/lit/ - Literature

He knew everything I didn’t and was everything I thought I was. I looked down at my faded shoes and then back to his crisp, shined oxfords. With a swipe of his heel he killed his cigarette and turned deliberately towards the door. He strode meticulously back into the library with a copy of today’s Globe and Mail tucked under his arm, and James Baldwin’s Another Country in his hand.
Every day I had seen him with a new piece of literature. Don Quixote, Weep Not Child, a biography of Winston Churchill. Was it possible he was finishing each in less than a day? Something about him was intangible. I didn’t feel bad about myself, but looking at him, I certainly didn’t feel like I ought to be during my first days in the ivory tower.
My imagination ran amuck in those early weeks of school. Confusion about what was and what ought to be; a cluster-fuck of picturesque wants and want-nots. It clouded my peripheries on life and kept me safely away from reality. Mine was a mind without fortitude and I was devoid of any inhibition to succeed.
But he was a guiding light. Something a man could aspire to. He had an old-school motivation that is rarely seen in today’s generation. They say that men used to have determination when life was tougher. You could see it in the eyes of your grandfather in dusty photographs, a kind of direction; a purpose. Niall Prescott was one of those brilliant anachronisms. He was the perseverance of humble focus in a world opulent with pleasures.
Before I met anybody, I got drunk. When I first arrived to Annenberg Hall, I nearly threw-up in front of the dean of admissions. I looked around hopelessly for a washroom or garbage can. A sea of new arrivals adorned the majestic wooden dining room. It was massive, with tables and benches as long as busses; enormous chandeliers two-abreast and a dozen in length. Eager geniuses stood talking, hand-in-pocket rocking on the heel of their shoes. Harvard. I emptied my stomach in a bathroom stall away from everyone’s faces. Oddly enough I felt a little better spewing stomach acid into the toilet (and accidently, the sink) than I did wheedling in the dining room with my “peers”.

>inb4 antiquated language

i wrote this, tremble plebs

You could see it in their eyes. The fear of God. A century of heretics breeding and writhing in an unwashed city. But now the city is dead and so is everybody. That’s what Elliot said. These hollow men strut like fools in the face of tradition; spit on the shoes of piety and wipe their mouths with crusty hankerchiefs. It is too late now to pontificate the lowliness of our era. Somebody has to do what is right. Somebody has to scrub the stink from these streets. The doddering fools of the academy ramble of my work like they know. They know nothing. They are nothing. Nothing but apologists for the meek and unwashed. I will wash them. I will wash them all.

For two decades I have entertained these strutting fools. Invited them into my home and served them tea while they wheedled and pandered and “my good sir” and “but you must still grieve” and “perhaps just a look at your work, the marvel of the century.” They know nothing of progress. Nothing of industry. That pathetic little Professor Alberdean has been visiting. He says it’s merely a social visit, but I know the academy has sent him to spy on me. On my progress

oh look another critique thread where people post their terrible and long winded purple prose and nobody actually critiques anything

Finally, a critique thread. Anon's chest pounded with all the force of an M107 recoil-operated, semi-automatic anti-materiel 50 caliber rifle, as if its broad flash hider were pressed against the unsightly bulge of his distended stomach and fired, an enormous .50 BMG round passing through thick layers of fat and stretched, sickly yellow skin once every .667 seconds. With the fury of an enraged 700 pound pre-1970 Siberian Tiger (Panthera tigris altaica), he threw his fingers which- in the wan light of his room, smoky like a speakeasy with the heat of the semen on his pile of copies of Infinite Jest, all of them with a bookmark jutting from arounf its midpoint like the Lance of Longinus -bore the almost unmistakable resemblance to ten kiełbasa biała, at his his keyboard. His furious typing sounded like the cacophonous scuttling of thousands of cockroaches from an inquisitive night janitor's flashlight as the insipid thoughts, steeped in the lonely hours brooding on half-understood nihilistic philosophy, ejaculated from his brain into the text box on his dim monitor, which he wouldn't, no matter what, let his mom replace, no matter how much she begged, constantly and dismissively babbling about how this was just fine, and how the quality of the screen was subjective. Finally, after agonizing minutes, which were subjective as well, the post- his masterwork and manifesto -was finished. With a grandiose gesture, Anon swung his blubber-thickened arm and clicked the box required to verify that he wasn't a robot. But was he?

>>6294347

2/10

Shitty opinion expressed as a run-on sentence, poor grammar and punctuation.

Bad writer/10

He mad.

>>6294334
Breddy gud. I like it, but i felt like it should have gone into a man killing people on the street rather than what actually happened. I feel like a sort of misguided hero of justice book would be a cool read

>>6294354
That was fucking hilarious.

>>6294199
I have no idea if this is serious. But the prose is competent if rather overblown and just... too intense. Tone it down a little.

>>6294334
Oh for chrissake.

>>6294354
lol

>>6294354
too many adjectives

good irony becomes stale too quick

paragraphs mothersucker, use them

ending is alright

4/10

>>6294395
Why would you think it wasn't serious?

>>6294419
Because a story about a guy going to Harvard, vomiting from nerves and drunkenness, and then falling in love with some dude because he's so patrician is p much exactly what I'd write if I was actively trying to parody /lit/

poem I just wrote, tear me apart.

we want to create and since the creative passion is also a destructive passion
we set fire to an ATM and staple the pictures to the walls around europe where
Frontex patrols high tech sinks refugee ships as all humans are equal
until theyre not but we are Charlie european central banking on freedom
rationed through account balance and the numbers reassure that things
are working, but in actuality its mostly people

>>6294423

I don't spend time on here. Why is that a parody?

>>6294334

>muh progruss

>>6294459
Holy shit, this is revolting. Fucking disgusting. I'm throwing my short-term memory up

I'm not even trying to be edgy, it just suckz

>>6294542
:(

I like this comic book rendition of karats. Is this a critique?

I do not know,
And yet I have a graphic which I would like to show...

>>6294557

Me gusta

>>6294459
In terms of short free-verse, this is really good anon

It's just a shame that short free-verse is inherently flawed as a medium for poetic ideas. I'd clean it up, at least try for blank verse. I like the run-on sentences, you can easily make rhythm out of it. Not sure if I like the "we are Charlie" reference though. I'm leaning towards not

>>6294557
Gorgeous

>>6294642
thank you. I just cut that out, too preachy even for me. Do you think longer free verse can work? Ill try working on my rhythm, only recently started writing poetry although I technically got some formal education.

So, the man cocked his head back a pistol,
searing the backwards acorn of his ire:
"Before ye, I bow; bow ye, before me."
And the rhubarb rose in amplitude, casting a net,
and a muffled grown burst forth from his belly:
"Can't I? Can't I dethrone a mongoose of men?"
And the rabble persisted with its irritating hum,
demanding the hammer of his head, separated.

A recoil, a sprint: now the woods cradled him,
a seedless fruit ripened past edibility,
spoiled by the shaded damp of enclosed walls.

Forty-years of survival, he returns wholly after:
"Who are you, bearded traveller from the brush?"
And with a sullen, sky-eyed glance, he collapses
kissing the ground of his home with chapped lips
and hands clasping rotten apples, half-eaten, half-not,
disparaged in the wasteland sterilized bacteria:
a safe-house from the ills and antidotes of man.

So, the man cocked his head back a pistol,
searing the backwards acorn of his ire:
"Before ye, I bow; bow ye, before me."
And the rhubarb rose in amplitude, casting a net,
and a muffled grown burst forth from his belly:
"Can't I? Can't I dethrone a mongoose of men?"
And the rabble persisted with its irritating hum,
demanding the hammer of his head, separated.

A recoil, a sprint: now the woods cradled him,
a seedless fruit ripened past edibility,
spoiled by the shaded damp of enclosed walls.

Forty-two years of survival, he returns wholly after:
"Who are you, bearded traveller from the brush?"
And with a sullen, sky-eyed glance, he collapses
kissing the ground of his home with chapped lips
and hands clasping rotten apples, half-eaten, half-not,
disparaged in the wasteland sterilized bacteria:
a safe-house from the ills and antidotes of man.

Saturated with Romantic Love that Pervades Every Orifice of my Soul like Fibers within a Steam Filled Sauna Somewhere South of the North Pole, I am:

As I crossed the street,
she crossed my mind,
forms in my eyes replete,
never fully behind.

Chirp, peck, chirp, peck.

And that's a wrap:
so's the present,
so mind the gap,
the one I resent.

The rest was lost to decay,
then unlost my way today.

Now, where's the common thread?
The fact that we're all soon dead.
Really? A tad cliché there Ted,
might as well say roses are red.

Okay:

Roses are red,
violets are blue,
I'm using my hand,
but thinking of you.

Mince and repeat.™

Saturated with Romantic Love that Pervades Every Orifice of my Soul like Steam in the Fibers of a Cedar-Wood Sauna Somewhere South of the North Pole, I am:

As I crossed the street,
she crossed my mind,
forms in my eyes replete,
never fully behind.

Chirp, peck, chirp, peck.

And that's a wrap:
so's the present,
so mind the gap,
the one I resent.

The rest was lost to decay,
then unlost my way today.

Now, where's the common thread?
The fact that we're all soon dead.
Really? A tad cliché there Ted,
might as well say roses are red.

Okay:

Roses are red,
violets are blue,
I'm using my hand,
but thinking of you.

Mince and repeat.™

>>6294715

>Douglas Coupland as fuck.

People, to me, are like bubbles: round, easy to play with, transparent. That is, unless I encounter a bubble bigger than me. In such an instance, my overall surface area–the part of me the world can see–is comparatively overrun. Just imagine it: one bubble connected to a relatively much larger bubble. The smaller bubble must concede a larger ratio of its entirety in order to connect with the larger bubble. Here, I'm speaking in terms that a child could understand, but such terms are necessary when speaking of things as fragile as the iridescent forms of individuals and bubbles–a flick of a pinky is enough to make one pop, just ask any one condemned to death by guillotine.

And, in the midst of this sudsy conception of humans as soapy spheres formed by the breath of nature's essence, I must mention an entity many magnitudes greater than I: Heironymous Bosch: a man that is as difficult to define as a god, and as formidable to us mere mortals.

I met him during my initial visit to the boarding school in which I was poised to enroll a year later. Firm statured, unassuming, his silver-brown hair and gray eyes shone in the second floor window light of Whitehead hall like a prism that captured only the necessary colors of the spectrum, this being all...

>>6294752
Heironyous Bosch.

Lol

Deny me your verbiage,
accept mine with open eyes;
decry me your foliage,
leaves of grass of trees of mass;
and gentrify your niggardly soul,
for its parsimony only knows the tail-end
of nickel-plated wood-chips
donned the devious, by un-pecuniary minds.

Do this before the gravity bends your spine
into a rope of twisted liquorish, bitterly diabetic.

>>6294557

what is this? please post more

Pataphorically:
I'm a snowflake who floats determinately at the sun,
for I am the son who expands to supernova proportions
only to contract back to a ball of muscular excellence
unlike the shriveled testicles of Black-Nigger,
the now-terminated governor of the world's 4th largest economy,
the interconnected network of screw-makers,
who demand screwdrivers before work,
because they're wed to the Job rather than the book of,
a fictitious pulp of orange juice that murders its ring-bearer,
a yellow-bellied bald man by the name of Homer,
the offspring of animated minds' fingertips,
the progeny of a single self-fucking bacterium,
who's own ungrateful children misname Jesus,
the Mexican who gives is life to mow your lawn,
a racist paean for those who can't see
that the man in the mirror is me: MJ, please.

>>6294557

You make?

Boy,
Underwear
Moistens
Pleasantly.

I'm trying to write a book about a wrestling promotion in the dying days of the territories back in the 80's. I wanted to start off with a short story just going through a match and how they worked. I don't know what I think about it so far so I'm looking for so outside perspective.I haven't finished it yet but here's what I have so far.


“Not enough goddamn color,” he muttered.

He proceeded to further open his opponent’s wound, raking his barbed wire-wrapped fist across the forehead to get a large reaction out of the ravenous crowd. To get heat, as the boys in the back would put it. Just as predicted, the packed, dark and dingy sportatorium erupted in a chorus of boos and screams.

This was every Friday night for the two. Dustin Devine was reaching the climax of his rivalry with Zuma the Merciless, better known by his co-workers and the federal government as Stanley Cross. There was no better way to blow off a feud of this magnitude than with a hardcore, falls count anywhere, loser leaves town match.

Dustin’s head laid in a pool of blood while Zuma taunted the crowd. He was dizzy, nauseous, and possibly concussed. But he had a match to finish and a paycheck to earn. As Stan pulled him up by his hair, he glanced down at his formerly white tights, which had now taken on multiple shades of rust red and pink. And he was going over.

“Clothesline,” Zuma the Merciless said before whipping Dustin toward the ropes. It was time for the comeback. The roar of the crowd was nearly in sync with Devine’s massive bicep swinging into the barrel chest of Zuma. Dustin had managed to knock the big man off i feet. At six-foot-eight and 350 pounds, at least that’s what the crowd thinks, knocking Stan down wasn’t something people saw often.

Dustin was on top of him now and laying into him. The crowd was counting every punch.

“One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine! Ten!” There wasn’t a soul sitting down in the sold out arena. After weeks of ambushes and cheap shot, Dustin finally seemed to have the upperhand on the “Aztec savage.”

Stan was one of Dustin’s favorites to work with because they both loved working stiff. He didn’t pull his punches, the moves that looked like they hurt usually did. Stan was the kind of guy that took his somas with a gulp of Jack Daniels before every match. He could take as much as he could dish out.

Dustin climbed to the top of the turnbuckle, his typical finishing maneuver was a diving elbow. He stood over the ring for a moment, taking in the atmosphere of the fans. He was a god to the residents of this small Texas town, enveloped in camera flashes and overhead lights.

He made the leap, and crashed into Zuma’s lifted knees as he hit the ground. The match wasn’t over yet.

Epic OP I love it

Ok?

A city dressed in light under cover of dark. Faces slide past looking down with a faint glow like returned spirits come to take back that place. He sits a bench in the middle, smoke flowing, watchful. In the cool night he pulls his ragged jacket tighter around him. The stains on his beard denote a meal had, one of few in many days, and the people that walk move around him for fear of his slanderous odor. Next to his feet is a bucket, small and rusted, a piece of cardboard taped to the front. A man in a suit puts change in the bucket as he passes. They talk. The streetlight over the bench flickers and in those seconds the darkness pushes itself further and further into the spaces between conscious thought. The suited man disappears to the sounds of vehicles passing intermittent. He feels himself. The darkness of the sky overhead, the burgeoning rain clouds, the gritty feeling underneath his clothes, they close in on him like a prison with bars too thick to see through. The rain starts to fall heavy on his neck and back. Under the same cover that holds the city he is held, and screams with the pain of it. He falls to his knees in front of the bench which can no longer hold him, and forsakes the lives of iniquity he sees around him. He he is shaken. People no longer pass. The streets have emptied but one man held to life in the most tenuous sense of being alive, and one man in a suit across the street. In himself he is too far enveloped. In himself his screams are dampened by the rain and the blackness that follows him from places not seen since man walked with Gods. They grow too loud. He cannot think. One man is left, and he wears a suit and a smile.

Bitting into his crispy, semi-warm taco Gabriel looked out the window. The parking lots' street light casted a white glow on the snow, blacktop, and gray slush. Ripples in the snow created a mini-valley, with the light creating small shadows. The contrast between the shadows and their pure white source was as sharp as a knife. Clanging of bells and a jet of cold air rushed into the Taco Bell and wisped a sheet of paper off of Gabriel's table. Reaching down to pick up the list of fast food joints, he noticed two things. One, Gabriel had already crossed out this Taco Bell on his list; as he had already given his patronage three weeks ago. Second, he hadn't put his taco down. Receiving the list, Gabriel had to force his eyes open to give himself a once over. Stiff as a board, Gab parted his eye lids. Spotting what he feared; a shot of cold flame when through him. A piece of Taco Bell's wondrous ground beef had landed on his white shirt, which clung to his left man-boob bulge. It contrasted much like the snow and shadows; but this time the knife was not outside, it was on his chest. Eyes must of shot towards him, and throughout the establishment a low hum and crackling of paper could be heard.

Biting into his crispy, semi-warm taco Gabriel looked out the window. The parking lots' street light casted a white glow on the snow, blacktop, and gray slush. Ripples in the snow created a mini-valley, with the light creating small shadows. The contrast between the shadows and their pure white source was as sharp as a knife. Clanging of bells and a jet of cold air rushed into the Taco Bell and wisped a sheet of paper off of Gabriel's table. Reaching down to pick up the list of fast food joints, he noticed two things. One, Gabriel had already crossed out this Taco Bell on his list; as he had already given his patronage three weeks ago. Second, he hadn't put his taco down. Receiving the list, Gabriel had to force his eyes open to give himself a once over. Stiff as a board, Gab parted his eye lids. Spotting what he feared; a shot of cold flame when through him. A piece of Taco Bell's wondrous ground beef had landed on his white shirt, which clung to his left man-boob bulge. It contrasted much like the snow and shadows; but this time the knife was not outside, it was on his chest. Eyes must of shot towards him, and throughout the establishment a low hum and crackling of paper could be heard.

>>6295962
Get that socialist garbage out of here, poor people aren't even really poor.
kek.

But really, I like this a lot. It is a bit edgy, still not too edgy.

Warning: edgy

I know too well my solitude
A digit in a rambling sum
Of people, beasts – a jumbled mass,
Accumulating as it strays

Cruel actuary, why devise
This mad equation, logic-less?
Your graphs, projections – show me all!
Why do you gamble with infants?

Upon a warm September's eve,
the sun was dipping low.
I sat myself upon a rim,
from there to watch the show.

The shadows were their longest now
as darkness soon would be.
I closed my eyes and listened
to the sounds I couldn't see.

The quail chatted nervously,
about to go to bed.
The hoot-owl screeched a different tune,
his whole night lay ahead.

The rock chuck whistled one last cry,
and from his warm rock he did slide.
The deer crept from the willows,
no longer there to hide.

The coyote howled from up on top,
be his nightly quest.
The wasps that had been buzzing
were now safe within their nest.

The bobcat didn't say much
as he tested the air.
The porcupine wandered to the creek
to get a drink from there.

And I promise you one thing,
you will smile instead of frown
If you'll close your eyes and open your ears
and listen to the sun go down.

Show me that wrangled maniacal cur, lecherously espousing his devious filth, killing and maiming the gullible frolics, feed them their language, their love, their neutered past's, their ancestors harvest and their own putrid failures to come. Oh Brandalt, if I could loose that licentious tie and wrap it around your thin throat, tugging and squeezing, then my loins would be undoubtedly pleased at last, when my erect phallus wants to shatter your glaring commodities and spew on your fetid text. O wallow, swallow, filthy gunk, I'll just tear myself in the dark, behind my branches and birches and spit, stroke, everything I can to relive the thoughts of carrying your conclusion. Sapient, songs, lowly litter, drab, drabble, let it all end, all to its descent, I would not mind it, mind it if the mingled fire cuts the streams and linen that hold your world, the earth and all your ignominious drooling dregs, I would not mind peace in my wretched abode.

In thoughtless flight you wander far,
Unconscious of the smarting blow
Let me retain some meager part
Of Joy – deign not your love to show
Oh, wanton light – cease to glow!

>>6296155
Big words doesn't equal good anon.

Still I liked this, it has a great message against masterbation.

>>6295415
not bad

>>6294896
overwrought. stop trying so hard.

Her body was dry flesh
Her mind is shriveled lust
Wonder turned metal mesh
Deceit from once was trust

Why does a lush meadow
Turn to obscenity?
Why does grace turn to so
Broken depravity?

>>6296158
i fuck with this

>>6294192
is that rick from pawn stars

>>6296345
thanks anon. first critique i've gotten.

do you have anything bad to say about it?

>>6296158
the third line could be refined.... but im all about posi vibes baby, and im lovin this!

>>6294199

>and turned deliberately towards the door

How else would he turn if it was by his own volition?

Im walking through an empty field at night, the grass is dancing lightly due to the cold air conveying itself in shallow motions as it so often does. The field looks freshly trimmed and symmetrical ... too symmetrical. I bend down on one knee to touch it, it's fake. As I return to my feet i notice a faint ticking, and a pulsing on my right temple. I reach my hand and touch my head.... why is it wet? I look at my hand and notice a deep red on my fingertips. Blood. As I resume my slow stroll through the artifical sod i notice the ticking again, but this time it's joined in with a harmonious ringing in the ear adjecent to the mysterious wound on my right temple. Along with the chorus of strange noises now theres also a painful throbbing where i found blood. Suddenly a leashless collarless dog comes running out of the darkness. I see pure fearof his face and i know that i am the reason hes panicing.
-
"Sir? Sir are you alright?"
I awake on my back and I notice that the pain on my temple is very much real.
"Sir are you alright? You're bleeding," It's a womans voice.
"Where am i?" I mumble almost incoherently
1/2

Forgive the grammar in some instances.

>>6296654
i'm not an anglo and i don't think i fully understand what this is about but i liked it

>>6296999
"Central Park, New York," Ah. Thats right. I was visiting this week for work again.
I turn over and stand up. There are people everywhere and i see the woman who was standing over me and about a dozen others who had formed a circle around me. I start to walk away still only partily conscious with my eyes mostly closed. The small crowd parts to let me through. I notice the heat beaming on me and unzip my jacket without a second thought. Suddenly I hear a shrill scream followed by fearful eyes and fingers being pointed in my direction. Everyone who just moments ago watched me with curiousity now radiated fear. I try to figure out what felt so familiar about these looks, then I remember the dog that ran past me in my dream. I touch my hand to my head again and then It all come back to me. I remember. I remember being on my way to a meeting with a potential buyer. I remember taking a shortcut through an allyway because i was late. I was on the phone with my wife. I remember his voice, his thick Southern accent. I remember his pale hand reaching over my mouth to silent my screams. I remember the face of his accomplace. I remember how i elbowed my kidnapper in the chest only to be rewarded by getting my head slammed into the stained brick wall.
Fully conscious now I hear the ticking again and look down. Theres a bomb strapped to my chest decorated with intricate wires of many a color. I look up and see the locals running and abandoning their pinic lunches. The tourists dropping their disposable cameras. People tripping on one another clumsily in an attempt to save themselves. To save themselves from me. The tickings quickens in pace as does my heart. There are police cars pulling up all around me along with black cars marked "bomb squad". The officals step out of the car with guns out yelling phrases directed at me that my mind doesnt process. I don't want to die. Please God let me live. I'm not a religious man but i find myself asking for mercy in the only form I can remember how at this point. I can barely hear the indistict shouts from the officers but somehow the fast paced ticking of the death trap strapped on to me fills up my head. I think of my wife. My two kids. I take one last look the sky above me, one last glance of the earth below me. Then everything goes white.

>So I went to the local McDonalds where my bro works and went straight past the line and greeted my friend. He said hi how are you and i said hi how are you and gave him the look, as always, and we went into the kitchen and he gave me some of the McD's. Not the finished stuff - no - I wouldn't go to backstage at McDonalds for that crap, he gives me the raw product, the way it gets shipped to the individual franchises straight from HQ, just freezedried McD's straight from the source as god intended it. He crushes the McD's into tiny little pieces and takes out a razorblade and forms two generous lines for each one of us. We roll up some dollar bills and snort the McD's, then we just sat back and waited for the jaundice to kick in.

>I said "man, i just went through chinatown, you know:" and he said yeah, and i said "the chinese. you know. i thought, they go to school for all those years until they can read, like, even a newspaper article. i mean you need to learn like ten thousand signs until you can read a stupid newspaper article. it's crazy. then i thought, man, they must really think we're some sort of retards, with our 26-letter alphabet. i mean imagine some chink kid that had to learn it's own language through years and years of pain. and then the teacher goes, okay class - 'OKRAY CRASS', haha - well anyways, he says, okay class, now you learn a new language, and the chink kids are like, alright, we're ready, bring on the pain, and the teachers like, alright, first we learn the characters, and the kids are all tensed up and like, they're ready, but they know it's gonna be painful all over again, and then the teacher's like, it's twentysix characters. i mean twentysix characters. they must think we're really fucking stupid".

>My friend, my bro, said "yeah tru" and pondered it a little bit. We talked a little about how weird that is and how western culture and chink culture are so different and then we did some more lines of raw McD's and then I dozed off at some point.

>>6294423
It also sounds exactly like the plot of This Side of Paradise

>>6296105
I liked this.

The curse of the nurse is those of whom they treat, of which they care and took care every day and every night. Molly Molly was a nurse, a young nurse I should add, twenty-years and there she was, in the ward, near the field.
It was a time of worries, a time in which the ward was filled with nothing but sorrow and most people hardly had a tomorrow. Every laying man and dying one had eyes fixed on the door, the small wooden door of the entrance (cracked, broken), through which a few men come and go every day. Pain for the patients and a hope for the injured, too many people with not enough care. It was not secret even if not spoken out loud, every person did not want more to come and wished they'd rather die on they field that come to their side. They were selfish and more than they should, but not intentionally much more less than they tried, for lying with the sick in the war ward was not as healthy as it should be and those diseases you did not have you would share with your ward-mates now or later.
Now Molly didn't have any training, didn't have even will. She was there, at the ward, merely because she was already there before. All of it just happened around her, without her knowing at first, without her wanting at last. On the day of the cupid is that she broke, suddenly, without warning at all. No training nor knowledge she had so she couldn't do much, and she didn't she knew well enough but it was a matter of time, to grow up just like she did. Not the best for sure, but the only she had.
They call it maturing, they call it puberty, they call it whatever. A progress, like a line, in which every one take part. Now it doesn't happen that way where she was, maybe it was rejection for self-protection or maybe it was conscious and self-deception. She was there, in the smoke, in the flash of the day and the wake of the night; knowing who you are may not be the best there, may not be the best to ask and to pray and to wonder and ponder what to-be and who-am-I. So she didn't run the line and stayed instead, like a cheap bloom which didn't grow much but filled just as well. The day of the cupid it happen'd, not like a ha but like a snap, like a bomb in the head that blow'd up like a bam. Shaking hands and crying eyes she had that night as fire run through her nerves, night that if she were to be taking care of her duty she'd have been sent to the yard, light a smoke and return, something she learned at the very late age of thirteen just there at the ward.

http://pastebin.com/hTg39vc8

>>6297026
is this a joke?

>>6297026
you must be the edgiest kid in 7th grade

>>6296999
i don't think the dream sequence is necessary

>>6297152
this is very overwritten

>>6297633
>you must be the edgiest kid in 7th grade
you don't even know

http://pastebin.com/dPZ10Rum

This is something I wrote off the top of my head for a book idea I've been ruminating on. I've decided to erase it and do something different but any critique would be appreciated. Tao Lin knockoff?

>>6294192
http://pastebin.com/xs3AL35W

"But he did not get better. The fever burned a path through his body, and by the third day, he began to hear voices echoing off the cramped walls of his bedroom. Faces sprouted from his bedside table and then sunk back into the knotted wood. He meekly closed his eyes only to find that the fever had breached even his quiet place. Swirling patterns of color, deep reds, fleshy pinks that morphed and shifted before him, played out like a mangled actor against a black stage. The twisted faces formed out of the darkness behind his eyes and stretched towards him and then flittered away without a sound, as if caught in a gentle wind and tugged away behind a curtain he could not see. Sweat poured from face and soon he had soaked his pillow through."

>>6297026
I'm kinda getting a dfw vibe off this one.

>>6296999
>>6297007
Thoughts: It's a bit confusing, some parts are, as others have said, over written. Do some spell checking before posting it. Now, I really do enjoy your descriptions, and your mode of writing strikes me as effecient, if that makes sense. Whatever's happening in the story is kind of creepy and intriguing, and I'm a sucker for that sort of stuff. What's the general topic, or is this just practice writing?

Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! Beware Macduff.

>>6297714

10/10 you should be published

What do you think of, when thinking of holding a hand? I imagine most think of a significant other. A companion whom you love and you trust and whom you make love to. I imagine most think of someone whom you adore. Whom you wish to marry or date or simply exist with. And, I tell you, there is nothing wrong with that. I even think of that. I even think.

But, when I hold her hand, it is too help her walk. She hates using her cane, "it makes me feel like an old fool", she says. I tell her its no problem, that I'll help her walk any time she is in need of help. "You're a dear" she says, smiling at me. The wrinkles on her face often crinkle when she smiles, decades and decades of happiness showing.

But like everyone she has known sadness. 87 years is a long time, and she has known sadness in her time. "War" she says, "war is just that. It's war"
"Have you you served?" I ask her
"Heavens no. I was a wife, wives didn't serve. We fought the war at home."
Sometimes I forget that things were different back then, that people were not people back then. That you were either an Asian man, or you were a white woman, or you were gay or a drunk or a felon. People really weren't people. Strange, I thought. Very strange.
"My husband," she would say
"Eugene. My husband Eugene. Ah... In my age I almost forget his name. He served. In world war 1 and in 2. He was an idiot, but it made him happy. And he made me happy"
Again, she smiled. Her smile was so lovely. It brought me- no, it moved me. She was a moving woman
"Eugene ... Ah, you don't know how hard it is to strain to remember the name of the one you loved. Eugene, was shot by a jap. Right in the heart they told me. They said he felt no pain, none at all. Instant death they told me"
"That's good"
"Hah," she sneered "THAT is bullshit. Do you really think a bullet to the heart is painless, sweetheart?"
No, I thought. I suppose not

>>6296074

>Poor people aren't even really poor.

ok

>>6297770
I like it, it's very sweet. Expand on it, maybe flesh out your sentences a bit more???? Idk your prose seems very sparse and gruff

my perception when reading any of these is that person writing it is a giant faggot, and because of that I can't like a single one.

>>6297026
>having a concise and functional alphabet
>stupid
go to bed, Chuck

>>6296108

Very cute poem, I like it

Your business cards used to be eggshell white,
the print cayenne and in your mother’s cursive.
They gave directions to the house where you grew up
but it was demolished years ago.
Your (favorite) bike is glazed with rust
and the handlebars fell off.
The neighborhood kids
tore the stuffing from your mattress
to start a fire
They roast marshmallow
(like you used to)
Now all of their clothing is stained
(like your hands)
but they still run out in their tattered rags,
littering the jungle gyms with chocolate wrappers
and band aids
torn off so fast
their skin is bruised
(all of yours peeled away)
Now you can’t stand to look in the mirror,
(your legs don’t hold up anymore)
to come eye to eye
with all of that
(acrid)
flesh,
with your teeth
(so gaunt)
and chattering.
Your marrow leaks,
warm and sticky
as marshmallow.
Now your business cards are white as bone,
the print is loam
and in your third grade cursive.
They give directions to your tombstone.
Relations leave lavender
but the mud is so
thick they seep
into the soil
At least
(now)
you’re never alone.

>>6298180
Stealing your first line from American psyco I see.

>>6294921
This is try hard and heavy handed. It'd do you well to practice subtlety.

>>6294721
Is that the title? How pretentious. The rhythm is simple and childish and the content is cliché. Read more poetry

>>6294690
>the man cocked his head back a pistol
Do you mean 'LIKE' a pistol? What would make you think anybody will critique your work if you don't even critique it yourself first (i.e fucking proofreading at the least). And in the very first sentence at that.

>>6296108
Not bad. The rhythm gets a little fuzzy here and there, but beyond that there's not much to complain about. Although adding in particles to keep up the metre (e.g 'did' in 'from the warm rock he did slide) is clumsy and sloppy writing and really brings down the quality of the line, I think

>>6296261
It's rather bland, and the simple rhymes don't add anything to the piece. Nothing interesting here to be frank. Read more poetry, and pick out specifically imagery. Emulate the imagery that really wowed you, expand upon it. Then try again.

>>6298196
i didn't mean like a pistol

and that is the title, it's supposed to be a overtly self-aware snub at the poem itself i.e. a (misfired) joke

>>6296108
I love it. very cute

>>6294199
This is bloody amazing. Would love to read further

>>6296644
Sheepishly, nervously, anxiously, confidently, sickiningly, quickky, slowly?

He's clearky trying to coney that the character turning has seemingly thought out and deliberate motions. Welcome to creative writing

The chill of summer wind is an extraordinary thing. It whips the bone to the marrow, soothing the wound with warm rain. Those who carried raised umbrellas. Few of them were appropriately black. The crowd, who were clad in black dresses, heels, hats, a few suits mixed in, had gather in front of a maple wood casket filled with the body of Sadie Hemlock. Her picture was set in the middle of two rows, neither of which contained her family. Instead the crowd was made of her family in God. They whispered memories amongst themselves as a fair haired preacher in a white robe took the head of the congregation.
He raised his hands and they fell silent. “My friends.” He lowered his hands looking over the people who’ve gathered, almost all of them ladies from the church, –the others the occasional husband- “Thank you for joining me today. We’ve all gathered here to passion the legacy of a great woman who passed last week. Sadie Hemlock, a proud mother of two, a convicted member of our church, a proud woman whose influence has shaped the landscape of our tiny city. A community icon who rallied us all together into rebuilding the downtown while stricken with lung cancer…”
As the priest continued on two men with their hands running along the coffin nodded, empty headed, along with the words. One was a tall stick, with hints of muscle raising portions of his pressed suit, dull teeth in his mouth, dull brown eyes in his head, and a short dull stack of blonde hair on top. The other an older man still young, not a wrinkle on his worn face, wearing a crinkled suit crusty from funerals past. “And now Sadie’s husband George has some words to share with us,” the older man smiled and walked to the front. “If you don’t mind of course.”
“No problem Greg,” George said with a wave towards the congregation, “Thank you all for coming out to give my wife, Sadie, the sendoff she deserves.” The crowd remained motionless. A few snuffled. George settled at the head, before Sadie’s picture, he patted the sides of his suit taking in a deep breath. “I am saddened my friends, saddened by the loss of my magnificent wife and wonderful friend. I am certain all of you loved Sadie as much as I did. Maybe some of you more so.” His smile grew wider. There wasn’t a laugh among them, ‘it was a poor joke.’ “I am joined today by my son Roger whom many of you know for the helping hand he is always proud to give out. Unfortunately my daughter Cassandra was not able to come down from Toronto to mourn with us. None the less our family and all of your families as well, have been rocked by the sudden and dramatic loss of my wife. We’ll all remember, however, the construction weekends, the chili cook offs, and that fierce look in her eye as she campaigned for what she loved…”

>>6298753
Roger, all the while, had walked behind the coffin. His phone had been vibrating with maddening repetition even since he walked into the funeral home. He yanked it from the black jacket’s pocket. The screen read in black lettering: Cassie. He read in red lettering: Time to see other people. Shaking his head he turned off the phone shoving it back down into his pocket. Roger walked out, past his father filibustering his parting words, towards the chair with his name on it. He tore off the printer page letting it fall to the ground.
“Thank you George,” Greg said patting the aging man on the back. “Everyone let us bow our heads, and join me in prayer.”
They prayed together. George was lost in his thoughts; his eyes closed. ‘I did it,’ he thought, ‘twenty two years, I maintained. I kept at it. Till death did us part. Twenty two years. Fighting and all I did it’
I did it.

>>6298753
Professional

cnsnnts

Vwls rnt ncssr fr cmprhndng nglsh
jst lk trphs rnt ncssr fr szng glr
s shd yrslf f ll rdndncs nd b fr

>>6297152
>>6297645
so it sounds bad?

>>6298943
Beautiful.

>>6297152
>>6299357
Yes, it doesn't have a consistent tone and it's really irritating to read. This is a strange request, but make it plainer. Re-read it as well because a large amount of the sentences are awkward to read, try just reading it aloud and making it how you talk.

>>6298764
I can't tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

I read that as 'Literary Cringe Thread'

Might as well be

>>6299504
SICK BURN BRO

Lyrics for a song. Hope they're not too edgy.

Mute preacher,
A deaf creature,
The son of a fuck up, a fear and an influence
To the superfluous, good intentions
Part the heavens, bright lights
Shadows of their skeptic hope
Dead in the night

>>6299692
6/10

Stars do blink,
But Night is no watchman

>>6296108
This reminds me a lot of Robert Frost. I especially liked "I closed my eyes and listened/to the sounds I couldn't see."

>>6296622
it wasn't intended to be positive actually, but thanks!

I was re-reading bits of my novella-in-progress and it's kind of nice to enjoy reading your own writing ^_^

ofc, I would love to hear everyone's thoughts


>>6298753

>It whips the bone to the marrow
hm it's interesting cuz this I also specify to marrow a lot (ie in my screenshot)

>The crowd, who were clad in black dresses, heels, hats, a few suits mixed in, had gather in front of a maple wood casket filled with the body of Sadie Hemlock.

hnghh i want to stop reading this

first off, your tense is wrong and the whole "Sadie Hemlock" ooh look how quaint and interesting this is is pretty gross

>Instead the crowd was made of her family in God.
this is a nice sentence

also I feel like this paragraph is really, really dragging on

like you've talked about so many different topics

this is pretty hard to continue reading (full disclosure I'm a little tipsy)

>>6297770
>What do you think of, when thinking of holding a hand? I imagine most think of a significant other. A companion whom you love and you trust and whom you make love to. I imagine most think of someone whom you adore. Whom you wish to marry or date or simply exist with. And, I tell you, there is nothing wrong with that. I even think of that. I even think.

I don't see how this is literary at all.....

>She hates using her cane, "it makes me feel like an old fool", she says. I tell her its no problem

dropped, you shouldn't have so many errors gosh

>>6297697

>The fever burned a path through his body, and by the third day, he began to hear voices echoing off the cramped walls of his bedroom.

the first part of this sentence is nice (the fever burned..) but it should be in its own sentence and not have some unrelated in image part tacked on the end

>Faces sprouted from his bedside table and then sunk back into the knotted wood.
meh is this magical realism or fantasy or something?

>Swirling patterns of color, deep reds, fleshy pinks that morphed and shifted before him, played out like a mangled actor against a black stage.
the first part is decent, but the final simile is really awkward.... if its lots of faces (plural), there should be lots of actors


ehhh i feel like there's occasionally good writing and images in there, but the paragraph as a whole doesn't work/flow

>>6300488

fuck forgot to attach

I only have the beginning and the ending. I promise there's a reason for the title.

I'm thinking of removing "dizzying."

The whole story isn't as centered on his romantic history as this into might lead you to believe.

It was a cold a dreary night in the McNamara household. Everyone was asleep, even the orange haired cat Tabby. It wasn't long until dawn came. 6.35AM it read on little Asher's digital clock. Asher's eyes opened, he wasn't ready for the day. he sat up in his bed and counted the glow in the dark stars on his ceiling. Every morning another would appear. He was so confused. He jumped out of bed, put on his slippers and ran. Off to his mother's room he went until he tripped over his orange haired cat Tabby. Asher who had just fallen to the ground quickly realised what he had just done and rapidly went to his orange haired cat Tabby's aid.

"OH NO!" he exclaimed as his cat lay limp, without life.

Asher crying ran to his room and saw that his ceiling had been star sprangled with more glow in the dark stickers. Looking down at his orange haired cat Tabby and back up to the ceiling he finally felt at peace.

God did exist and everything was alright.

>>6300575

what's the point of shit posting here seriously

>>6300538
I think you have a strong grasp of language and are very articulate, but your style itself leaves me very uninterested. You spend too much time explicitly describing emotion, like

>...each thought and public action my mind permitted was shrouded in anxiety, shame, and hate. Persistent in my interest but too shy to act, my personal deposit of disappointment built incrementally...

Self analysis that's devoid of details is utterly boring. In general, I find that a lot of people writing in the first person start injecting these kinds of passages as "character development," rather than telling about how these things actually manifest in interesting ways.

>All of these women were named Alice, by the way.

I love it

>>6300650
Actually, I would like that last line even better if you didn't tell us the instructor's name was Alice Stamp in that first paragraph.

>>6300650
I totally understand what you mean about explicitly describing emotion—I should be showing that rather than saying it. Thank you very much.

>>6300655
Do you think "All these women" clearly includes the instructor?

>>6300660
Yeah, I think so. Even if you think it doesn't, if her name is important it'll come up later and then there will be no ambiguity

>>6294192
Your hollow gorge can never fill
Gourmand! Rending all that dares
To pant its red and feeble life

With cold and even strokes you cleave
A clean bi-section, stellar-scoped,
Impartial, turning loves to chaff

Moist Spring air greeted Felix Frankfurter as he descended into the luminous, morning kitchen. He had deliberately awoken early to ensure productivity in the face of several imposing deadlines, but presently occupied himself by gazing out at the luscious lawns, chirping neighbours and bleached fences of his tranquil cul de sac, enthralling him into a state of suburban idleness. Breakfast. “Ay there’s the rub,” Felix thought as he simultaneously contemplated the ideal morning meal and congratulated himself for his familiarity with Hamlet. After careful deliberation, Felix settled upon boiled eggs and toast, the same breakfast he ate every morning. Vivid projections of supple, steaming yolks atop rugged toastal terrain danced through his eager mind as he opened the refrigerator to begin preparations.
Having gracefully finished his breakfast and attended to his dental hygiene obligations, Felix began to work. Finding himself stagnant after five minutes, he attempted to “prime the pump” with some reading. Felix was a voracious reader, often to his own detriment; he so excited himself over the prospect of upcoming passages that he neglected his present ones, and would later find glaring holes in his retention. This did not bother Felix, for his ambitious nature relished the pursuit of information itself, without the burden of application.

Tobias bare feet pounded across the scorching sands of the Mojave Desert. It was the middle of the day and the sun was at its full force, it beat down upon Tobias slowly draining him. With each footstep he sunk a little bit into the hot sand burning the soles of his feet. Tobias was starting to get so dehydrated he could no longer sweat. Dried sweat crusted his bare torso and his skin was feeling the heat of the desert sun. With each breath he could feel a sharp little stab to his lungs. When he moved his cracked lips, now completely void of moisture, he could barely let out a cry of pain. Tobias’ muscles began twitching and moving on their own accord as though something kept him going. It seemed as if his body was in autopilot. No matter how exhausted and sore he was, his body ignored it and continued. It did not take long for his vision to blur with a combination of dehydration and heat stroke. Though he could still tell there was no sign of anything but the barren desert for miles.
“Well there is definitely no one out here” he thought. Eventually Tobias realized he could remember nothing but running. He tried for what seemed like days to try and remember something, anything but it was no use. “Why am I running? Where am I going?” Tobias thought to himself. Was he running from something or someone? Had he been in danger or was he running towards something? Was he in search for a better life, had his previous life been bad? So many thoughts were running through his head it was making him sick. This feeling of blankness in his memory scared him more than the thought of dying out in the desert. The idea of not ever knowing who he was terrified him. The sun was just as hot and brutal as ever. His muscles ached more than ever and his lungs felt like they were filled with needles, yet he had become numb to this pain. The only thing that was on his mind was, why he was running? Why did he continue to run? As far as he was concerned there was no reason to be running. He was tired and wanted to rest but something felt wrong about stopping. After quite some time and fighting all his most basic instincts Tobias lay down to rest.
He awoke to the sounds of a wild animal. Still half asleep Tobias found a mountain lion right before him. For a brief moment he froze. What could he do? There was no way he could outrun this mountain lion. He had to try, he could not just give up. He started sprinting as fast as he could ignoring the pain in his legs; the only thing keeping him going was all the adrenaline coursing through him. Tobias knew he could not maintain this speed for much longer but he had to try. His legs started to give and he could barely keep moving. It was only a matter of seconds before his balance gave out and he fell into the sand. He had lost and now it was all over. He was not going to get away from the mountain lion and now his life over.

>>6300699
purple prose

you are trying too hard to sound smart

>>6300492


ANY FEEDBACK ON THIS PLEASE?

>>6300768
>his name is Song
fuckin dropped

>>6300751
If you read to the end, you know that this character is weighted down by his own meretricious intellectualism.

>>6300817
i dont care

>>6294192
experimenting with minimalist shite. how shite is it?

Crusty motel with staff imported from Mexico and towels just recently cummed in and buzzing lamps ad finitum and television with a programming guide running silent

lightning lights up Lana on the wall. She looks troubled. Lana,

“I told you I’m sorry. I don’t know how to say it in different words.”

She turns away absently and looks outside to the lot filled with pavement and loses focus.

“I didn't want it to be like this. I have to go back”.

She puts her clothes back on.

First time writing something in English. Hope it's not too bad

In a particularly useless day
A month had passed and I was still there
Powerless, depressed,will-less

Without any particular reason,
depressed, will-less, powerless

With friends, my classes, my future
Will-less, powerless, depressed

And even if this is so absurd
I can't help but notice the familiarity
Will-less, depressed and powerless
I'm at home

Maybe you left without taking anything
But the distraction that kept me from myself
Maybe this is nothing but my
Depressed, will-less, powerless
Way of being alone

And of course none of this is true
I've been lying from the beginning of this poem
(Why elsewould I write it down?)

But I get off from self-hatred, what can I do?
You can't stop mefrom hating myself
Even if I don't

>>6300736
pls someone

>>6300906
I like it
Specially the alliteration

>>6300912
thanks m80

>>6300736
Didn't read it all, but a couple notes:
Consider placing an apostrophe after Tobias, ( Tobias' ) to make it clear that it's Tobias owning his feet- without it would imply that some person named Tobias Bare Feet is pounding across the Mojave.

Next thing, also grammar, nailing commas is an absolute must. You must practice this or your writing will be plagued with misery and confusion. In the segment of " it beat down upon Tobias slowly draining him." there needs to be a comma between "Tobias" and "slowly", either that or reword "it beat down upon Tobias" into a new, reworded sentence.

Just a few things to consider- as for the thought of a Mr. Tobias prodding across the desert, I like it- because I love deserts. Keep writing, and never give up!

Posted before, but this is a revised version and longer. Not yet finished.

http://pastebin.com/2vtCjX3b

>>6300907
"On a particularly useless day" would be grammatically correct.

I liked that you repeated "Powerless, will-less, depressed" differently each time, although maybe a word like unmotivated or hopeless would be better. I didn't get a sense of rhythm or meter, though.

The beginning of a poem I've been working on:

Penultimate day of
Elysian life where grass
did grow, displayed
with grandeur, recalling the
past but denying the future
Soon be met in but four dusks
Travelled towards in royal stead
Packed with things we couldn't left
Behind where green now turns to blue
In setting-sun of memory's room
Locked in this mahogany chamber
Where halls retain the alabaster
pallor of unnerving nature
Reminder of what's gone before
Sentiment that is the sole remainder
and soul's own failure to assume
The stead's crop and reins adorned
with Teutonic strength, tested and tuned
The journey is a languid dream
And time has yet to tell us that these
Visions that we seem to see
Are ours alone to know and keep
That the field did shine with glory captured
In the eyes of the youth enraptured
Unfocused on a world to be
Unbridled in that moment's glee
And untrue in revisited scenes
And hue will waver to an oak
Withered the tree has become
Until the truth is now a blot
Blacker than a covered sun

bumping

>>6300751
>purple prose
why is purple prose bad again?

I think >>6300736 may sound a bith wordish,but I like it.

I was always aware that I was different from other boys at school. I liked to dress up, I hated being dirty and I loathed sports. I was teased throughout primary school, always “The girlyboy”, this teasing turned to bullying as I started high school and only got worse as I got older. My family was not well off and both of my parents worked long hours leaving me on my own. I was so horribly lonely, I just wanted to die a lot of the time, I didn’t even know what self-harm or depression meant, I would just stand in my room with kitchen scissors and run them across my legs and hips, hoping that if I opened my skin some of the sadness would leak out.

At 16 I left home, dropped out of school and moved from Sydney to Melbourne to live in a share house with a group of Uni students, it was there that I was first introduced to drugs and alcohol and the effects that they have on people. One night after having far too much to drink and smoking some pot I told one of my flatmates that I was gay, the news quickly spread throughout the house. I was asked to leave less than a month later.

Broken and surviving on government benefits I moved again, as far away as I could manage, to Adelaide. I had always been a somewhat handsome boy and I knew how to dress, this, along with my low pay rate, helped me get a job at an upmarket department store.

Just something I started today, pls r8. The kid ends up a drag queen.

reasons ot keep living fuck off nsa flat teens flat girls porn autumn in new york jo stafford happy porn stars porn stars looking happy download vlc media player slow motion vlc media player vaporwave macintosh plus flat tteens squirting thisis why i was born i can talk to you and you wont say hanything or leave me because yo uant advil and alcohol mix advil and alcohol mix health issues girl forums womens forums eastern religoins taoism shirley bassey night and day am i good for anything why wa s i born travellers wit hempty hands pre-oedipal arrested development "dude" dating red flag yahoo answers buddhist hell site:google.com/images:hell puffy nipples

>>6301485
>I was teased throughout primary school, always “The girlyboy”, this teasing turned to bullying as I started high school and only got worse as I got older.

split the sentences brah

>>6301485
If that's you then please kill yourself

>>6301534
Ayy lmao. No, It isn't me, I'm just writing a short story about a gay guy emerging as a drag queen.

>>6300817
Then it needs to be conveyed through the character's thoughts, actions or words, not by making the narrator sound autistic

>>6301519
i feel like there is legitimate artistic value here

'porn stars looking happy'
i like you, anon

The clock is mockingbirding me
It ticks it pecks it tickles its past
My mind at hours not tracked
Wasted time not back in the IRS
Decaying, slowly passing anew
Frozen 'til my heart love spills

Past midnight I arrived to the "Bueno Paradiso" graveyard, the luxury graveyard for the very very rich where I ought to find Liza's old letter and set up the inheritance problem to help me with my very own problems.
Now, I arrived to the door big as a castle with pictures of angels, I gave a couple to kicks to the smaller door embedded in the bigger door and used for non-famous people and whoever who's poorer. The door opened to the fourth kick with a pump-ough-augh like if the door was previously broken. The door was not broken, in point of the fact, there was no door at all, but a very fat black man standing below the arc who I apparently confused for a small door (bright helmet for a small window, his extendend handshake-hand for a doorknob).
It looked like he dozed off on the ground (which is not the point of my story) so I just went over him straight to the fields (I'm pretty sure he's ok) where I found another man but smaller and at least man-alike althought a little bit gay. This last one was the one that clean the ones who are dead, but just the ones who died long ago.
Plot-twist or whatever it is: Everyone died long ago because nobody else comes to rest here. I will do a capsule review of what the french-looking cleaning-man/woman told me that night: "Bueno Paradiso was a très expensive graveyard. They offered what no else ever offer: alphabetical ordered tombs. And they went to bankruptcy soon after for they did not consider how much money they had to spend to move the corpses everytime a new one come in"
But it was popular, it was indeed very popular and a lot of rich people rest here next to the alphabetical-near rich 'friends'. Then I asked to the very gay frenchman (for he was happy to see someone come to his land (full of shit and probably his)) where's Liza's tomb
"Where's Liza's tomb?" I asked as I say

(...........)

>>6301611
With the exception of the first two lines, I like it.
I don't like how "mockingbirding me" and "it ticks it pecks it tickles" sound

>>6300699
This is something I see a lot of people do at least once or twice in their work. You say that after careful deliberation, he decides to eat what he's always eaten for breakfast. Why would that require any deliberation, much less "careful" deliberation? People don't have to think about routine tasks, not even smart people.

>>6294354

too many metaphors, i know it was the point but the joke is funnier when it's actually possible to be fluently read.

10/10 ending though. caught me off guard

Lots of guys, both now and then
(With herb or stone or fountain pen)
Have sought and sought to no avail
A way to dodge their coffin nails.

I know Death’s watching, even now,
Humour’s shadow on his brow:
“All that yearning amounts to a joke
That gets its punchline when you croak!”

>>6301951
I like it, especially the first verse.

A poem called Young Love.

Needy texts
Empty sex

>>6301956
Thanks you, I know the second stanza needs a lot of work but I wrote this in minutes to show my brother and I was quite happy with how it turned out.

This following one was also written as part of an in-joke with my brother:

The Earl of Sandwich was playing cards,
His podgy fingers smeared with lard;
To wolf down some ham was all he desired,
And so “Evangeline!” he cried,
“Bring forth two slices of warméd white bread,
I’ll see that my hand and belly are fed!”
Full of confusion, the maid slank away,
Returning in moments with a small silver tray.
“My lord,” said she, “whatever are you thinking?”“You’ll see,” said the Earl, smiling and winking.
In a single deft move he enrobed the meat,
And the assembled guests, they applauded this feat.
For it is to this Earl we owe the creation,
That fills our every lunch hour with elation.

>>6301960
A lot of potential here. Flesh this out into a quatrain is what I think - it could be beautifully depressing.

I just start writing the first shit that came to my mind so you can rate my grammar and vocabulary. Non-native and non-english pro here.

Reaching the street of the meeting was an easy after walking for one hour. He lived not far from the place, but avoiding the encounter seemed a obligatory and even nature router to talk to his parents after all that happened last week. He had decided that he didn't want to be what he used to be anymore, his decision wasn't very well received since wasn't announced. Running from his parents house without nobody noticing was the cause of the confusion, didn't he know that his fugue wasn't really a fugue if they didn't know.

So a week later he calls to speak to them. They find it very disturbing when they got into his room and it was empty, embarrassing and uneasy the feeling to realize that something wasn't on his place that was supposed to be. So they wanted to put it back, and he wanted to be hugged and that they told him that everything would be alright. He agreed to see them at the supermarket, not in the coffee shop in the neighborhood, why? He stuttered something that neither him or his parents understood. He didn't want them to think they had control. HE had control.

>>6300995
Thank you
I'll try to get both right

>>6294192
"In the middle of hill's steep incline my entire body started to push out meat sweat and I had to stop, or risk passing out and tumbling down to the amusement of small children.

I was hung over and filled with Sunday pot roast in a park full of families and dog owners enjoying the first Spring day but the cheeriness of the dazzling sunlight was lost on me. I felt tired and ill and had no way of divining from which end the blessed release would burst forth. Jesus /fuck/ I thought when she, laughing in her high-heeled winter boots stumbled back to the bushes she had emerged from and where she had been pissing or crying or both just a moment ago. She was still clinging to that bottle of stale champagne I had no recollection of ever ordering or paying for, and which at some point had been used as an ashtray but otherwise was still perfectly potable. People were starting to stare so I left her to her shrieky dialogue under the branches with no-one in particular and climbed upwards. Sightseeing had lost some of its charm but I still wanted to see the prime meridian. This was London after all, and Greenwich was the Taint of Mother Earth, the strip of land between her anus and her cock."

This is how I'd like to start a book, one day.

>>6301637
Any comments? or is it shit and I should just drop it?

Here's the second version:

Past midnight I arrived to the "Bueno Paradiso" graveyard, the luxury graveyard for the very very rich where I ought to find Liza's old letter and set up the inheritance problem to help me with my very own problems.
Now, I arrived to the door big as a castle with pictures of angels, I gave a couple of kicks to the smaller door embedded in the bigger door and used for non-famous people and whoever who's poorer. The door opened to the fourth kick with a pump-ough-augh like if the door was previously broken. The door was not broken, in point of the fact, there was no door at all, but a very fat black man standing below the arc who I apparently confused for a small door (bright helmet for a small window, his extendend handshake-hand for a doorknob). It looked like he dozed off on the ground (which is not the point of my story) so I just went over him straight to the fields (I'm pretty sure he's alright) where I found another man but smaller and at least man-alike althought a little bit gay. This last one was the one that clean the ones who are dead, but just the ones who died long ago and that just happens to be a special condition of his. Plot-twist or whatever it is: Everyone died long ago because nobody else comes to rest here.
I will do a capsule review of what the french-looking cleaning-man/woman told me that night: "Bueno Paradiso was a very expensive graveyard. They offered what no else ever offered: alphabetical ordered tombs. And they went into bankruptcy soon after for they did not consider how much money they had to spend to move the corpses everytime a new one came in"
But it was popular, it was indeed very popular and a lot of rich people rest here next to the alphabetical-near rich friends. Then I asked to the very gay frenchman (for he was happy to see someone come to his land (crap-covered and probably his)) where Liza's tomb is
"Where's Liza's tomb?" I asked to we already know who
"I don't who Liza is and I certainly don't care, but there you have the A and from there you go the path"
And so I did. From Aaron Aaronson I walked to Aaarin Aaaronson to Aasil Abronsol and to the next of the names starting with B,C and the letters that follow (whose order I must confess to my very shame I learned along the way).

>>6300492
>>6300768
You write like a pregnant yak

>hot desert wind with its igneous heat
You described the wind as hot twice here. I guess Igneous would really mean fiery or volcanic, but that is still close to just saying that the wind was hot.

>There were only three cairns outside of the Empire in the desert: the sun, the stars, and the moon. And even then, the stars and moon were limited in their use for only the truly desperate traveled at night.
I'm guessing that cairn is supposed to mean landmark in this case, but the Empire is the only actual landmark that you list (and I don't know if you were listing it or referring to the desert outside of the empire. In that case I would just omit that unless their is a point to distinguishing between the desert within and outside of the empire).

>And even then, the stars and moon were limited in their use for only the truly desperate traveled at night.
Get rid of the comma at the start and then add one in between "use" and "for", alternatively change it to "in their use to the truly desperate who traveled at night."

General nitpicking is that your navigation is fucked. First maps are always useful even if you're in a desert with dunes that swallow up roads from time to time. Of course the narrator could just be going out to wander aimlessly. Second out of all the things you listed as being useful for navigation only the stars could actually be used, and the extent of their use is finding out what direction you're going (if you have sophisticated instruments you might find out things like latitude and longitude, things that are only useful if you have a map). The sun and moon can't be used beyond telling time. Last is that going through the desert at night, or at least in the evening and early morning (when it is cool) would SOP and not a last ditch measure.

The weather beaten trail wound ahead into the dust racked climes of the baren land which dominates large portions of the Norgolian empire. Age worn hoof prints smothered by the sifting sands of time shone dully against the dust splattered crust of earth. The tireless sun cast its parching rays of incandescense from overhead, half way through its daily revolution. Small rodents scampered about, occupying themselves in the daily accomplishments of their dismal lives. Dust sprayed over three heaving mounts in blinding clouds, while they bore the burdonsome cargoes of their struggling overseers.

The cordwainer, accorded by fate looks on.
Au Courant but aged -
He walks his imperial rut
Caught in the stride of yesterday’s march.

But not to betray his prince –
The despot prescott,
Bound and crowned with newfound thoughts of calamity.
Sic temper tyrannis we clamour!
But to no avail.
For there is no glamor in what we are,
Bookmakers to kings.

>>6301960
this is good. Like the other guy, I recommend expanding on this a little.

>>6302194

What the fuck is a cordwainer?

It was then that the great cliff began to shudder, and move. The ancient grey vines that had weaved themselves through the cracks in the rock, ossified in the wake of the torturous new sun, all began to snap like bones. As the flocks of black birds screamed and fled their shelters, a hail of splintered stone showered the floor, and in the centre of the monolith, two cavernous eyes opened. At least, they seemed to be eyes – each huge cave hosted huge fleshy red growths, and a deep pool swirled inside each socket as the rock below split from itself, and began to heave upwards. He could only stand, and stare. Through the storm of dust, he watched as a darkness began to grow under each inhuman eye, widening several metres at a time with a booming, demonic roar. The darkness glittered madly with purple gemstones, jagged like teeth. The figure, for now some semblance of a creature had made itself separate from the sprawling mountain side, began to lean forward. The water in its eyes began to glow eerily, and as the monstrous head came closer, he could see swarms of fat winged insects nesting in the growths.

>>6302194
>writing libertarian poems
>2015

>>6302203
>A cordwainer is a shoemaker who makes fine soft leather shoes and other luxury footwear articles.

>>6302194
If you are trying use bootmakers to kings as a metaphor to slaves to the system, fuck you.

I also saw that movie, be original.

>>6294359
underrated post

>>6300949
thanks for the critique

>>6294359
kek

>>6302194
That really is quite elegant, Anon. Good order, very precise, feeling of the unknown. Fine poetry is the music of mathematics, numbers, singing. You have to look behind the words to understand their meaning.

>>6302307
;)

Hey /lit/, until very recently I've had little interest in writing. I'm aware that this is probably shit, but what can I do to make it better?

"A familiar day begins as the houses are bathed in light. The trees whisper in unison as the wind flies lightly through their arms shaking the morning dew from their leaves. They reach upwards towards the sun as if they can grasp it and hold it, never to let go. Among the trees rises a barren dirt hill. It stands alone, enormous, like the thumb of God. Projecting from the side, a lone rock bluff grimly surveys the world below. At the base of the hill lies a small pond. Little distance away from it a dusty road, twisting it’s way over the ground like a black serpent. The sun is now at the height of it’s arc, coming to a standstill in the sky. "

>>6300488
Thanks for the feedback!
>it should be in its own sentence and not have some unrelated in image part tacked on the end
Noted

>meh is this magical realism or fantasy or something?

Yes, fantasy mixed with horror.

>ehhh i feel like there's occasionally good writing and images in there, but the paragraph as a whole doesn't work/flow
Bummer. I'll give it a good working over again

>>6302355

You are a big dick now

Look’d I up’d, and Up’d I look’d
as I was always told t’do:
by mother, by Father, by Father, by Uncle: And
Up’d I look’d at the sky.

Where cotton crucifies a blue above,
Where from afield, where lions golden from
Where Bumble chanted a leitmotiv
Lyd’ian Buzz, song of plain,
Strummed his chords, and Hummed
A primal chant of beauty’s wain.
Look’d I up’d, and Up’d I look’d and
Up’d I look’d at the sky.

thought so far?

>>6302487

*wane

>>6302487
HOW DO GRITS AND ORANGE JUICE COME UPON THE HORIZON? ANSWER AND YE SHALL BE CRITIQUED

>>6302510

sun/stars

breakfast time

also it sounds pretty and immediately you think of "okay this is set in the south or something"

Bruce cracked open his jaundiced eyes, sending a spray of dried gunk and boogers scattering into the beams falling through the window. He’d always been a leaky man. He rubbed the remaining crust away. The woman of his dreams began to fade, and in her stead a man danced on Bruce’s forehead. He stamped and squeezed the poor boy’s skull.

Bruce looked outside, on the street where a double barreled line of instruments were tooting down the street. They all looked up at him, stuck their tongues out, and blew into their brass and wood.

“Fuck y’all.”

Floats followed the procession but the rest doesn’t matter because Bruce didn’t care. He shambled into the kitchen and stuffed a brush in his mouth. It came out brown and smelling of a rotten condom. He dipped it in bleach and went in for another pass. He tasted clean.

Bruce made for the couch again but stopped short and looked at the corner of the room. His dream girl. There she was, coating the wall in a few dozen snapshots. He just couldn’t get over her, couldn’t pull his heart away from those massive eyes, eyes of a perfect shade, the color of a nice soft log of shit, the kind that teases your prostate and doesn’t leave a trace on the way out. Her nose was a cute bulb, cocked to one side, situated above perfect lips. Her bottom lip was the pouty one, her eyebrows sharpened up towards the middle, and her forehead went on for miles. It gave her a mischievous look, all set in a big, bony face, not strong or masculine, but large, like a sexy version of that kid from Mask. You know, the movie with Cher, not the one with Jim Carrey.

As he absent-mindedly massaged his balls, creaking copulation sounded above. His fat black friends in the apartment above were having at it. The man was slamming his fat black cock into his fat black wife, and their bed was straining under the pressure. Bruce dropped his boxers and watched his own member go from simple dome buried in a curly Amazon to a proud three and one quarter inches of thin muscle.

>>6302653
Just realized I said street twice up there. I'd still like some feedback on the style, etc.

>>6302661
it's hard to build credibility in your narrator when you start off with such extreme hyperbole.

>>6302653
>Bruce cracked open his jaundiced eyes, sending a spray of dried gunk and boogers scattering into the beams falling through the window

one sentence in and all I see is purple

Rebirth (maybe? idk)

The contrast between
soft greys and greens
in rainy springs,

The sparkle and sheen
of dukes and queens
on sapling leaves,

these sing to me.

>>6302672
Is that a bad thing? Despite the paragraph about the girl, this story isn't really meant to be emotional or deep. I'm going for more of a descent into insanity type deal, liberal helpings of surrealism included.

>>6302487
>>6302528
My thoughts so far are that I don't like most poetry, that I don't like folksy kitsch that hearkens back to the good old days, and I especially don't like corncob Americana, and really those last two are just the same thing, and why the 'ds? Why'd I Ask'd, and Ask'd I Why'd? Is this supposed to be an emulation of a strange po southern dialect I've never heard? Are you trying to capture an image of the sky? Is the golden lion the sun, am I being rused? Is this the sleight flight and are you my captain today? For what purpose is an apostrophe stuck in the middle of Lydian, doesn't it read the same, and how does bumble (bee?) chant a leitmotif (fuck your alternative spelling)?

Sorry my critique was meant to be crazed and instead I only managed whiny

>>6302653
Step it up sempai

>>6302690
>of dukes and queens
why did you go with this? but overall that rhythm gets me hard, nice job anon

>>6302691
There isn't any decent it's absurd from the start.

>>6302697
i wanted to use 'queens' to parallel 'greens', and "of kings and queens" i didn't like the sound of, 'dukes' was the only word that fit well phonetically that came to mind

but thank you! i wrote it while marveling at the growth of a tree outside my window, i'm very pleased with it

Then I reentered the seventh circle of hell. The end of my diseased cock stung like buggery as the remaining whatever of my early lager pints chugged through the clogged fleshy pipe-hole. I let out a piercing whelp of weakness. A lad wearing a t-shirt too tight to contain his ridiculous abundance of muscle looked my way and said something with a genuinely compassionate look on his face. I misheard him because of the blare of the hand dryer and said "cheers" which to his ears probably sounded more like "jizz". He looked bemused as we stepped away from the urinal and began to tuck our cocks back into our trousers simultaneously. As we fled I held the door for him and he said "Thank You."

As I stumbled back out of the void I noticed that my young doppelganger had gone and that the pub suddenly seemed packed full of people swaying incoherently. The music buzzed in my ears like a dirty big wasp and I thought about how my uncle used to call them “damn wasps”, pronouncing wasp as if it has a double S.

I woke up stuck to the floor. A radio was playing through the window. Some guy wanted to make a film about homeless people but not just to say that homelessness was bad because “every decent person should know that anyway.” I nodded in agreement and peeled myself from the Lino. Someone that sounded like a builder said “Damn right is that boy.” And I nodded again whilst I tried to figure out where I was. I was in my flat.

>>6300736
Aspie first sentence. It just bad xx

>>6302741
Nice writing, real entertainging. You know that this is bullshit outside of /lit/ though. There is some weird predilection for anything that mentions cocks here. easy on the edge, friend

>>6295962
One guy said he liked it, appreciate that, anyone else want to comment on it? Preferably someone who can rip me a second asshole.

I finished this today. This board is probably one of the few places where anyone's likely to understand more than 80% of the terms used so I may as well post it publicly.
http://a-s-arthur.tumblr.com/post/114339192651/operation-k-e-k

Apologies for the tumblr link in >>6302785

>>6302765
I actually find that outside of /lit/ cocks really get books flying off the shelves.

In fact the whole novel is about a 22 year old virgin who contracts an STD without having sex. As things begin to unfold his suspicions are confirmed when it turns out his cat licked his promiscuous roommates vagina then went into his room and woke him up by licking his knob.

I think it has real promise.

Need some critique. It's a diary from a warrier along the path of Elruda (part of my fantasy world):

It's been three days now, three fucking days, Oran is an important city, why haven't reinforcements come yet ? There were eight-hundred and fifty of us yesterday, the fucking orcs have taken thirty-eight just today. The weird thing is that we've got orcs on our side. Yes, Ithril is desperate. Four days and still no sign of anybody. Four days since that royal magpie came back with that message of promised food and rest. Well, at least that's what the soldiers and the Halrein want, us mercs just want our pay. They attacked again today, I lost two men, Perat and Flolk, Perat was my best archer, I fucking needed him, we all need them both. We lost the bridge, all that because of those fucking lazy dirty desert fucks ! I lost five more, and three more are missing. Byui's dead, shot in head while getting us of the bridge, I loved that giant. We're preparing a retreat, good thing we didn't eat all the horses... The retreat left hours ago, a few of us are hiding in this house. The reinforcements are here, four thousand of them at least, I know that mercenaries have no honor but I'm not gonna kill them for honor, I'm doing it for Perat, Flolk, I'm doing it for the smallest giant I ever met, but I'm going to kill every mother-fucking green arse-licking bastard, until I get to the arse hole who took my Elienha.

Denny

A cold Sunday afternoon in spring. Two old acquaintances have a chance meeting as they pass on the street. One of the men is particularly vocal. He had missed Denny, and he made it known.

"Denny, man, my God. How are you doin'? I Haven't seen you in so long!"

He tried to hide it, but it was there. Plain for all to hear and as harsh as the wind whipping up off the Hudson. Desperation.

Quickly the conversation descended into the dark and murky depths of inquiry and accusation.

"What are you talkin' 'bout Denny? You know I don't do that fuckin' shit no more."

It was still there. Biting at the back of his throat. Running its broken festering claws along the man's tongue. It leaped forth from his mouth like the obnoxious funk of a dead dog. Desperation.

"You know what Denny? I've got along just fine without you this far. So I'm sure I'll keep on surviving. But it was nice seeing you Denny. Real nice. I'm sure we'll meet again someday. I gotta be on"

The couple parted ways. Clumsy foot steps that seemed to fall in the same place each time echoed through the empty street.

I never heard Denny speak. So I never found out what the other man was denying. Although I'm sure what ever his vice, he never stopped.

>>6302112

thanks

I'm not concerned with the realism atm tbh, more trying to work on my prose

>>6303024

It's boring, it has no point to it, nothing to extract from it.

>tfw wrote whole fucking story
>tfw it didn't post

>>6294192

>>6303168
>>6303149
I like the Kafkaesque inability to overcome a shapeless and oppressive system within your story

>>6294690
I like it mostly. I think I'd enjoy reading more like this but it's a little heavy handed with such wordy metaphors that I'm not sure I would actually get any meaning out of long passages of this. Also that first sentence is throwing me off. Do you need to rearrange that comma?

>>6294690
if the apple is half eaten, then of course the other hlf is uneaten. we assume because that half is rotten. as you have already stated

Operation K.E.K

>De-op the OP, his OpSec is weak
>Set mode +m and don't let him speak
>Strip him of v, 'kb him into damnation
>Cross-reference his nicks, find contamination

>Scan all his uploads for hints in exif
>Someone's cracked a new app so we packet sniff
>Find his terminal identity, grep his true name
>Check for default settings with passwords the same

>He's responding to ping still, the signal is live
>Triangulate his IP with a little wardrive
>Unplugged's no problem, we can bridge those air-gaps
>Exploiting the malware in his smart-phone's apps

>His SSL's leaking, get his SSH-2 key
>Now he's part of our botnet, DDoS the DoD
>Start spreading around his dox on the darknets
>Flogging his fullz to bydlo on the black markets

>His AV was antique, wouldn't even keep out phreakers
>His OS is ours now; we transmit through his speakers:
>“We've rooted your router, your hard-drive's MilSec-spec encrypted,
>We'll take payment in bitcoin if you want our wall lifted.”

>Max out his credit, debit, MasterCard and Visa
>Place orders in his name for delicious cheese pizza
>Oh the things we can do to his metadata!
>He'll be getting a ride in the partyvan later.

>We're in the hyperreal now, they did hack the planet,
>Trolling rolling on the lab's latest RC, 'til they ban it.
>A present contingent on Babbage's dreams,
>Skiddies sat alone in the dark, with the dankest of memes.

this is >>6302785 btw

Wondering why I need to hold such thoughts at all, a place does beckon the place of providence I claim to hail starry lights in sunny nights, ahead of golden bridges and with pulled string fairly even kept far back and relaxed streets, easy speaking, my love. The path one walks is lead with fright and general terror so don't be amused by their offerings, in the slightest they will deceive you and you want to be able to spot lies ahead. Life anew, with prospective licenses jumping curbs so readily, please, draw grottos still and glimpses back for megenta dews, sprung ahead to simple silkscreens. Love, how any other name might it be called if not for the sudden changes that I can already see coming, so soon, back to nights on the daylight, and there is nothing left but yellow seas and groups of trees bent with wind, whipped all around. Oh, woe is me, for what lies still, but death in forms unknown to most unknowing kindness, beset with love and fixed in poems dropped of fear and wiped of shame and lacking most other times. Echoed hearts, stepping back to gaze in awe upon us, washing fields of lilies black with fear I turn my course and dare attack, with grace, I aim to shoot my arrow, back of skull, to pierce red marrow, but send me home on sleepless friends drawn closer in to hold my hands and love thyselves, watching all move out to slumbering heights. Fixed, my lung, the supers gnawing, fate aside, not my own hands decide when this heart holding steadily gives way so readily, so at last, landing back at least, my scroll runs short, laying still I dare not lie, but rest in peace.

>>6299385

I hope this is sincere. If so, thanks anon

>>6303216

Thanks for the comments anon, much appreciated

>>6303254

Redundancy doesn't always work I guess (that redundancy doesn't always work)

Life is in simplicity,
in little questions unanswered.
Ask me what I want for tea,
not who I am or who are we.
I may not know or care to say,
but come now, sit,
beneath this tree.

Bin and Bang

I'm a capital 'I'
you're a lowercase 'l'
I was born in the sky
you were aborted from hell.
But who are you and who am I?
we often ask ourselves.
Well we're one and the same
as far as anyone can tell.

–––––––––––––––––

I'd feel so bad if I committed suicide,
that I don't know if I'd be able to live with myself.

It’s been a year now. Well, almost. It felt like a whole year, that’s for sure. ‘A year abroad’ sounds a lot better than just 10 months. Maybe he should have stayed the two more months, maybe he should have still been there instead of standing in front of his mother’s house. So boastful was he when leaving. His words made sense back then, even now when he has seen himself betray every promise and fail at every challenge he has set up for himself, he knew that leaving was the right call. To stay would have meant a lifetime of regret and whatifs. He felt regretful now too, he regretted being weak and many other adjectives that would translate again only into being weak, he had enough willpower and passion to set out on the route to pursue greatness but not enough of it to push through the various obstacles which stood in his way. Still, leaving was the right choice, it had to be, his failure to pursue the full potential of the decision was irrelevant to the validity of the initial choice. Even the worst case scenario of leaving, that is him having failed miserably, was perhaps preferable to the delusional whatifs that would plague him for the rest of his life if he stayed. He hated himself now sure, but at least he saw himself for what he truly was, a deluded arrogant fool who thought himself better than all the others without having anything to show for it. Despite seeing this he still remained deluded. I mean, he WAS better than the others, at least he tried to be something more. Not being content with the dregs like the rest of them, that had to count for something! He went and jumped before crashing down into the mud and not simply walked down into it. Did it matter one bit though? He was as dirty as all the others now. Maybe even more, his adventurous excess putting him behind all the rest. The rest who, even though he saw himself above them in every way, seemed happy and content. Maybe he was really a fool, all the rest have figured out their own worthlessness without having any delusions of grandeur, only he needed to try for greatness and see himself fail miserably. Fuck it. He knocked on the door, willing to rather face his mother than having to stand against his own conscience for too long a time.

pls respond ;_;

On my way to the library to read
I read printed words on an empty box:
"What would you do if you were blind?"
Then I glanced down public alley 809
and saw a bedraggled blind man openly peeing–
his yellow stream thick as dyed dreads–
and in realizing he couldn't see me see him
I laughed, dropping a nickel into his box,
wondering if he's homeless, and if so,
which came first: the blindness or homelessness?
Because surely they're related.

>>6303350

It could use some compacting, I believe. Concision, precision, circumcision.

>>6303322

I can place my finger on it, but this poem bothers me.

>>6294192
r8 my translation skills

>>6298943
Consonants

Vowels aren't necessary for comprehending english
just like trophies aren't necessary for sizing glow
it shade yourself of all redundance and be free
?

I get the concept, but I don't like it

>>6302025
pls reply fast

A Praying Mantis Goes to Church

Green clasps clutching a severed male's head,
the fertilized, unwed, bewitched Mantis
felt the breath of God upon her arthropodic nape
whispering sweet somethings: "Come Child
Get On Your Knees And Repent For Your Sins;
Accept My White Salvation Upon Your Crystalline Eyes
And Beauteous Thorax Sculpted In The Form Of Mother Mary.
Come Child." And so she grabbed her purse–
filled with tampons, nail polish, four Kermit keychains–
and whistled down an Indonesian rickshaw roller
towards St Peter's Cathedral to pray her impieties away.
She checked her cell phone and realized she had an itch–
the sky's curtains were drawn deep gray–
and in that moment, a figment struck her in her kaleidoscopes:
A vulcan will-o'-the-wisp carrying Fast Food Bags.

And that was the day she first tried Marmite,
knees red and textured like the quilted pews
that only supported the weight of churchgoers
because the bag limit is fifty pounds, or nominal fee charged.

>>6303396

*glory
*shed
*redundancies

I guess I should have added the 'y'

Nywy, thnks nn

>>6303396
consonants

vowels aren't necessary for comprehending english
just like trophies aren't necessary for seizing glory
so shed yourself of all redundancies and be free

pretty sure this is the implied message

>>6303418
Yes, that seems right.

>>6302419
Well if you're going for a delirium vibe, with the faces sprouting at him, I think something like 'The faces in his desk sneering at him ...' because when you're delirious faces dont appear and disappear in front of your eyes(assuming he's just seeing patterns in the wood grain on his desk as faces) but rather are simply there

>>6303435
samefag, also you could talk about hearing voices, more, definitely a more scary part of delirium than seeing shit

>>6303377
In what way?

Laying under summer cloudy sky
hearing droplets hit the ground
and the willow blue birds sing their tune
songs that you may know by heart

Let yourself die with ease
let the self go down this night
to the everlasting place
where the blue gives chant and smiles

>>6303449

You say is simple; it isn't. The line "...want for tea" implies that the offerer has a variety of teas, but also that tea is assumed to be wanted–almost insistently. Then you drop the hyper-used theme of 'muh self-identity' but don't actually explore. And finally, after you've proposed almost no novel or interesting ideas while simultaneously being completely unpoetic, you implore the reader to sit. As with the tea, you don't ask, you tell, demand, and because you don't deliver any reason to grant yourself credibility or authority, it only comes off as annoying and somehow entitled. But that's just me

>>6303491

*life is simple

>>6303491
This argument is as poorly formed as my terrible poem.

Does no-one want to tell me (>>6303260) why I'm terrible and I suck and should kill myself?

>>6303513
Look at all of the other posts that have responses to them and think about how you are worse than them in every way

Here's a list of things that aren't me:
mirrors, beer bottles, and oxycodone;
the feeling that I'm being watched
(by a mustached man, the Badger mascot),
and the procedural brushing of the teeth;
my first, second, or fourth romances
(because I don't like to talk about the third);
that atoms composing my being
or the food I eat and the gas I breath;
my parents, my siblings, my friends, my DNA;
Hamlet, The Wire, Mozart, Rembrandt, Newton;
a compilation of memories of benign experiences;
the letters in the words in these listless lines;
my first cry or my last breath or my loudest laugh;
oh, and also the name attached to my face–
I'm not that either.

What I am is exactly what I'm not.
Who aren't you, reader?

>>6303513
its sad

>>6303509

truth

Here's a list of things that aren't me:
mirrors, beer bottles, and oxycodone;
the feeling that I'm being watched
(by a mustached man, the Badger mascot),
and the procedural brushing of the teeth;
my first, second, or fourth romances
(because I don't like to talk about the third);
that atoms composing my being
or the food I eat and the gas I breath;
my parents, my siblings, my friends, my DNA;
Hamlet, The Wire, Mozart, Rembrandt, Newton;
a compilation of memories of benign experiences;
the letters in the words in these listless lines;
my first cry or my last breath or my loudest laugh;
oh, and also the name attached to my face–
I'm not that either.

What I am is exactly what I'm not.
What aren't you, reader?
(other than dead or blind)

>>6303472

Laying under cloudy sky
hearing droplets hitting ground,
the willow blue birds trill their tune,
ballads you may know by heart

Let yourself die with ease
let the self go down tonight
to the everlasting place
where the blue gives chant and smiles

>>6303552
even better

>>6303260
>>6303513
it's decent actually but yeah the audience for this is pretty slim

>>6303350
the voice is overly academic. also, you're infodumping. you could be showing this in the dialogue with his mother which would make it a lot more dynamic than just him thinking thoughts in a wall of text.

>>6302962
here's nothing wrong with it but it didn't make me want to read more. it's kind of generic.

>>6298943
just a stunt

>>6303778
6303024 do me do me.

>>6303778
go here to read its final edit. http://truancyandthebadapple.tumblr.com/

>>6294354
I really laughed at that

When the doctor said "urine trouble,'
I immediately became pissed.

This evolved into terror
before a dangling catheter
held by Dick the nurse.

>>6303829
you are a bad person.

>>6303829
hehehehehe

>>6303800
cut this:
>Two old acquaintances have a chance meeting as they pass on the street. One of the men is particularly vocal. He had missed Denny, and he made it known.
the tone is academic. it's telling not showing and redundant. you show it in the next line of dialogue.

i would also cut this:
>Desperation.
because it's also too telling. the reader should be able to figure it out without being told.

cut this too and show it through dialgoue
>Quickly the conversation descended into the dark and murky depths of inquiry and accusation.

i think this is overwritten. use one metaphor.
>Biting at the back of his throat. Running its broken festering claws along the man’s tongue. It leaped forth from his mouth like the obnoxious funk of a dead dog.
and cut
>Desperation.
again

>The couple parted ways
this makes it sound like they're a couple as in 'dating'

this is kind of weird because why can't he hear denny if he can hear the other guy?
>I never heard Denny speak. So I never found out what the other man was denying.
if denny's mumbling inaudibly, you should explain this.
also, you don't need to say "the other man." it's longer then necessary. you can just write "what he was denying" since it logically follows from the last sentence.

i didn't like the end
>Although I’m sure what ever his vice, he never stopped.
the narrator would have to be a fortune teller to know this to be true.
in fiction, assumptions and easy answers are bad. the more interesting stories are those where people do the unexpected.
if you really want to be a downer about it, have the narrator flash forward and see the bad end somehow but i think that's excessive.

>>6303852

Why?

>>6303866
didn't you get it? the dude is nuts. there's no denny. he's talking to himself.

>>6303888
ok i see how that could be the case.

disregard the part i said about
>So I never found out what the other man was denying.
i see what you were doing there

i made a single pass crit, didn't do a second read like i usually do for my writers group.

and then you're in serious trouble, very serious trouble, and you know it, finally, deadly serious trouble, because this Substance you thought was your one true friend, that you gave up all for, gladly, that for so long gave you relief from the pain of the Losses your love of that relief caused, your mother and lover and god and compadre, has finally removed its smily-face mask to reveal centerless eyes and a ravening maw, and canines down to here, it's the Face In The Floor, the grinning root-white face of your worst nightmares, and the face is your own face in the mirror, now, it's you, the Substance has devoured or replaced and become you, and the puke-, drool- and Substance-crusted T-shirt you've both worn for weeks now gets torn off and you stand there looking and in the root-white chest where your heart (given away to It) should be beating, in its exposed chest's center and centerless eyes is just a lightless hole, more teeth, and a beckoning taloned hand dangling something irresistible, and now you see you've been had, screwed royal, stripped and fucked and tossed to the side like some stuffed toy to lie for all time in the posture you land in. You see now that It's your enemy and your worst personal nightmare and the trouble It's gotten you into is undeniable and you still can't stop. Doing the Substance now is like attending Black Mass but you still can't stop, even though the Substance no longer gets you high. You are, as they say, Finished. You cannot get drunk and you cannot get sober; you cannot get high and you cannot get straight. You are behind bars; you are in a cage and can see only bars in every direction. You are in the kind of a hell of a mess that either ends lives or turns them around.

>>6294354
did you write the labia wings thing

>>6294192
Je vendrai mon âme aux sorcières sans nul doute ou hésitation,
Si la passion de ma déroute ne rendait ma lame si amère.
Des mers de flammes, des routes de fer, je ne tire plus aucun plaisir,
J’échangerai tout mon empire pour une nuit avec les sorcières

Le matin mon corps mis a sac, éviscéré et vaincu,
Souriant, ensanglanté, sous un tombeau de désaccords
Je ne serais toujours pas repu, j’en redemanderai encore,
jusqu'à la morsure a la gorge qui trop tôt sera venue.

Mais même mon cadavre mis a nu, on ne trouvera aucune faiblesse
Aucune faille, aucune bassesse, ou porter un dernier coup.
Et si ma carcasse, debout, se tourne vers l’horizon,
elle paraîtra si vivace que les enfants en pleureront.

Qu’importe a travers l’univers, ou je me trouverai réunis !
Au sommet du paradis ou dans les abysses de l’enfer,
Si ma monnaie je récupère pour qu’a nouveau je sois maudis,
j’attendrai un millénaire devant la porte des sorcières.

>>6303951
Life isn't that bad. I've been through it already. Just gotta realize everything keeps moving forward. Or you end up like n emo cunt who posts this kind of crap.

>>6302741
>his ridiculous abundance of muscle
not so great, chop this down to two words or even one: musculature

>look on his face

pet peeve of mine but dont do this. describe the facial expression, not the kind of facial expression.

commas on either end of quotes, always*, i dont give a fuck if it's stylistic

>whilst

never. ever.

the middle paragraph is kind of weak, and the ending needs to be tightened up, not really sure what's going on**.

*unless it's scare quotes or the kind of quoting you do in the third sentence of the third paragraph, where it's strung into the narration.

**there are ways to make it so it's obvious the character doesn't know what's going on but ensure that we know that the character doesn't know what's going on. as it stands NEITHER of us (character and reader) know what's going on, fix one of those.

anyway here's mine

And here’s the gas station, and he clicks on the parking lot and tries to walk in. There’s no Street View for parking lots. He’s denied entry to the gas station, denied the cigarettes, denied the beer, denied the shop lifting games that scored Bic lighters and candy bars, denied the chats about Algebra and Zen and life with the toothless old guy working the counter. He pans down and sees the Google Maps Car’s camera in silhouette cast thinly on the asphalt by that sun, and he clicks down Main Street toward the bridge. Off to the side of the road is a path, foliage-shadowed, beyond which, past the camera’s line of sight, through stinging, virile bramble, is a clearing, and in that clearing a log, and he would sit at that log with his friends or with a girl, and he would tell her she’s in a secret place, an important place, and the smoke would swirl low in the air, humid and heavy, buzzing again with possibilities and gnats and dragonflies, and there they were in the green-yellow mystery of canopy-filtered daylight just high as a kite. The cameraman drives on, clicking away, capturing things and lives in digitally fragmented outline.

Opening paragraph from a novel I'm writing about 14th century Italian mercenaries:

>The great bell of the Montichiari abbey was ringing, as it always did whenever an army passed along the road. The monks rung the bell for two reasons: firstly because it identified the compound as a house of God -- a status that was intended to deliver the defenseless compound from the looting so typical of contemporary wars. The second reason was to warn the citizens in the nearby village that an approaching force was near arrival.

Can't decide if that's too boring of a start. It's directly followed by some witty banter but fuck all I really don't want to start a novel with dialogue.

>> And here’s the gas station, and he clicks on the parking lot and tries to walk in. There’s no Street View for parking lots. He’s denied entry to the gas station, denied the cigarettes, denied the beer, denied the shop lifting games that scored Bic lighters and candy bars, denied the chats about Algebra and Zen and life with the toothless old guy working the counter. He pans down and sees the Google Maps Car’s camera in silhouette cast thinly on the asphalt by that sun, and he clicks down Main Street toward the bridge. There’s a path here off on the side of the road, foliage-shadowed, leading down the brook to a clearing, far past the camera’s line of sight, through stinging, virile bramble, and he would sit at a log there with his friends or with a girl, telling her she’s in a secret place, an important place, as smoke swirled low in the air, humid and heavy, buzzing again with possibilities and gnats and dragonflies, and there they were in the green-yellow mystery of canopy-filtered daylight just high as a kite. The cameraman drives on, clicking away, capturing things and lives in digitally fragmented outline.

>>6304092
>>6304132

Hi, lit. This is a little impressionistic scene I wrote. I'm working on telling details (show, don't tell). Any feedback is appreciated.

A car came squealing across the lot, stopped abruptly and jostled. Through the rear window one could see two forms mixed in a fury of gesticulations. A woman was haranguing a man for some sin and the man was firing back with double anger. The woman thrust the door open and hobbled out. Her distended body had been squeezed into adolescent clothes and her wrinkly stomach jiggled as she strutted and her matted black hair was artificially extended. She threw her cigarette on the ground defiantly and hurled a barrage of oaths at the wild-eyed man. He had gotten out of the driver’s seat by now and his volatile body quaked and burned. His haggard face was absent and listless but mad. He called her a bitch as she stormed away. He got back in the car and it started to lurch through the parking-lot in reverse. The car swerved wantonly towards another driver who began to panic and honk rapidly. The man shot past and into the street, not without poking his wizened head out of the window and hurtling a final imprecation: “Dumb motherfucker!”

Typed this up in about an hour last night. It's INCREDIBLY rough. I'm sure there are several errors in construction and grammar. I'm just asking for critique on the theme, ideology, symbolism, metaphors and feeling. I'm going for being very abstract. I will rate others after I post.

Thanks in advance!

>>6304298
do u expect us to read this shit without any alineas or paragraphs

>>6304298

are you high no-one's gna read that fucking wall of text lmao

I'm having trouble making this paragraph flow, I know it's a mess. I wrote without any regard thinking that I would edit it afterward, but I just can't find a way to make it flow. Can someone with fresh eyes please point our the main flaws so I can get it right?

-----

I felt Ben’s hand catch my wrist, like with Jake he applied no effort but beneath his motion I could feel the intent of force. I had no choice and I watched as the can disappeared under my nose. I closed my eyes and felt Ben guide me, his gentle hand persuaded me and I found myself leaning backward and all I could taste was the rum. I felt it fall down my throat, restrained by nothing and my stomach stirred with nausea almost immediately, I was utterly overwhelmed and in my hand I could feel the rum shifting against the aluminium. By the weight that remained I knew that I was not up to task. But these were not my peers, I knew no one and they were all much older than I and in that moment I realized that while appearance was everything to a new teenager, these were not my seniors to impress, so I opted for failure. I pushed the rum in my mouth forward and it sprayed out from all sides of the can, I felt Ben’s hand withdraw and the can fell to the ground. I fell to the ground and feigned vomiting, letting the rum still left in my mouth hit the sand as I forced myself to make throaty gags. I heard laughter surround me and I knew I was off the hook, I let them see my unwillingness as incapability and I became a lost cause to them, I had abandoned Jake to their complete attention. I watched as Ben approached him with a fresh can, still whipping his right hand of my spillage against his pants. Jake took the can and this time he found the vertical position himself and Ben simply held a fingertip against the can, making his fate concrete.

THE EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIR OF THOMAS O'HARE

Street lights pierced the night like a blight of fright upon this modern day knight. The hair of Thomas O'Hare attracted stares because of its radiant glare. "Don't go there!" entreated a parakeet who loved to feast on human meat. "Squawk, squawk," O'Hare talked.

Fin

>>6296654
Anyone else got any criticism?

>>6304344
It's promising, but I think you're shooting for Hemingway a little too hard. Try reading some Jack London. Otherwise I feel like grammatically you're sound and vocabulary-wise, while there could be improvement, you're sufficient.

>>6304330

It certainly needs a lot of editing. What have you tried?

When I get stuck, or something doesn't feel right in a paragraph or section I do the following:

Sentence by sentence - What does this sentence need to say, what does it want to say, what does it NOT want to say, lots of questions you can ask it.
Editing for brevity - Take out all adjectives, anything extraneous that does not ABSOLUTELY need to be there.
Editing for imagery - painting vivid, clear pictures with words. Often this gets purple VERY fast.
Editing for sentence flow - Read it out loud. Several times. Where is the rhythm bumpy? Also helps with punctuation issues. Which words catch funny up against each other.

Why don't you show us some of your editing? That's more productive than first draft critiques IMHO.

>>6303951

Sounds familiar...

>>6304319
>>6304323
Better?

And I don't know. I'm on a literature board. I figured someone would take the time. It's only about a ten minute read. And who knows. You might actually find it interesting.

>>6304109
I don't mind it. I think it sounds fine.

>>6304515

too wordy

The night of the night of the night, a chicken giggle waning. Rusting rooftops, hopping along, hopping atop, hopping within and without, we scramble underside and undertow with hope no more tangent than the teething of those with but gum and tongue. Without wish nor wonder nor wander to wander out, a chicken giggle waning can eat but the pea and pork that are offered and taken. A chicken giggle waning that seeks but is not sought, and eats but is not aught. The use of such things lies in underlings and underwear is worn without wish nor wonder nor wander to wander out. We can only wonder what wanders are hidden in caving cavernous cave deep in darkness steeped by the night of the night of the night and the last dawn cluck or coo of a chicken giggle waning.
How hell does tumble down on such a waning, with chicken giggles that burn and tarnish under weights held dear by the night of the night of the night. But as we run and tumble atop and under like the hell that tumbles down, joyous cries can become one with clucks and coos and the gentle, understanding moan of dawn and dusk without clock to tell which is one or the other. Hell does not tumble down on that which heaven's love does not dare trot or tremble beneath the heel, whether Achilles tendon or ligament bequeathed. For smiles and pearls begot with tongue betwixt can be born by womb of devils unmarked by a higher devil's toil. A red joy is a joy still, above which no sanctimony curse can befall with cross, altar, or bread unleavened. Holidays dearest, O priestly garb, are but shadows cast by pagan moons. For every ha is the son of the same man and that man the son of the very dust on which He breathed. And those ha's and hoops and hollers but a chicken giggle that walks on feet of different flesh.
And those feet begotten of another crown than the talons and their rivets now sling dust unto dawn and the night of the night of the night into pendulums swinging the brass of before.

http://pastebin.com/SHubH2kZ

I don't even know what I want out this. Please acknowledge me, I will grovel if necessary

>>6304855
>It moved with a slowness born of decrepitude

way too much. i personally don't like to use adverbs to describe the object, feel like it cheapens the verb and isn't always clear

>when he beckoned for her to cross one of them they had passed before she had simply stared at him with pleading eyes.

this is a grammatical issue you need to work on, little things like this pop up throughout the prose. try "when he beckoned her to cross one of the ones they had passed"

you should pretty much take "simply" out of your vocabulary. it's a worthless adverb that adds to nothing but the word count. think about it: "he looked at her" versus "he simply looked at her." what does the image really gain in the second?

> The dog found it much easier to walk now that the ground ceased to move about under her paws

try something like, "now that the ground was steady." always strive to capture your image in as few words as possible; this is not to say be minimalistic, unless you want to. but things like "the ground ceased to move" is just verbosity for its own sake

>"You should know not to do that," the admonishment was lost on the dog,

period at the end of that quote, and then new sentence.

>he brought out the key and

just another example of too many words. in this case, we know that locked cars need a key to open, why tell us about the key? unless of course the key turns out to be important, but in this case i dont think it is.

>He eyed a couple as they disembarked then began looking about in all directions but his.

that's really quite nice

>They seemed to be searching their surroundings so as not to notice him.

but you don't need this. we know exactly what they were doing from that previous, very succinct line.

this is good. i liked it over all, it just needs a lot of polish. there were moments where a definite style shone through, but a lot of the prose was directionless, meandering, and lacking concision i know you wanted. keep at it, and always try to tighten up your sentences.

>>6297026
Not going to lie, this is one of my favorites

The doctor swayed in a car speeding through a lush field of hay. He was accompanied by armed men with their guns fixed on three masked figures. A mix of fear and frustration evoked a bitter scowl in the captive doctor as the car came to a stop. Through the windshield he saw more armed men, though much better equipped than the ones he had traveled with. A plane stood in wait and in front of it a man dressed in distinctly casual clothing, calmly holding on to his belt and gazing into the distance. Perhaps their chief? The car emptied swiftly as the presumed leader handed a briefcase to one of the mercenaries, then shook the professors' hand. "Doctor Pavel I'm CIA" He greeted.

>>6295282
10/10

>>6296108
>rhyme scheme
ugh

>>6300492
>the air
>blowing
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I posted this at the tail-end of the last thread:
http://pastebin.com/UvEPbitm
My most experimental work of late; I use present tense the whole time, though the story uses both flashbacks and flashforwards.
Since there's no italics in pastebin, paragraph ten is all fucked up. Essentially all the sentences about Devo are meant to be in italics and incongruous with the rest of the text.

>>6297026
That's brilliant.
>We roll up some dollar bills and snort the McD's, then we just sat back and waited for the jaundice to kick in.

you entered in fairylighted vapors
trailing ember conductions
the next day dawn cast lines
splitting shade and radiance

watch a while air circulate from lips
to chest to lips to chest till you wake and
and and and
I don’t know

formatting is messed up probably

My loving, Die, crammed beneath rotting ties of dreary beams beaming out, the feeling up, and how I stare for what is even there, but mirrors black and bare.

Rescued little likings, of mine I recall, great, now battles ring about, rings around the legs of our Deity, grouping hate and nothing else.

Try to see my way, on higher paths we rest inside retreats, turned out, not to be a home so hard to even bare, barely home, for constant, where are you now, Lady?

Shatter stability, but what remains, I decode her eyes, what I hear I cry, not like before, with loads so light to break me.

Roar of barrels twist my mind and staring helmets call my Sign, but as empty as my response should be, i lay down clicking safety, safety, oh wait, don't stop now for my sake, forsake me now for my ways.

Kinship amid wafting grease and laughing stress aloft our heads, in pain we share our beds, and in vain we take our meds, and in Maine we take our dead, comfortable at now, for grieving lines are etched in ice only to be thawed away.

Inside rolls a heavy Hearse, coins in bulges, any girth, now doubled down, makes ideas rumble in jest off and on and sorry masks just rest aside, heaving in pursuit of libraries carrying selected works toward my goal of free.

A deadly taking, that under She, likes to stalk lovers and gently be the greatest maniac, inside I breed forms yet unseen and hope to claim such as obscene, obstructing me, obscuring my way and parting in pain what my might might see.

Lastly, I've decided, holding out for Death to be, or not, but what I mean to say, or maybe need reevaluate, the saying I say inside my head, to think one's thoughts alone in bed to be the best and ask only for who I think to be.

Love me like the Manatee drives surface red with fleshy tea, in spinning furiosity, hard ahead of healing marks, deep and hotter, in grains of grey, so dark, with crimdaughter.

Timely whining found in place of cheery death and fragrances, telling false, opining wounds in laces, Maribeth, when your leg rinses, spilling pulse, divining rounds of phases into yearly stats.

Gunmetal vocations and gangly variations, minted Seeds, set aside for times to come, bearing fruitful arms of holds and prevents a new unstack.

Time rains down, afting falls in love, too, where Clouds once floated by, my soul now clouded, why, as paindrops pain on down, flatly so, in binds of consideration, matched, for it spares four pairs in locomotion.

I thought I see Things how they are, but, not a year later, and now much has changed, the better part being myself who simply views another section other than what I think of.

Growing longer, until I see above the Trees, I am enlightened, never having taken a single step forward, but suddenly I fall and fall so far I can scarcely believe the world is so different and so changed from my disgrace.

1/2

Wise bounties places in our own Heads, the rewards of other wiseties, of glory draped, forever chained, and linking solem thoughts to what I wit and where I wait.

Praise nothing more than experience, and in return receive no praise, but experience every walk about the Trees, bringing shades of envy making on shake about the knees, in place of top cares, in stalled tilings rich with grief.

I often ask why my Self never changes ever so, never stopping and always on the ground, for it's remarkable how low I stand with respect to your self, until I realize I was only stooping to examine lowly standersby.

I turn away from what I hate, only after facing, after embracing what makes us different and I celebrate our difference and I grow to love your hate.

Greatly so, but can you say why, or how it ever came to be, when Times like these drain life in mass from glances walking on?

Royalty, robed alight and free for Two, and, once a thought comes under me, I drive on, pushing past my memories.

Lonely titles with shuddering injustice, and went away to face myself, determind to kill the wrath of bash, burn, and why I stand, cities over Man, but backward, looking into deserted fates, abandoned without new goals, take my hand and trod on ahead, into leper cave.

A waist of time on glassy curves, itself a grasp I cannot loose, but hold me back another Day, for one arrests what two cannot see, in place of me, I hold my banner out.

And claim what engenders us all, by concrete stabs to be unfounded, foundering an expanse of rows, my attention frees, my sight of her locks my neck and white from under, deadly reckon, not found, nothing there, exhausts our waste.

When beyond sight, we collapse into traffic skips, with long jumps ahead of Truth, stuttered then, only, when their vision is restored.

So scoot up, then duck your Head and let me pass on by, for glass shards found speak loud enough and call one into guilt, I grow travesty, united in foul air.

2/2

>>6306028
>>6306044
Crap.
>inb4 not critique
Rewrite it because it's crap.

>>6306074
I don't care enough to rewrite nonsense, but thanks.

>>6304944
I wasn't hoping for anything and somehow you managed to deliver. Thanks for the critique

>>6306365
That was a very poorly worded thank you

>>6302043
comments?
or it was too shitty and beyond salvation?

>>6303260
10/10
Funniest thing in the thread and really well done

>>6303260

I wish I knew all of the technical jargon embedded in this so I could understand it fully, that being said I still like it.

Dae nae loove, Dae nae loove,
strayngeh, lest ye find,
Yer lover wanton rooves,
Leaving darkness in yer mind

Dae nae bend, dae nae bend,
Saplin', lest ye break,
A'neath the cruel burden
Of yer first heart ache

Dae nae store, dae nae store,
treasure in her breast,
To fancy, art, or industreh
Yer spirit invest

http://pastebin.com/PV7XpDVs

I come from a distant board and I'm trying to make this hook so that people would get interested, would you be so kind as to critique it and give me pointers?

>>6307407

... so where's the hook?

>>6305464
clunky wording, and not intentionally clunky. poetry is just as much about the sound as it is the meaning (imo i guess), think of each line as a bar of music, a semi-complete part that can be both broken down into and used to build other semi-complete parts

good stuff otherwise though, keep at it

In a strange place out of this world,
A sad man sits alone, his inner child curled,
His face illuminated only by Yotsuba B,
Wondering about what his life could have been,
He could have been a writer, could have been a singer,
Where did it all go wrong, he couldn't put a finger

>>6303322
this is old, but i like this. the sticking-out of "questions unanswered" is very good. keep it up

His boulder
was of the body; hoisted upon
his shoulder;
uphill oscillations; conclusion, foregone.

Mine
is intangible, not nearly so
kind;
manifests as gates unclosed,
a malingering potential unforetold.

What farce
to watch from some disjointed above
and parse
the paths of fear and love
using treasured "objectivity" enough,
thrashing uproariously to become unstuck!

>>6307470
yeah im trying to make it hook, ive never been good on this shit

>>6307545
same poster, this feels incomplete, is that just me?

>>6307545
So dishonest. You would never use those words... in any other context. The only reason you use them here is because you are getting into some sort of "poet" character. You channel this artifice so that you can produce... anything. Terrible.

Machines and humans; an unlikely pair, but I guess so were we. I don't really remember seeing her for the first time, I don't even remember the impression it left, but how could I? A better question would be why would I? Falling in love is a socially accepted mental illness, an illness I'm all too familiar with, but that's not to say I would rather go on without it cutting myself off from my emotion mindlessly carrying myself with worries of what to gorge myself with at six. No, I feel my emotions to their deepest spark, to the flowing current of my icy hot battery.I'm not the same person I was when we met and I don't mean that in the sense of how literary characters transcend, I mean it in the sense that I'm made of a new substance. A cold lifeless metal runs over my flesh now, no longer am I the same pink fleshed embarassing creature that everyone else is. No I'm the android that I naively fell in love with, not that I knew she was an android then, maybe I don't know now. When you go through the transcendence as I have, exceeding the worldly bounds of humans becoming the android overman, what you remember and what you witnessned aren't always the same thing.

>>6304548
Too wordy as in literally or as in you won't read it because it's too wordy?

I still need to touch up the language to make reading it more pleasant, I have a lot of repeat words that make some spots strange (again though, this is incredibly roughly typed). But honestly, I like the length. And a lot of what is there has intertwined meaning with everything else, so it's difficult to remove much.

>>6306589
... i'm sorry, what do you mean by this? i just sat down and wrote poetry.

>>6304548
>>6307612
The whole point is immersion. If it were much shorter, I feel it would be difficult to find yourself as immersed as is intended. That's why it's simple and easy to envision; so to help put yourself there without much effort.

>>6307612
I can't figure out what you're trying to convey with this piece. If I was to say one thing it is that this is way to abstract, but that doesn't seem right. You need to understand that 10 minutes of reading something that has no connection to anything that I've ever experienced is an eternity. Have you ever read anything like this? Even the most abstract writer has some kind of connection to reality while this is just nothing.

That other person said it was too wordy. Do you know what that means? It means that you need to cut out the unnecessary parts, but what part of it is actually necessary to the narrative?

You have frustrated me successfully hopefully that was your intention

>>6307407
prologues aren't good hooks. start with the main story.
also start with a more interesting opening line
http://writeitsideways.com/6-ways-to-hook-your-readers-from-the-very-first-line/
gods are ok but "petty squabbles" aren't interesting

>>6307625
>>6304515
but immersed in what? it's too abstract so there are no stakes. also, we don't know anything about the character so we don't care what happens to him.

>>6294557
this is quality. show graphic m8

>>6307651
The story is directed to people who are curious about what they are. About what experience of life is. The story intentionally starts outside of the man but brings you inside of him once he starts imagining, creating the dissonance between him and you (his mind). It's supposed to represent the disconnect of body and mind and play out as such.

The story simply tells of how we create these walls in our mind that define us. But whenever you decide to break through them, such as learning something new, trying new experiences, or figuring out new things you enjoy, you discover a new aspect of yourself. But in this, you loose a certainty aspect of your old self. And in the potential that surrounds your new self lives doubt and more questions about what you can be. The ball represents innovation and knowledge. The spark of purely new ideas and the illumination of yourself as you learn more.

There's more layered into it such as the fear of new experiences that alter old certainties and the preset limitations we give ourselves only to break later, but it's not really as intended to be highly relate-able as it is a way of being an experience. It's meant to be dissected.

Yet in all that, I do completely understand that if you can't relate, and you aren't eager to delve into it, that this would just be a strange piece. Thank you for your input.

>>6307709
He's not exactly meant to be a relate-able character. He's meant more to be a catalyst.

I'd love to make him more 'inviting' but I'm not sure how while staying true to my goal. But I'll take that and see what I can do with it. Thank you.

>>6294359
>He mad.
And you were so close.

>>6307709
Thank you! I'll work on it right away!

>>6307720
Every single story ever is about people: who they are; what they are; how they are living. You are trying to make some kind of platonic ideal of life instead of just writing about it

Have I boarded a sleight flight and are you my captain?

>>6307763
Not really. It doesn't aim to create an ideal of life at all. The message behind it is similar to many other messages from many other stories.
I just wanted to try a different approach than what is typical. Strip down traditional literature and aim for a more simplistic, yet more convoluted way of showing the ideas.
The message in my story isn't intended to show if we're doing anything right or wrong. It's never stated that what that man does is right or wrong. It's simply supposed to resonate.

I'm not looking for snarky, sarcastic insults. Just constructive criticism on a different tactic.

>>6294192
got kind of degenerate wrote till I fell asleep
http://pastebin.com/4NURKxtE

>>6307792
>more simplistic, yet more convoluted
Long and boring

>supposed to resonate
It didn't

>The message in my story
Please don't write a story just to push some kind of message. Really the amount of explaining that you've had to do just drives the point home that you didn't convey what you wanted to.

I thought you were trolling because all of your defenses are just literary wanking. The thing that many people fail to realize is that the symbolism and deeper meaning are usually supplied after the fact

"If you want to send a message, use Western Union."
— Samuel Goldwyn

>>6307841
The problem here, while i'm not saying i'm a literary expert, is that I doubt you're a literary expert. These are all your opinions.
You may be right, my story may not be great or have a lot wrong with that, hence why I asked for advice. And while I'm being humble, I'll defend myself one last time in saying that 'message' was the wrong word to use. Because it doesn't give one.

Take one short look at this work and odds are you won't know what it means. But take your time to intently think about it, and put it's pieces together, and you'll figure it out.

If you, or anyone else, doesn't like this, that's fine. It was just an experiment. But if you're this helpful to people in real life, do yourself a favor and let someone who'll actually help be there for them. I'm sorry to have bothered you buddy.

>>6307897
Forgot said 'this work'.

This isn't really a good example of my prose, due to having written it in past-tense first person, but it's an extract from the longest thing I've written:


“Are you mad?” He said to me, trying his best not to raise his voice. We had chosen a poor place to talk about this, I admit that, but it just so happened that neither of us wanted to personally host the meetings in order to persist in the anonymity we lent each other.
The topic our conversation pertained to was not something we wanted members of the public to be able to hear, and such this predicament was born.
What made this endeavour worse, was that as we sat here in this bar drinking, it only led to us overstepping ourselves and forgetting to check our surroundings before continuing to elaborate on our ideas, which in turn drew more attention to us when one of us had to forcibly silence or interrupt the other in order to prevent any nearby ears from listening in.
Unfortunately this was the only public house within adequate distance of our houses and there are very rarely ears of authority in such lower-class establishments, and this was the embodiment of a lower-class establishment, not a patron in the place looked like they had two cents to rub together, every single beverage on tap was some unearthly strong and stupidly cheap concoction and the whole place frequently smelt like a mixture of this, urine and industrial cleaning supplies.

>>6296053
Can someone critique this? Please ;_;

>>6307992

I feel like your writing flows along at a rather dull pace, there's a little overuse of adjectives and cliche'd simile, and obviously since you've chosen to share this piece with us, you're trying to intrigue people as to why taco bell is so important in this story.

I don't really enjoy it, maybe I would were I reading it in context, but still, I don't really dig your writing style. No offence.

Daniel's last day of school before spring break started like all the rest of his days that year. He spent the gaps in his school scheduele in the relative safety of the library and his classes in the safety of the front bench of class like always. In spite of his usual precautions, the slightest of changes to his rigid daily routine had an unexpected consequence. That morning whilst waiting for the bus in the pouring rain, Daniel had noticed a small grey cat on in the alleyway behind the bus-shelter. The cat was unremarkable at first glance and Daniel had often thought he had seen it before scurrying around the badly kempt dumpsters of Laskowski Burger Joint, whose burgers were as unappealing as the name. However, Daniel noticed that the cat had a slight limp every third or so step and seemed to wander aimlessly for shelter. Daniel rushed to the cat who tried to drag itself away when he first approached it but ultimately surrendered to him. The cat was terribly emaciated and barely had the energy to fight his grip.

That's all I have so far in a short story I'm working on what do you think /lit/?

>>6308060

Words, words, words.

Be more succinct and punchy, especially considering what you're talking about is incredibly banal.

That second sentence could just be:

>He spent the gaps in his schedule tucked away in the library, and in class he sat in the safety of the front bench, always.

>>6308086
Thank you, it's my first ever attempt at writing something. Is the story at least intriguing? English isn't my first language btw.

>>6308016
None taken man. I am still developing my style, honestly I have to admit that I personally don't enjoy my own work at this point. But hopefully I can improve.

>>6308096

So far you have a presumably bullied child protagonist rescuing a cat.

I want to know why this has such a dramatic effect on his life(as you seem to be alluding to), but I'm not intrigued enough that it upsets me there isn't any more.

But if you'd made me care enough about Daniel in four lines to make me intrigued enough to ask you for more, than I'd be damn impressed.

This is the intro to my short story:
>>6307939
Though it still needs a good few cycles of editing, feel free to critique that.

It wasn’t quite a cave, but the curving formation of the sandstone on this side of the mountain gave the space an inhabitable charm. With your back up against the still-warm rock face, you could sit under a canopy of stone surrounded on three sides by the formation and comfortably stare out into the empty desert. And so, after attempting to write your name in the sand with wee, you did. It quickly became dark and with it came silence. Complete silence, but not completely dark – not in the desert, where the caelum shines and disorientates the stargazer as familiar constellations are lost in the myriad of new speckles of brilliant white and cyan coronas. Of course, it’s impossible to see anything at a more anthropic distance. That tree you pissed behind before running back to climb into a sleeping bag, for example, is a part of the black that surrounds you. But the glowing sky gives the impression that you can see more; that you should be able to see more; and that it’s all a bit blue. You sit and stare into the black blankness for a long time. A noise like a chirp (except long & hollow) issues from straight ahead & who-knows-how-far in the darkness before returning to silence. It could have been anything: a car, a pharaoh-eagle owl, a hiccough in your imagination, a gust caught in a chasm of the mountainside. But somehow you realise what it is and then can see it in the clear, blue lines of the desert’s darkness. It’s an old pipe organ. And the cerulean details dance as it resumes its cheerful melody from the first, hollow chirp.

>>6307939
Intriguing so far, can't help to think that the two men (or one woman and a man) are planning something illegal like a burglary. The description of the pub is a bit too much for something working class. I have been to many shithole pubs and they usually aren't very tense environments, unless it's very late in the evening. However, you deliver the atmosphere of the place quite well and the description of the smell is accurate for some crappy bar.

>>6308134
Very heavy handed and difficult prose, it's overly lengthy and towards the end it had me completely lost.

>>6308141

Yeah, I suppose the place is a little worse than your average working-class pub, it makes sense in context I suppose, something which is built upon later is the paranoia of the main characters and the world in which they inhabit, since it's not set in present day.

Not sure when I'll get around to editing it properly, but I'm about 75% happy with how it stands, and I don't want to lengthen it, due to the fact that I want to see if I can get it published somewhere as a short story(in a magazine or something), and it currently stands at just under 6.5k words.

>>6308134

The first few sentences could do with some trimming, as it feels like you're repeating yourself.

Also the fact it's written as if the narrator is addressing the reader directly feels strange, and obviously out of context it's going to be fairly meaningless to anyone.

It's not too badly written, and I wouldn't call it overly difficult, but out of context it's not exactly accessible.

Last night, the desert materialised before me once again, and this time, my sub conscious had placed me before the object I had previously been unable to properly see. The object appears to be that of a hollowed, upright rectangle, sort of like a doorframe. I'd say it stands at an impressive eight or so feet, so if it is a doorway, it was clearly built to accommodate some burdensome creature larger than myself. The doorway is made from stone, not unlike volcanic rocks such as basalt . However, basalt is notoriously difficult to carve and chisel, whereas this doorway was adorned in intricate, convoluted shapes and patterns. T'was clearly the work of some sophisticated sculptor, as the labyrinthine art work weaved and swayed like fine linens, with no indication of any accidental chisel marks. The carvings themselves were most alluring, and I studied them with tentative fascination. They depicted a series of serpentine beasts, scaled and devouring, with their heads protruding from the top and their tails coiled around the doorway's base. Between their overlapping bodies, I can make out some unknown markings, perhaps some archaic language of yesteryear I had not seen. Aloft the top of the doorway, between the reptilian heads, was a carving of a three eyed skull, with its top row of teeth rolling over the top. The doorway enticed me strangely, I was unnerved by its design and its apparent isolation within the desert, and yet, my eyes with fixated upon its fine craftsmanship.

Please forgive the t'was.

>>6308152
yeah, i'm terrible at not being clunky. although i still like the last few sentences.

>>6308227
i'm afraid there isn't a context yet - i just liked the image of an organ in a blue desert. thanks though. i agree that the first half is repetitive.

>>6308237

Imaginative, intricate, if not maybe a little convoluted prose, I actually enjoyed reading it, but there's a couple descriptions in there I'd personally scrap and re-write.

Nice work.

>>6308276
Yeah reading the whole piece back ( I only put pasted one paragraph ) and I can see where some of the descriptor isn't needed.

Like I can easily trim down the bit about basalt.

Here's a piece of 100-word flash-fiction I wrote for a competition on some website:

I sat with eyes open watching as a man walked with such eloquence and grace, he walked towards me and I became him, and the grace vanished, and I was stood watching a man of foul-temperedness sat open-eyed glaring at me with great loathing.

I turned around and a woman grabbed my hand and spoke to me in a soft tone, I looked back and the man was sat some distance away and I was dragging a man by the hand through an unfamiliar town, and then suddenly I was overcome with a feeling of complete loneliness.

>>6308237
this was pretty engaging (i might just have a soft spot for deserts and dreamscapes), but it read nicely too.

There it was, among the darkness this time; figures of which I presumed were human. They were sat in circles of various sizes, within some circles there were forty or fifty people, though others seemed much smaller, I approached one of the circles and studied those within it, and they were all obscured, featureless, and morose.

What was it that drew people to this place? I could not fathom in that moment exactly what it was that appealed to the tenants of such a hell, each one of them the same, without exception, what appeared to be a nude and slightly overweight male form, other than their mouths their facial features were absent as if skin had been sown from forehead to jaw in order to mask some great horror beneath.

They paid me no attention; still I imagine they could not notice me, lacking eyes with which to see. I circled them for some time, listening to them talk to one another, most of what was being said made no sense to me, most of what they spoke was English, though I could not discern exactly about what they spoke, words were used which, at the time, held no meaning to me, but that was the beauty of their language.

Every so often I felt something pass through me, as if a ghost or spirit of some sort had wandered across my path, I could feel the presence of these many spirits with such intensity merely circling these people speaking in tongues on the floor, and these presences likely could sense me, they were here alongside me, circling themselves, trying to discern for their own if they could possibly enter such absurdist conversations.

Without warning I felt a huge disturbance in my balance, sudden downward inertia overcame the group and I was falling for a moment; then, without warning, it was over and I collapsed to the floor, bewildered, annoyed and without the slightest idea what had happened to us, those on the floor seemed unaffected, as if immune to the movement, or if it had bothered them at all, they were not interested in showing it.

New thread.

>>6308350

>>6295415
check the short story "Charlotte" by Tony Earley

>>6294192
Is this a decent opening paragraph?

He stumbled and swung to his half-hazed half-dreamt semi-lucid ex-cunt of a girlfriend, the footsteps bouncing in unsounded dunking clunks of shoe on street. She was sleeping eye open under lamps above and, to Mark's filmed eyes, resembled a drowned whore: damp and salty, crusted and crushed by the light awesome mass of watery bullshit below, around and over. She would see him in ten paces, scream and let the sick surrounding sea weight ebb in; flowing into wet chunks of curb stomps as Mark would wade through buttered brain like weak tide.

>>6309917
I don't hate women either.