>>4829923
gud/10

>>4829936
>There is a descending cathedral and a rising lake.
don't remind me 😫

>>4829906

gud

>>4829836
>Not recognizing Humbug Humbug.

>>4829962
I am the saint praying on the terrace - as the meek animals graze down to the Sea of Palestine.
I am the scholar in the dark armchair. Rain and foliage batter at the library window.
I am the traveller on the high road through the stunted trees; the sound of the lock-water drowns my footsteps. For a good while I watch the melancholy, golden wash of sunset.
I could well be the child abandoned on the jetty, torn away and heading out to sea, the little servant boy following the lane which crests in the sky.
The paths are rough. Broom grows on the hillocks. The air is still. The birds seem so distant, and the springs! If you keep going, it can only be the end of the world.

>>4829888
:/ Is there a way to expand on what I already have in a way that doesn't remove much but still achieves such an effect? I really like the idea of making metaphors (or even just expanding on my current similes, eg. sweets/drugs). Do you think I could expand on those in an emotionally appealing way?

>>4829906
Beautiful.

>>4829965
I think that anon was meaning to imply that the excerpt was good enough where it could restore his/her hope in /lit/. It was a compliment, I think.

>>4829983
They can rent me out this tomb, then, with cement lines picked out on whitewash, very deep in the ground.
I plant my elbows on the table, the lamplight glares on these newspapers which I'm an idiot to reread, and these mediocre books.
Way above any earth-walled sitting room, houses spread their roots, mists convene. The mud is red or black. Monstrous city, night without end!
Slightly nearer are the sewers. All around, only the thickness of the globe. Chasms of azure maybe, wells of fire. It's perhaps at these levels that moons clash with comets, or oceans with tables.
In more bitter moments, I imagine balls of sapphire, or metal.
I'm master of the silence. What is that feeble gleam at the corner of the ceiling-vault, like light through a vent?

poo
and
wee
and poo
for two

Slow and stupefied, a woman's head emerges
From a green tinplate coffin - actually an ancient bath-tub;
Her brown hair is plastered with pomade
The bald bits nonetheless quite ill-concealed

Sequel: a fatty, greying neck, wide, protruding
Shoulder blades; short, corrugated back.
Then aloft with the puckered bottom,
Cellulite in flattened plates beneath the skin.

The spine is a touch red; the entire business
Does not smell good. A number of particulars
Would merit further study with a magnifying glass . . .

Two words - Illustrious Venus - inscribed on the buttocks.
Now the whole contraption shifts, to show the hideous
Adornment on its massive croup - an anal ulcer.

opinions on how i would write things, not necessarily how you should follow

>>4829716
would hate to read anything in this voice. sorry man - aim to do it more differently next time or if you're gonna copy a style make it one of a respected author.

>>4829765 Yeah literary author maybe but i would have changed a bit had he asked me thread related
>matter-of-fact, crude, standard-brained youngsters of today.
this is a common idea, and is pretty obvious within the sentence. it doesn't need so many words and it could be described better.

>made of it a permanent obstacle to
would change, maybe just to a permanent obstacle

>Long before we met we had had the same dreams
we lived the same dreams? had had is boring af. interesting description though, i like this part most, especially the canary.


>>4829894
>sons of the mischievous Kokepelli, who ate the flesh of horse and Anglais rather than sit upon the former and be sat upon by the latter
damn i like this

>As the coyote, as a desert fog, as the magpie would the make war on the sanity
did not understand, consider clarifying?

this was weird, start to end although that end goes without saying. enjoyed but not entirely sure what i read or what you were going for. although i don't like the last sentence, not because it doesn't fit but because its too "totally, bro, rhyme maxims". I'd rather more natural dialogue.

>>4829896
this is very organised for stream of conciousness, you don't really think in complete formed sentences like this. i would try to assimilate more of a real train of thought style, or ditch some of the "like c'mon" that don't really serve much except giving characters voices. (notice Holden caulfield says crumby, phony not like oh my god, well well well, damn)

>>4829906
channeling notes from the underground at all? I like it.

>Ah! That life - the life of my childhood, the open road
>What junk it all was
these two seem like opposing (reminiscing, dismissing), and so close to each other. was that intentional?

>There's no mistaking each other; we disgust each other
lacks the typical flow of whats written here. i'd change one side of the semicolon but whats really better is what fits the characters voice more, which you know more than me

>>4829915
very cute, i really like the backpack image. i'd have no idea where to go from here either, i'm not sure what i'd ever write about a young girl.
criticisms, last two sentences are a little awkward in their pacings - not feeling the redundant 'too tired' or that 'though' sitting in the middle of the sentence. word machine may be overused, or maybe capitalizing it might be interesting, establishing it as the girls metaphor, and adding a sense of familiarity and closeness associated with a name?

>>4830085
I laughed way too hard at this, fuck.

You Crusoe madly through the pulp romances.
And then a fetching girl with pretty airs
Crosses the pool of light beneath a feeble streetlamp,
Face half-hidden by her father's monstrous collar

She clacks along in that nice pair of ankle-boots
And clearly finds you terribly naive. You can tell
By the way she turns her head, so quick and critical.
Your cavatinas die a death upon your lips.

You're smitten. Spoke for till August at the least.
Smitten. Your sonnets reduce Her to tears of laughter.
Your friends evaporate. You're deeply unfashionable.
Then, one night, the Object of Devotion deigns to write.
And that's the night you hit the dazzling cafe scene again.
You order up large beers, or lemonade . . .
Nobody of seventeen is all that serious -
Not with the limes on the promenade in leaf.

>>4830085

true great of our times

There was a man. Of a family within a circle of friends and along the lines of society. Not in between the lines or around. Foresight led this man to depths, around corners and into the lives around him. His perspective relied intuitively on this. Science and clarity performed and bound his personality. There was a day and another of significance beyond reasoning. Of scene after scene, his globe replied,”Its happening to all of us”. “Understood”, in affirmation. Since that moment he knew what they understood as something he could not. The rumbling of his house began to be replaced with dissent and insecurity. Accumulating until the start of a reckoning to be dealt momentarily.
After the death of his wife, daughter, son and his newborn in that order he could not bear the sight of strangers, friends, relatives, and acquaintances. Betwixt, fortunately and mindful he was being led astray from the sounds, smell of those he loved without his inclusive rumbling. Therein lay the fix and organs of this man's senses. Without it, lost and complacent he sang. Reluctantly, to his neighbors, an elderly lady whom his last living child would ascertain silently her voice. They sang together after him and her acknowledging their suffering and his soul repose. Not as emotive, lively as he would always glow from his wife and others, he preferred to tap in his mind throughout his limbs to the rhythm. As it were he could not and givingly tuned his mind like his wife and children would tune in for him in according to his expression.
“You mustn't lie on their and your misfortune,” said the women while looking into him as if he was separate but living. With belonging he said,” Thank you and you've been lovely as always.”
In dismay and teeming in solitude he poured the leftover milk into a mug without any warming and cloned a new feeling. Looking into the wall to which he could hear his neighbors, they were arguing as if the moon broke in two pieces and fell, orbiting the Earth into two periods of darkness within the days or stretches of sunlight. Now, sipping over the balcony.

And the Mother, folding up his homework,
Went her way, satisfied and proud, not seeing
In those blue eyes, or the precocious forehead,
That the soul of her boy was full of dark disgust.

All day he sweated obedience; so very
Bright; given nonetheless to sombre nervous tics
And tell-tale defects that betrayed a bitter fakery.
As he passed the mildewed hangings in the gloomy corridors,
He'd stick his tongue out, fists stuffed in his crotch;
Or inspect the mottled world behind his eyelids.
A door would swing open on to the evening. By the lamp
You'd see him fulminating on the stairs, caught
In a span of daylight thrust from the roof. Summers
Especially - done for, stupefied - he beat an obstinate
Retreat to the cool of the latrines:
Locked in, nostrils flared, he set to thinking, undisturbed.
Or at the back of the house in the little garden
Cleansed of daytime smells by a winter moon,
He'd lie at the foot of the wall, buried in marl
And squeeze his dazzled eyes to induce visions
As he listened to the seethings of the mangy espaliers.
Pity!... the only friends he made were scrawny kids
With shaven heads, and rheumy tears on their cheeks,
Who hid their skinny yellow fingers, dark with mud,
In hand-me-downs smelling of shit
And spoke with the kindness of halfwits.
And if, when she caught him in some lamentable act,
The Mother seemed fraught, the boy's affections
- deep affections - seized on her amazement. It was good.
She'd got the blue gaze - the gaze that lies.

At seven, he was writing romances about life
In the great desert, where kidnapped Freedom shone,
Forests, suns, river banks, savannahs. He borrowed
From the illustrated magazines - Spanish and Italian
Girls smiled out at him; he blushed.
And when the wayward brown-eyed eight-year-old - the daughter of the working couple up the road -
Came by in a calico frock, and jumped him, in a corner,
Riding his back and tossing her hair, and him below,
He bit the buttocks of that little savage.
Underwear was not her thing.
Pummelled blue by her fists and feet,
He made off to his bedroom with the taste of her skin.

1/2

>>4830225
He dreaded the anaemic Sundays in December -
Hair-oil; readings from a Bible
With cabbage-green edging; a mahogany pedestal table.
Oppressive dreams every night in the little chamber.
He didn't care for God: better the silhouettes of working-men
In smocks going home through the brazen evening
To the faubourgs, where the crowds jeer or grumble
At the town-criers edicts between triple drumrolls.
He dreamed of fields of love, where billowing brightness,
Wholesome smells, and pubescent, gilded-down
Were calmly wafted upwards through the air.

He was drawn above all to dark things.
With the shutters closed in the bare room,
Lofty and blue, besieged by bitter damp,
He read his endlessly absorbing romance
Full of heavy ochre skies and flooded forests,
Flowers of fresh unfurling in star-pitted woods,
Vertigo, collapse, disaster and dismay!
- And all the while noises rose from the street
Below. He lay in his coarse canvas sheets
Gripped by a premonition of setting sail.

>>4830085
10/10

The house is unflattering, as plain as a house inhabited by working-class citizens could be. It does have a fence, and with it comes a distinct separation to the dwellings around it. Not a white picket fence, as absurd as that would be; but a plain wooden fence, planks weary and splintering. The wood is lacking in quality, rough to the touch and a surly ash grey. It begs the question: What would become of a child who would run its smooth, unadulterated hands over its deceptively unwelcoming surface?

A father sits upright, body turned against the chair and towards his window. It is not really his window, but he often finds himself the sole purveyor of said window, and therefore feels completely entitled to assert his dominance over it. His daughter finds her identity in the yard today, which he is thankful for, as usually she tries to find it across the street, out of his sight; and clouds his mind with the image of fraught adults spluttering over the lack of supervision. He’d never really believed in coddling.

I think I might need to look at that last line - it doesn't look right to me.

>>4830336
i liked the first paragraph but wasnt the biggest fan of the second

just my opinion though

>>4830379
I get what you mean, anon. It feels like it's missing something - the rhythm is different to that of the first.

>>4830142
>very cute, i really like the backpack image.
Thank you for saying nice things. I agree with your criticism also.

On those inter-provincial occasions where nothing much of anything happened, my mother would gently wake me and walk me, one plump limb after the other, down to the little stream by which we’d parked and from which the horses drank. There, in the morning light, we’d find Piotr, looking every bit insane. He was purple around the eyes, his hair messed, filthy down his back from where he’d fallen in the night. He habitually woke at three and practiced ‘til dawn. Teetering, he took up his sword, faucibus ensis benedictus, and stuck it down into him, and we all thought we’d come to the river one day to find him blue and punctured. I did not cry, as other children might have cried. He bled from the corners of his mouth where the blade had grazed his lips, but I did not cry; I watched. My mother sang “Ai-Lyuletchki”, or “Ai, my Sorrow”, or sometimes even:

“Oh! Precious is the flow
That makes me white as snow;
No other fount I know,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus”

She would kiss my forehead and wash me head to toe, and Piotr would stand and waver, and swallow the sword again. In that short time many of the performers would wake and come from their tents and beds to practice down by the riverside. The old equestrians smoked and spoke deeply of their next stopping point, and of their wives somewhere out in Surgut, who they said were forever grateful that, thanks to the small penance sent home, they were the only women in their village who needn’t resort cannibalism come winter. Laughter and chuckling and spitting resounded, and then, quieter, growling and hushed they spoke of Akim and Piotr, of rumors they’d heard from different provinces, where they’d been known for abduction and cannibalism and sacrificing any man named Dmitri to a pagan god. They kept, it was said, their victim’s teeth in a box, and on nights of the full moon would wear a necklace along which each tooth was strung, and for hours they'd prey for dark and sordid things. But here mother would sing louder, closer, and the birds would sing, too, and she’d bend with lips on forehead pressed and skin so clean and in this scene stood Piotr who bodily asked: “Who’s to say I didn’t eat a few pieces of my older brother’s flesh?”

>>4829703
http://pastebin.com/8esPUF9C

pls respond m8s

He stepped out onto the field. He could see a single tree out in the distance that was larger and more secluded from the rest. In a few moments, he was among it. And with a sigh, he stepped into the shadow. The moss hung above his temple. The shadows reminded him of the bliss he once had. His soul immediately became enlightened.
Daniel glimpsed above at a bird that peeped to itself. The bird glided down to his lap. Daniel took his finger and stroked the bird's feathers. “I have always wanted a friend.” And so the bird became Daniel's new companion. Together, they had to travel across the forest. There were no towns nearby. They were completely isolated, and Daniel was late to his mothers birthday party. He could take the normal route, but he would be set back an hour and a half. If he were to cut through the forest, he would make it there in only thirty minutes. Daniel was rather afraid of the forest, but he had lived there through his childhood and was ready to experience it once again. Together, him and his bird departed.
They had started walking but stopped just before the forest started to get thick. Daniel thought that if he was going to have this friend, that he should name it.
“I'll call you Atlas,” said Daniel
“I quite like that name,” responded the bird. And they continued.
Upon entering the forest, Daniel and Atlas met a rock centered among the trees. The only light present in the forest, because of the density of it, was shining directly on the rock. Daniel tumbled to the floor in awe. He started speaking in a different language, bowing down to the sacred rock. Atlas sat a few feet away with his face twisted in confusion. "The fuck is wrong with this kid?" he thought to himself. Daniel started circling the rock like an Indian making strange hand symbols. Atlas came to the conclusion that something clicked in his gentle mind that caused insanity.
Atlas hesitated, "Daniel? Are you quite alright?"
"This rock Atlas,” he exclaimed loudly without yelling, “This rock cured my tuberculosis."
"You worship it?"
"Exactly. I was told by my father, Louez ceux qui vous aident."
After a few more moments alone with the rock, they continued. They crossed through the forest and were almost out, but they reached a point where the trees and foliage had overgrown thick and uncrossable.
“Fuck,” Daniel calmly expressed.They decided they would cut through the side of the forest and instead be fashionably late. But before that, they sat down for rest. Atlas perched on Daniel’s knee. Daniel admired Atlas. He was golden with brown at his tips: The wings and tail.

pls be kind [/spolier]

Alex Kerrington was the third son of Theodor Kerrington, a landowner well known in our district in his own day, and still remembered among us because of his gloomy and tragic death, which happened thirteen years ago, and which I shall describe in its proper place. For the present I will only say that this “landowner”—for so we used to call him, although he hardly spent a day of his life on his own estate—was a strange person, yet one fairly frequently to be met with, a despicable, vicious man and at the same time senseless. But he was one of those senseless people who are very capable of looking after their affairs, and, apparently, after nothing else. Theodor Kerrington, for instance began with to nothing; his estate was of the smallest; he ran to dine at other men’s tables, fastened on to them as toady, and at his death had a hundred thousand dollars in hard cash. At the same time, he was always one of the most senseless, fantastic men in the whole district. I repeat, it was not stupidity – the majority of these fantastic men are shrewd and intelligent enough—but just senselessness, and a peculiar national form of it.

This is shit, and i need help making it better,ill completely revise it if needed
And as im on the bus this bubbly girl sits next to me, at first we dont say anything, as strangers normally do but after 3 hours, she begins to start a conversation, "so where ya heading?" "toronto" " thats quite a trip, im hannah by the way, but you can call me hope". At this point i didnt know i would be spending quite some time with this bubbly , awkwardly named stranger.
We start chatting about everything from the weather to the current whereabouts of MH-370 (she tells me it was abducted by aliens, I laugh at first but then i see her face and then part of me becomes scared), and then she asks why I'm alone and going to Toronto, why I'm not accompanied by my parents or even any friends, which is weird considering she looks younger then me, around 16. At first I'm hesitant to tell her about my plan, so I tell her I'm looking for someone , fortunately enough she doesn't ask who, I ask her where is she heading, to which she replies " same place as you.". At this point I really feel like asking her why is a 16 year old girl like her going all the way to Canada alone, without parents or even any friends, which would be a weird question considering I'm 16 myself. So I ask her, to which she replies "I'm looking for someone."
And then I realize the redundancy of what just happened so I change topic, a few more hours into the trip and I'm looking out the window and hope says, " hey stranger, I'm going to Toronto and you're going to Toronto , why don't we accompany each other until we get there, I know the way but the CBSA will probably give me a hard time if I'm alone.." I look at her and realize, that while my mission is completely personal, the chances of me making it all the way to Toronto alone are rather slim, and I could use someone who knows the way, and I think to myself that no way this 5.4 , Awkward looking 16 year old girl in a beanie could kidnap me and sell me to the Canadian-American syrup cartels. I say to her " ok, I guess". Not long after the bus comes to a stop.

>>4830877
Bubbly Hannah call me Hope wouldn't wait 3 hours.
You didn't start chatting, you chatted, or just talked.
Tense, fix your tenses...."at this point I didn't know..."

>>4830903
>30 minutes
>we started chatting
Anything else? Im willing to re do the whole thing, thanks for the help by the way.

could somebody offer up their opinions on something I had written over on /mu/? They don't seem to care for literature

really appreciate it

>>>/mu/46420195

bump

If anyone is sort of confused by the very first line my protagonist is a healer.

>>4829703
Please as harsh and as brutally honest as you can.
I would really appreciate the honesty.


I don’t know why I want to write this. What purpose will it serve? Will it bring any satisfaction to the life I obey? I don’t know. Is it due to my seclusion and desolation? Do I yearn for someone to converse with?
I think it brings a great amount of contentment to know that a person might read this, or might learn something from it. Maybe you’re a young college student aspiring to become something greater than what your family foresees. Maybe you’re a gray housewife on the verge of depression looking for something to beguile you into glee when you’re not dreading your wearisome upcoming life as it unfolds day by day.
Regardless of who you are, or what you do. I hope you gain something from this, and if you don’t, I hope you find it amusing enough to pass it on to someone else, who might in turn learn something from it.
My father was a fisherman, and so was his father.

>>4833033
>had been gotten

pls no

I'll just repost some of my stuff from the dying poetry thread. Thinking of axing or replacing the first stanza of this one.

What can a picture say
That words aren't able to summon?
What statue can frame the way
That your lips would make their humming?

Nothing dead can bring to life
The singular sense of heated strife
That our union brought to bear
On all our woes and all our cares.

No synthetic glowing screen
Can ever hope to shine a gleam
Upon that singular hopeful dream
Of all our woes and all our cares.

So lay me down upon my cot
And give me not a second thought,
Unless you bear the spark to flare
My every woe and every care.

>>4833055
drivel

My Good! My Beauty! Atrocious fanfare - but I do not falter! Enchanted rack! Salute the undreamed-of work and the marvellous body, for the first time! It began with children laughing and so it will end. This poison will remain in all our veins even when the fanfare goes blowsy and we're back with the old dissonance. Let us now - we who deserve these tortures - passionately reaffirm the superhuman promise we made to our bodies and souls, as created: that promise, that madness! Elegance, knowledge, violence! We've been promised that the tree of good and evil will be buried in darkness, that tyrannical proprieties shall be banished, to make way for our love of the highest purity. It began with aversions and it ended - unable as we are to seize this eternity here and now - it ended in a riot of perfumes.
Laughter of children, discretion of slaves, austerity of virgins, horror of the faces and objects in this place, may you be hallowed by the memory of this vigil. It began in utter boorishness; see how it ends, it angels of fire and ice.
Little drunken vigil, holy! if only for the mask you've granted us. Method, we endorse you! We have not forgotten how you glorified our every age. We have faith in the poison. We know how to offer up our life, day after day, entire.
This is the time of the Assassins.

The old man was called Perkins, he lived in a house in the prairy, he took care of his animals and irrigated his parcel with love and dedication.

He lacked affections and sexual stimulation. He was a a void, a black hole, he was insatiable, he was very lonely. The root of his illness was his horrible childhood. It was a very deficient one but I won't tell that story, because it's so sad it makes me want to cry and die.

The old Perkins used to fuck his cows, the cows he raised with fatherly love. He used to hug the big animals and feel their warm and firm skin. He even liked the smell, it was the smell of the happy moments of his childhood and it filled his hearth with joy. But fate is cruel and he got eventually a horrible infection. His skin got brown and he lost all his hair, the articulations ceased to function and became stiff, his eyes almost popped out from the skull, he got so skinny he could pass through the bars of a prison if he could just move.

Nobody in town wanted to take care of the old Perkins. He was a sick and disgusting dirty pig. Only the town's priest was kindhearted enough to watch over the horrible and sick man.

However, one day the priest found Perkins dead. The old man was lying on his bed. He managed to get an erection and hold his member with his bony hand. There was blood and dried scales of dead skin all over his belly. He died with a horrible grimace in his face.

There's no teaching from this story, just horror and revulsion. It's a terrible story actually, it is poorly written but it's for you and I enjoyed writing it.

When I decided to marry that tomboy I was actually following orders from a Greater Being From Out Of This World. I was in Its frequency; I was being dipped like a French fry in a sea of blackness by It. I was living dead; light was poison and it was dripping from the windows as I sat alone in my bedroom. I was weak, so It led my life for me.

The girl I’m talking about looked a lot like me. If we shaved our heads, we would have looked exactly the same. She was my doppelgänger, she was me with long hair. That’s why all my friends were so freaked out by my constant attempts to seduce her. “She isn’t very feminine, you know?”, they used to tell me. Idiots. That was exactly the point. I was eager to fulfill the commands from above.

I it is, at a certain degree, impossible to please a god because gods don’t care about practicality, they want things to be like they want. Even some gods of Chaos have clockwork methods. Many of them lack compassion. I felt I was compelled to synthesize two human beings into one. Both love and procreation pose big philosophic dilemmas: are we turning the world into a complex place or a simple one? My mission was to simplify our universe, to reverse the inertia caused by the Big-Bang and bring everything together again.

I managed to avoid and overcome many obstacles. How did I even manage to get a girlfriend, me, such an insecure weirdo? I won’t detail it here, I’ll just say that I drew her attention to me and then I gained her sympathy. I accomplished the impossible. I did well, I really think I did. We became lovers and we built a stable relationship. I convinced her of following the plan I had made for both of us. I was going to get breast implants and I was going to wear make-up and women’s clothing everyday. She didn’t need to change a lot because she had both masculine and feminine traits, she only had to bear with me. So in the end it was me who was going to sacrifice the most. I didn’t care about that either. Besides, I was going to be the same beautiful person, only a lot more feminine. It was still going to be me after all. Just me.

We finally married and I was back on track as a splendid transsexual. We were dead ringers; we had the same hair color, the same nose, the same eyes, the same skin color, the same complexion, we wore the same make-up, the same shoes, the same jeans, the same shirts. We really thought we had accomplished our purpose in life.

A few years later she fell ill. It was some sort of stomach disease. She had to endure it during many months. One day she seemed to get well but then, weeks later, she, my wife, the part of me that was really real, the person which I was only a reflection, died from a heart attack.

>>4833121
When I read it again, it is pretty cheesy and silly.
Thanks for the feedback.

Your left brain has nothing right and your right brain has nothing left.

If he were a chocolate, he would lick himself to death.

>>4830142
Navajo and Ute skin walkers were shape shifters. The could be anything but a man. A fog, a coyote, a magpie. They were charged with the task of disturbing the sanity white man.

The end is a stupid joke. If I find that people like my style of wriyingvI will take the time to make a real ending.

Thanks for the feedback, I've been waiting for some for like 4 days across 2 threads. I live in a really small community and I have like no friends and my gf only likes Danielle Steele, Debbie McComber, etc. For years I was a luddite and I only discovered /lit/ 2 weeks ago. I really like the community but I've been kind of desperate for some intelligent peer review.

If you point me to your submission I would be glad to give it some time and an honest analysis. That goes for anyone actually. Forgive the oversaturated idiom but, one good turn deserves another.

>>4833303
>your
>he
Why the sudden change of grammatical person?

>>4830877
Can someone help me revise this?

>>4830877
There's a lot of unnecessary comas.
>at first we dont say anything, as strangers normally do but after 3 hours, she begins to start a conversation
this part doesn't need them, for example.

IS ANYOME STILL HERE, HELLO.??......

>>4833420
They are two separate quotes.

The alarm did it's usual thing. He had been up for 30 minutes prior, planning exactly how he was going to approach things. He silenced the machine and continued his previous activity of staring blankly at the darkened ceiling, pulling the thick layer of sheets up to his chin. His partner Maree had spent the night at hers for fear of been abruptly woken and he outstretched an arm across the vacant spot that she usually held. Earlier in the week they discussed leaving the house at an offensively early hour of the morning, for the forty-eight hour Christmas shopping blitz that was held by the local Westfield. Maree in the gentle but firm way that so characterized her interactions with people quickly admonished the idea

“Phil, I’ll go Christmas shopping with you, but at a reasonable hour. Do the kids even want to go?”

The kids did not want to go, but that didn’t matter. The kids would come for the ride. Phil reasoned that the bold notion of venturing out in the first hour of the day would synthesize nicely with the thought of shopping for their gifts. There would be a banal excitement to the whole exercise that he hoped would spur the kids into having a good time

He sat up slowly and walked to the door, letting his body adjust to being vertical before leaving the flowery, cotton-bud smell of sleep that hung in the room. Even though they were in the midst of summer there was crispness to the air and Phil hurried back in to retrieve his slippers from the walk-in wardrobe that flanked the left side of his bed. Walking down the hallway past the closed doors of his three kids he stopped at the last door on the left and put his ear to it, listening for any hint of activity from the twenty-year-old male who lay dormant inside. Only the soft whir of the fan indicated activity and he decided the let them sleep while he prepared coffee.

>>4835987
>continued his previous activity of staring blankly at the darkened ceiling, pulling the thick layer of sheets up to his chin
bit convoluted. i like the idea of an activity being staring at the roof, but for the flow of the sentence you might benefit from getting rid of previous activity

>would synthesize nicely
synthesize doesn't work so well, and get rid of nicely, adds nothing

>The kids would come for the ride
doesnt really solve the problem of the kids didnt want to go. clarify. (although i hate to get rid of one of the short sentences in your work)

>westfield
where do you live m8?


pretty good man. little flowery and thesaurusy at times but overall highly readable and you start to get some feel for phil through the showing.