/lit/ - Literature

submitted this to a contest and didn't even get in the top 10. pretty down about it. i thought it was good while writing it but maybe not, maybe the subject matter is too dumb too. just an idea i had and wanted to write it. anyway here it is.
http://pastebin.com/JFjkLf4i


>>6472237
i liked the writing of the first two stanzas in your first poem but i generally dislike these poems about unrequited love in a contemporary setting. too navel-gazing. to pull off the unrequited love thing i think you need to be more traditional and adhere to a form.

i liked the second one more. the rhythm and language in the first four stanzas is good and i liked the change in form of the last stanzas. the pattern of reporting sensation with a quick, established meter and then using two non-uniform blank verse was nice. i think it might improve it to use more conventional, less fragmented language in the last two stanzas to further highlight the difference.

I gave blood today
They tell me it saves three lives
That sounds like a lie

>>6472237
so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

>>6472508

William Carlos Williams? Y...You're still alive?

>>6472566
Don't ruin it!!! I wanted to know if people on this board actually know any poetry.

>>6472497
Pretty pretentious

Tiny blots of foam,
towering waves—and below:
We cling to the bed.

Been working on an aspect, but unsure how to execute it.
How would you give shape to heaven/hell/purgatory? What is it like, what does it mean in a world where we area all not created equal and if the Abrahamic god does exist, is a total dick?

Sorry, I realize an entire book can be written about this.

tl;dr how would you define the effects of these concepts (belief or non-belief) in others?

>>6472800
Reads like a parody.

>>6472837
of what

>>6472833
I don't understand what your idea is? Sounds like stuff we've covered hundreds of times in Literature.

>>6472833
im not sure exactly what you mean but if you're asking what i think (how to describe heaven, hell, etc) you of course need to read paradise lost.

The tide, ebbing and flowing ceaselessly under the unflinching gaze of the silver moon, nevertheless held semblance to that of a mirror, utterly delicate and reflective of the world around it. Nothing could feel more alien to the man huddled against a tree which he had quickly noted was quite different from the foliage he was used to watching from his veranda across the Po River. Of course, this was his fate, bound by the declaration of Caesar Augustus to spend ten years in relegation on this lonely tract of land for the supposed crime of conspiring with a certain North African governor. As he lifted his gaze again, the world around him was growing darker as the moon was growing brighter; to the point which he thought nothing else existed besides that celestial body and his consciousness confirming its presence. His fingers brushed against the engravements of his helmet lying beside him, and he was grounded in reality once again. Although all light in the world was fixated on a single point in the sky, he could still feel the eagle with spread wings grasping a viper in its talons, and a roaring leopard juxtaposed to it. The helmet had been forged in Britannia under direct orders from the legate stationed there, after he had rallied an entire cohort to descend from their ships and charge against the barbaric chariots and calvary. Having reflected on his deeds in the past ten years, the man soon began to ponder what the next decade of his life held in store for him.

>>6472237
Standing in
The hospital. I barely knew
Him. Still living off the wait
On your shoulders. It's breaking you.
A forced smile succeeds at extending
His life. I feign help with some late
Condolences. It's ok. I'm stuck
Pretending.

Forty silk maidens
Banter like a court show bailiff
Bitch I’m the literary Anthony Davis
Half-yellow Jaden, other half what?
If you have to ask are you from Taiwan?
5th season; end weak like The Wire
Tell that bitch I’ll kill her less she jumps on the pyre
Damn, cut his throat Sam. Thai pirates on the boat
Cheated for your smarts and your memory is rote
Lai See money at the bottom of the drawer
Got the type of dick to make a tiger mom roar
Got the type of dick to make a rich bitch poor
If she pays for the date maybe she can get lucky
Boardwalk ugly, call me Nucky
I’d rather be Long Duc Dong than Ducky
End it on a good note, Mary Tyler Moore
Eyes so slanted 50 points off your score

>>6472581
Please, it's obviously him even if you don't know the structure.

It is
So sweet
And so cold

Last time I'll post my collection, promise.
http://pastebin.com/kH4XNNSe

pls srs critique

Potential beginning to a short story I wanna write, mainly focused on the anxiety I feel is everywhere these days. Would love feedback

Beautiful Isobel sat. Her shoulders she held back, piquing the dress upon her slight frame draped as pale bulbs do through spring earth erupt. Which dress, bounding at one extent dove-winged clavicle, superfluous to her form ‘till her legs (one couched over the other) whereon it rested, was red in black. Floral damascene. One hand lay yet on the telephone receiver, and her lips, being teased, fluttered and betrayed the conversation still in her mind:

>>6473284

I love it and I despise it. Post more to help me formulate a more rigid opinion.

>>6473295
That's actually all I've got so far. I've never written a story before so I really just want to form a non-cliched and interesting sentence at the moment.

>>6472497
You don't know how to formulate sentences properly. This is almost complete gibberish.
If you're going to use such a vast vocabulary make sure what you're saying actually makes sense.
Dear God.

>>6472497
"The first word presents little trouble. None to me, little even for non-speakers. Which is good, since the majority interested in saying it by now are, decidedly, “non-speakers.” A common preamble to either formal speeches or pronounced before one wishes to speak on a very serious topic."
What in the fuck am I reading

>>6473284
The last sentence is good but mostly this just made me cringe especially this sentence "Which dress, bounding at one extent dove-winged clavicle, superfluous to her form ‘till her legs (one couched over the other) whereon it rested, was red in black." I'm really confused as to what you're trying to say with this/I don't think this sentence is even necessary.

>>6472237
As I often say in these threads, poetry's not my thing, so my critique won't mean much I fear. That said, your first poem was a really enjoyable read, both in terms of imagery and flow, the latter especially engaging. Again, I don't know why but you may get something out of that. Dunno. Would like to see you do something with the style and with some more cybernetic/digital imagery.

>>6472497
The tale in itself is a good one, and the linguistic motif is one I quite enjoy reading about. What I do not like, are the language and the writing. They feel stilted, not because of a lack of flow, but becuase of an inherent stiltness of the speaker, affected beyond reason. I have little patience and love for this kind of writing, personally, so it may be that, but I find it hard to be motivated and follow the ramblings (also, to whom is he speaking? I can't imagine a receiver for this "speech") of such a narrating voice - that I imagine is a style you consciously chose, but it's not of any positive effect. Really, salvage the story and do something with it, but drop this style.

>>6472909
Great vignette, superbly descriptive and enjoyable writing. I'd drop the somewhat snarky remark about the conspiration, or at least, tone down the snark, but besides it's great. I hope you don't want to expand on it as I feel that your style is more apt to this kind of brief descriptions, but oh well. Also, thank you for talking about the Po. It gets so little love these days

>>6473284
I get what you're doing, I don't like it, but you seem good wnough at it. Keep on writing, just try to put some substance and meaning and aim in your production.


And here's my piece, a bit of an experiment both in form and writing style, written from a perspective I'm not that familiar with. If you guys were to help me with it, I'd be grateful.

http://pastebin.com/Ev0B4PGF

The King

A king and his men were having a feast
The spoilers of war were always on hand
And often the king would be so kind as to treat
The many brave souls who defended his land

The king looked them down before pausing to ask
“Who here is the most deserving of thanks
For keeping this land so mighty and vast?”
A murmur now spread through various ranks

Until a General spoke up and quickly exclaimed
“Why great king, it is you! All thanks be to you
For this land is only so mighty and famed
Because of its king who rules fair and true”

While many agreed, another man spoke
This time a young officer fresh from the wars
“I believe that the generals are greatest of folk
Their knowledge of battle is what all should adore”

Next a young soldier was quick to reply
He cleared his small throat and turned to the room
“I can attest that when at the front line
The officers guidance is what gets us all through”

The hall was now buzzing with manic debate
Each man lobbying their particular choice
The din carried on and the noise was so great
Until it was broken by a lone booming voice

“Hush now!” called the king, “for you are all wrong”
He faced the young soldier and said with a smile
“It is he who earns little but works had and long
It is you I owe greatest, my soldier, my child”

I have to step
over the dark threshold.
A hall.
The white document gleams.
With many shadows moving.
Everyone wants to sign it.

Until the light overtook me
and folded up time.

The rain trickles lightly down your umbrella

Your steps in perfect sync with the beats of my heart

Ah what a scene

Your perfect figure against this dismal landscape

Grey concrete pillars and abandoned stores

The depression of recession still apparent

Yet you illuminate it all

The subtle lengths of your fingers

Running eloquently along the ridges of your hand

Oh the hand, the hand I long to hold

To grasp in mine own, to feel your warmth

To smell your sweet fragrance once again

'Tis the sweetest bliss to behold your visage

My dearest beloved.

Alas, I am but an observer

Waiting until time permits I find you unawares

Allowing me to steal a touch

Or a breath

For now I am content

To watch from afar;

To behold from a distance

The faultless muse for my imaginings.

>>6473411
>>6473452
>>6473525
>how do I critique

>>6473452
The line "everyone wants to sign it" kind of breaks the tone you have going


>>6473525
Nice imagery at the start, and its very sweet, but just seems like you're trying too hard

>>6473552
Happy now faggot?

>>6473585
None of this is mine but yeah, I'm happy to see people receive an input on their writing you wanker

>>6473201
hey you aren't the author of that

>>6473598
And yet no one critiques mine )^:

Explosions pillaging the night
From the fireworks on the fourth of July
It's just my lady, all our friends, and I
Smoking cigars and yelling at cars as they drive by

We scaled a ladder ascending to the roof
While five years ago I leaped and no one knew
Holding my guitar, I strummed a tune
I sang "I love you, but I have to cut you loose"

As the neighbor lights off
the small bombs we watch
From the rooftop safely, so safely

If I had never let go, then only God knows where I would be now
I made a bridge between us then I slowly burned it
Five years ago, in my backyard, I sang walk away
Little did I know that real love had not quite yet found me

>>6473620
If this >>6473411 is yours, I'll say that while pretty simple, it's a nice piece. I'm complete and utter shit at poetry, but I like its flow and well, it just seems to fit the idea one has of old timey popular songs that one would expect it to be quite older than it is. I enjoyed it, if writing this is what you like keep at it, you're good at the job.

Just made a thread looking for critique of this shitty essay I wrote over the last hour, but if people here critique it, I'll probably delete my thread.

http://pastebin.com/5BmuRE1Q

PS. I know the essay is trite and poorly written, looking for advice to improve it.

>>6473642
>>6473642
Thanks man, i dont always write like this, but I like making as you say "old timey" tales once in a while

>>6473693
Skimmed through it, this is what I can tell you: it's fairly superficial, not incredibly so (if what you wrote in the other thread is true and you've read nothing previously about the subject you're decent at observing and evaluating), but still superficial. I'm not any kind of expert on the subject, but I'd have liked for you to focus on an aspect of the topic and just eviscerate it well, instead of just giving an overview of, seemingly, everything that come to your mind while you were writing. Your language is a weird mix of "formal" phrasal structures and informal choice of language/words/sayings. It's kind of all over the place. If you were to "discipline" your writing and do some kind of research and focusing, it'd probably be decent, but if your teacher doesn't mind your way of doing stuff eh, go ahead with this.

Would you mind taking a look at mine? Starved for opinions. >>6473398

>>6473728
Happy to make you happy mate.

>>6473605
Uhhhh, yes I am. I clearly wrote this.
Pic related, it's me in my most glorious hour.

No more than a burner,
she carried hand-cuffs
and a leash like a bitch.
Dark eye-brows and lips
licked to taste and dry,
bandaged marrow sores.
The chuckles compound
in the liquid amphitheater
drawn between moments
skinned of their onion layers.
But this stroll through city
parks, route bent by rain,
is just to combat atrophy–
sorry, the butcher called.

>>6473776

You look like my 22 year old cousin who lives on a ranch in Texas with two tigers and his petite mexican girlfriend and their toddler.

>>6473737

Yeah, I did just churn it out without much thought and I haven't read any philosophy at all, let alone on that particular subject matter, I could probably edit it into a more disciplined structure and normalise the language. You just get to enjoy it in it's raw and unedited form.

Also, like I said in the other thread, I'm not in education and wrote in purely because I wanted to have some of my thoughts down.

>>6473284

As the other anon's have said, I think that the prose needs some cleaning up, it seems like it's purple for the sake of being purple and the structure doesn't really flow when I'm subvocalising, so I had to re-read some of it, which isn't very reader-friendly.

Due to it being out of context I have no idea what you're aiming for with it, so I can't really evaluate it too intensely, however it is very pretty writing and if there's a point to it, I wouldn't mind reading on if you wrote more.

>>6473215

I have consummated
the daughter
that was in
the summer camp

and which
you were probably
saving
for boarding school

Forgive me
she was my sin
my soul
Lo-Lee-Ta

here's a Frankenstein of phrases

Rendered useless,
properly authorized to do so,
she held her head bent,
pickled grapes and died
over and over,
pyrrhic and puerile,
down to the wire,
till the buck stopped here
and wrote home.

>>6473633

i feel your pain of loss anon

>>6473776
>that old ass picture
The real Kolsti is way more earnest. That's not his style.

>>6472237
memeing dankly
traply wanking
sadly thinking

>>6473800
Kolsti was 15 in that

>>6473853

okay

>>6473827
All this needs now is some on-to-scale moaning. I have the antidote riiiiiiight here. http://vocaroo.com/i/s04QyDg76O4y

>>6472909
you need to vary sentence types and lengths. it was difficult to keep reading

opine pls

http://pastebin.com/exeezh7s

will critique in next post :-)

>>6473788
very grimy. feels very unclean, but i suspect that's your aim I dig it a ton. don't use shock words like "bitch" though. they don''t actually shock anyone in modern society, they just serve as a distraction.

If I post in here will turnitin pick it up as plagiarism?

>>6474149
Hopefully!

>>6474149
If it did, I assume it would just lead to a 404 page.
Also, it's an anonymous image board, so you can just say it's yours.

>>6474186
Hmm I kind of don't want to risk it.
But thanks anyway.

>>6473222
<<critique

>>6473585
it was by
tomas transtromer
from "the great enigma"

kek

>>6473035
>no good?

Queen and the King sit enthroned in their State,
Worried the play they will see will be late,
Everyone wants now to know of its fate,
Anticipating like birds primed to fly.

Denmark's young Prince now ascends the great stage,
Doing his best to tamp down his own rage,
Feeling alike to a beast in a cage,
Wishing he'd sprout wings and go to the sky.

Intros completed, the play has begun,
Centered on kings- on the murder of one,
Villains seducing a queen just for fun,
Out of the darkness there comes a great cry.

The King has stood up in a great distress,
Leaving at once, his sin strong in his chest,
That Prince now knows that the Ghost spoke the best,
Soon he shall act, and then soon he shall die.

>>6474149
The work-around is to post it to an open cloud document and then link the document here

>>6473585
>"everyone wants to sign it" kind of breaks the tone you have going

it was written by Tomas Transtromer from the book "The great enigma" topkek

>>6474262
Just because someone is established doesnt mean whatever they write is beyond critique

(fire stop thief help murer save the world

what world?

when microscopic shriekings shall have snarled

threads of celestial silence hunger than

eternity, men will be saviors

grasshopper,exactly nothing’s soon;

scream,all ye screamers,till your if is up

And vanish under prodigies of un)

“have you” the mountain,while his maples wept

air to blood,asked “something a little child

who’s just as small as me can do or be?”

god whispered him a snowflake “yes:you may

sleep now,my mountain” and this mountain slept

while his pines lifted their green lives and smiled.

Is it themselves these insects mean?

---flop

>>6474330
Beat poetry has a special place in my trashcan

>>6472497
Maybe I'm just a pleb, but I actually liked this a lot. I'm not getting any of the 'near incoherent' gibberish that the others mention. I found it easy to follow, enjoyable to read and overall a pretty solid piece. If I would change one thing, it would be to give it an air of authenticity... Make it clear you're writing about the early 20th century and the British Empire in India or something. People will eat that shit up.
>>6472505
+1 for haiku
>>6472909
Quit at 'unflinching gaze' - abandon all cliche, especially in your establishing sentences. Adjectives should always be employed judiciously.
>>6473284
Almost poetry.
I hate poetry.
>>6473788
Although I don't hate this. I quite like it, in fact.
>>6474100
Delete everything before >Before she left, she let go of me, and looked up at me.
Those last two paragraphs/sections tell the entire story, and tell it in a way that really hammers home the overarching theme.

>>6474343
>implying cummings was "beat"

>>6474348
>Implying I'm not still holding my garbage bag open

It needs cleaning up and refining, but I think I'm onto something here. This is the intro to the entire short story (about 5k words total) and I'm feeling pretty happy about it - which means there's something inherently shit about it. Tear me down, lit!
>http://pastebin.com/YmJ1bGv4

This is one of a series of comic stories that I have written as an exercise in genre, a captivity narrative - http://pastebin.com/tjX6KNwA

>>6474255
The pacing seemed weird; maybe thats just me though I think it might flow alittle better if you standardized the amount of syllables per line in some sort of pattern?
but I really loved the content and dramatic imagery

>>6474330
I think it's a little too esoteric or surreal and could use giving a little more info to the reader as to what you are talking about,
> the mountain,while his maples wept air to blood,
>and this mountain slept while his pines lifted their green lives and smiled
I really like these lines

all in all reminds me of some syd barrett's solo stuff

____________________________________________________________________

Boston is Truly Horror (supposed to be a song rather than just poetry)

Once by the water
Twice in the streets
The pilot's daughter
The man from the fleet

You could never learn
In every trap
People hide to spurn
(And) put you on a map

You will never know
You can't implore her
(Even) in hidden tongues
Boston's truly horror

There won't be real eyes
You can walk but you're stuck
Though hawks may fly
Balfour's stone has no luck

You will never know
You can't implore her
(Even) in hidden tongues
Boston's truly horror

The armchairs and theatres
Honey and windows
Don't think it will go
Those that know
One to another

>>6474344
Would you mind elaborating on the cliche of "unflinching gaze"? and I would honestly appreciate if you would read the rest of my passage if you really did quit in the first sentence. This is my first time trying out prose and I could use all the constructive feedback that I can.

The house was empty. Thomas sat on the couch, now moist with morning dew, and opened his laptop. Here he felt his nose flatten, his eyes implode, his mouth tighten and seal itself, his ears fold into deaf pastries of flesh, his legs fuse into one unfaltering platform, and his arms disappear leaving only hands. His fingers gave birth to children of their own, these with nails fixed on their sides, slicing small stinging cuts into the muscle of each other and their parents. He opened up photo-booth to take a portrait of his strange constitution, but found that there was no default setting: only filters. He closed this application, then opened Notes, where he began to type:

>>6474392
>http://pastebin.com/tjX6KNwA
That was certainly something. I chuckled at the comment about Hanson.

>>6474419
>Convinced he was masturbating/10

>>6474413
I've read that particular phrase so many times that my brain automatically switches off when I see it. The moon ALWAYS gazes (usually unflinchingly) the tide ALWAYS ebbs and flows, etc. In your opening few sentences you're making a pact with your reader, you're establishing their expectations for the rest of the passage, and opening with tired cliches like this just condition me to expect nothing exciting or new from the rest of the piece.

In so short a time, and with so much to gain, I have squandered these sparks of divinity in Bic lighters and computer screens. I have hopelessly wandered one corner of this undimensional labyrinth, and now, collapse into short fragments of flesh, upon which the focus of sensation is too much to bear for more than a moment. The greater valley of the sky peels its skin in one unending spiral revealing, like crystal mildew grown on segments of a rusted tangerine, the varied pallors of the aging spirit, who has believed himself dead, who has lied there veiled with stillness to better convince himself, who has left us alone in poor health like his vanishing brothers, who has become translucent in fear.

>>6472505
Is this really you or a repost?

>>6474419
I'd say you should be vague as opposed to using terms like 'photo-booth,' 'Notes,' and maybe even 'laptop.' Being this specific makes it seem like a joke.
Is this a joke? Because if it is, it's not funny.

>>6474427
Do you have any comments on the writing? I stick to comic things now because I am young and new to reading/writing, but I want to write serious fiction in the future.

>>6474483
I felt like it was a parody of Hemingway. It's hard to tell if someones writing is good or bad when they're writing to comic effect, because so much can be excused in the name of getting dank chuckles.

My guilty pleasure project:


She arrived on campus with none of the splendor her station once entitled her to. Heaven’s favorite daughter might once have begrudged the mortals around her their heretical insolence, but nearly two and a half millennia of exile had changed her. The once Goddess of Wisdom and War had spent those millennia cycling through feelings of anger, betrayal, sorrow, mania, and most recently a cynicism to rival that of Sisyphus himself. Would that she had a tenth of her Godhood back she might level the city in a display of titanic destruction just to assert her own prowess once again, but she didn’t and would not ever she reminded herself.

She breathed deeply of the warm, August air: humid, like her beloved Attica. There was a wind, gentle like the caress of the sea on her feet, insistent like the beat of Hermes’ winged sandals. She could smell the tang of freshly paved asphalt like the odor of a sun-beaten slab of charred ox. These sensuous memories made her despise her current predicament even more.

Her brooding must have been mistaken for confusion because a student attendant approached her and asked, “Are you looking for your dorm? I can help you find your way and carry your things. You are a freshman, aren’t you?”

She started from her angry reverie and said, “Thank you, no. I’m quite capable of finding my own way,” a touch more acidly than she meant to.

The student attendant was taken aback and said, “OK, but this area is just for unloading your stuff. Cars have to be moved to the middle and back of the lot after 15 minutes.”

“15 minutes will be sufficient, thank you,” she replied, her voice softening in remorse for her outburst.

Athena, Daughter of Zeus and Metis, former Goddess of Wisdom and War, Patroness of Athens, former Wielder of the Aegis, and Outcast of Olympus picked up her duffel with the all the grace of her years and began her walk to the dorms.

>>6474408
ah it reminded me more of e e cummings

>>6474474

Not a joke, was just trying to be a bit realistic. I had tried using phrases like "monstrous panel of liquid crystals" or "the panoptical window" but it all just came off as too ambiguous. I want to make clear that what I'm discussing there is a man on his laptop.

>>6474498
It's funny that you say that, because I parody Hemingway in one.
In case of interest: http://pastebin.com/bbKrPUtP
I have written a couple of serious things but I'm sure I'd find them terrible if I read them now.

It was just bad, honestly, he thought. More than that: pitiful. In fact it was probably the least successful attempt at a snowscape he'd ever seen on display. Who was the artist? Beyour or Begoun, gnarled in red at the bottom right. One of the Americans. Gossen stepped back and sighed off, a limp hand supporting a more limp expression. The gallery would be killed by its lust for international presence, especially if the stock of artists continued to be anything like this. The scene was insultingly plain, almost to the point of abstraction: sheer white from the bottom to the midpoint, a lazy spine of mountains, and sky. The linework was fine, but the mood had been misjudged entirely. What is winter, he considered, if there are no subjects to be oppressed by it, not even a damn tree had been bothered with, nothing, nothing, all the way out into the background. A born Swiss, Gossen had a particular sensitivity for the mountain and for the winter landscape, and it was a luxury of course, he knew, to have the Alps strung along the horizon for observation his entire life. But it was as if the man had never endured a true dead cold or witnessed not once a relentless bastard of a snowstorm. And if he had, he had no idea how to capture it. Jean Mouloux had been working along the wall's pieces, and Gossen waited impatiently for him to see the work, to commiserate in its utter failure. Mouloux was more sensitive an observer than himself, Gossen knew, and more educated, but was not a natural with the brush like he was and was more suited to be a poet or lyricist. Mouloux nodded to Gossen and took in the piece. "Ah," he said. "A salt flat."

http://postmetakolsti.tumblr.com/post/117730137067/poem-a-day-asl

>>6474602
>that pic
Elliot Rogers, is that you?

>>6474602
>underaged
>White people: kills MLK
>White people: You should stop rioting and be peaceful like MLK

rapported

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Stranger: What sort of thing do you like writing?
You: poems and essays. I'm working on a novel
You: I wrote an open letter to my superintendent that got read somewhat widely by my classmates, so I guess in that sense I'm a political writer
Stranger: Cool
You: what about you?
Stranger: I write almost any fictional thing
You: oh cool, who are you favorite writers?
Stranger has disconnected.

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
You both like snapchat.
Stranger: my snapchat - asl.girl
Stranger has disconnected.

>>6474637
i like the idea of this

>>6474637
>You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
>You both like /r9k/.
>Stranger: Hello~ http://z18224.o.ayy-mlao.co/i4eglxom.txt
>You: hello
>You: what is that?
>Stranger: it's a Pokemon feet survey
>Stranger has disconnected.

>>6474827
masterfully memed

Posting this again because I came late to the last thread. It's the beginning of a story I really want to write because it keeps playing in my head ever since I remembered it happening to me.

It's stuck in my head though, having a really hard time getting it onto page. This is my opening paragraph and I just need some really harsh criticism to tell me where I'm going wrong.

___

They dismounted their bikes at the other side of the road and began along the dirt path that ran through the dry-grass paddock and by-passed the highway. They road this trail every morning on their way to school and they knew it well enough to know that they did not know it during the night, so they walked with their bikes at their side. The path was their last and easiest obstacle; it took them far from the curious ears of the suburbs and led directly to their destination. Much further along its course it ran along-side the school and they could see that it was no different at night-time but both thought that it might still be fun to walk where they walked all the time but at night. They decided that they would on the way back and that the girls might come with them and maybe they could find something to do in there with no one watching. The path eventually ended in the middle of the paddock and at their feet was a crossroads of countless directions formed by children of all purposes going one way or another, each path eventually disappearing into the paddock not walked upon nearly enough to remain. Like many would before and after, they pressed on through the paddock and into the dry-grass. It scratched their legs and drew blood but they would not realize until later, for now the pain blended into the irritation of the grass and into numbness after long enough of walking.

>>6474850
don't leave me scraps. go write the story then come back.

>>6474220
pls critique, don't b 2 harsh pls :^)

>>6474312
stop crying already.

>>6474850

Honestly looks pretty good. We can't really tell you why you can't get the rest on page if all you're posting is the first paragraph. Just picture it in your head and put it on page and even it's shit you at least have a road map to start improving.

He was a mimic. But he bit his tongue.

"Whats your story?"

Still, he didn't speak.

"You alright?"

He backed away slowly, then collapsed.

The winter is here, the frost is biting and the boughs are shaking against the cold. The wintery gales and silent flakes of snow, the shaft of darkness and a whispering cord of the marrow. The sun has gone to sleep and my senses are slumbering.
Suddenly I see a boat carved out of wood, floating in the air with a sail made out of silk. A girl is fishing with a silver angel and the oars look like white wings. The sail looked like a lightblue halfmoon in the black expanse. She leans over for a kiss and I give it to her. But her lips are cold and my senses are still slumbering...

>>6475302
Might as well drop "The winter is here" right?

How long exactly, does a minute last ?
With haste I dash, gently I grasp,
the fading seconds of the past.

For time is money, now you see
the face of faith might be turning
while little hands fight in the ring.

Ajar doors of tourmaline,
agate bindings on melanin
on my skin calls forth the sunder.
Does sunday end ? oh, I wonder.

And cuts and swings, diamond fencing;
the duel is numbing and fast.
No façades, you hear the ticking ?
My silver watch wakes me; at last !

I wake up to find myself near a river. A group of nymphs are dancing in the distance. They are dancing to a dreamy tune which makes my blood shoot. I stand up on my hooves and stride towards the nymphs. I feel dazed: probably the result of the long afternoon sleep. I look around and suddenly start to wonder where I am and how, after an afternoon sleep, I should find myself here and not in my cottage where I originally fell asleep. I laugh of this absurdity, thinking that I am now a lost faun. 'Even a faun is not always a faun!' I tell myself with humorous self-deprecation. The nymphs were full of the dance and their tea-rose skin were spitting with the warm sparks of spring. The carmine cheeks of the nymphs made the faun's heart wince like flaming wine. Their breasts were rising and falling as they danced and their nipples blossomed like red flowers. Some of them were bathing in the river and laughing. Their laughter were like caresses and made the flowers around them smolder into liquid perfume. The faun was in a lustful fever and his eyes made him drunk. The voice of the air became too thick, so it ran into the river...

"Face me, coward! Whoreson!" She screamed up at him, and her anger flared all the hotter when she saw the archer undeniably laugh. Twenty feet between them, and she was fast even in her combat gear. But not fast enough to reach him before he fired again. He had one last shot, but it most certainly would be his last if he failed to fell her with it. Veronica would make certain of that. She saw him pull another black shaft from his quiver, set it to his string and pull it back. Veronica had to guess where he was aiming, anticipate his intentions without giving him room for recovery. If she guessed wrong... But there was no longer any time to think. The archer loosed his shot.

>>6475304

you are right, it appears verbose.

>>6475323

Horrible, delete it all and start again. You wanna write fantasy? That's cool, but you need to read more than fantasy and fan fiction.

Read more.

>>6474637
I really like this. It's by far one of the better attempts at capturing the essence of a social media that I've seen. You really nailed the feeling of separation. I've only got good things to say about this, honestly.

Also, I spent way too much time on my submission for that pokemon feet deal

>>6473410
The recalling of the characters memories works well to tell the story, I liked that. It seems like you don't know your character that well though; if you could get at some of the humanity behind the pious and formulated rhetoric it might improve him.
hope that's helpful, I don't have time to go through the language unfortunately, that's just a cursory perception.

>>6474850

That's good, keep going, this anon is correct >>6474876

>>6475302

>The winter is here, the frost is biting and the boughs are shaking against the cold. The wintery gales and silent flakes of snow,

"The winter is here" is unnecessary

>wintery gales

Come on m8 you can do better than that

>The winter is here, the frost is biting and the boughs are shaking against the cold. The wintery gales and silent flakes of snow,

What does this mean? Read the whole paragraph, it doesn't make sense. Are you telling me about the wintery gales, because right now it reads just as though you're saying them, it seems really out of context.

>A girl is fishing with a silver angel and the oars look like white wings.

Don't start sentences with "a"

It's not overtly purple, but it's disjointed, you know you're allowed to just write a normal sentence right? Not everything needs to be likened to something or a metaphor.

>>6475314

I'm guessing your the same anon as above, either way just take the same advice I gave him

>>6475323

Typical fantasy bullshit, reads okay I guess and you could probably even find some second-rate publisher to put it in an airport, but eh. >>6475429 is right, read more.

Posted before, but here it is again. And to the guy who I told I was working on my manifesto, it'll probably be a while. Maybe by the end of this weekend.

what is
is what controls
the thoughts
which control
the life
controlled
by
what is

So much poetry guys! wow.
Anyway, here's a short excerpt of something I wrote.
Whaddya' think?

>>6475509
You should remove 'Instantly', 'frozen' kinda' already implies that.

I like your mix of direct and indirect speech.

Take a look at your sentences again and 'omit needless words'. You have words like 'however' which aren't necessary in your sentence. Also I dislike colons: "grasp; he was".
Instead do: "grasp. He was..."

A blackness twists inside of me;
Strikes my blood as I fight to breathe.
It writhes and rails, constricts my heart;
Bolt upright. sputter. cough. Falling apart.

Flame gush forth from a flint and spark,
And embers lit within the dark.
I breathe fire and ash instead of air;
This black hurts me most because I put it there.

Never really done anything like this before so please be gentle, I know it sounds like angsty teen shit but it's about smoking if that wasn't immediately obvious.

>>6475585
Show, do not tell
Also mundane theme but that is your choice
I think you are too textual but that is my opinion

>>6475591
I agree it's mundane, I was just having a smoke on the porch and felt like I wanted to participate. What do you mean by too textual?

My writing is usually more like short stories so poetry sort of stuff is definitely not what I'm used to.

>>6475594
Well I believe you explain too frankly what you are trying to convey, wich is also a feeling you do not really need poetry to talk about.

>>6475600
Oh sure I can see that, matter of fact I'm a musician also and I've never been able to write lyrics because all I can ever think is too literal and frank. It's something I wish I was better at honestly.

>>6475615
You can dig the archive for fanatique's (best tripfag) adviceson how to express shit
hold on I think I have them bookmarked

>>6475622
here you go

>>/lit/thread/S6363892#p6373629

>>6475626
Thanks a ton man this sounds like just the sort of advice I needed. Glad I posted tonight.

I am myself and only I
know what it means to be myself
you don't
know it
you don't know it even you
who have your science and religion
and outerworldly metaphysics
and have known the shores of Iceland and the winds
that scare the goatboys and the whale seeds uderneath the sands of Southern China
you who have known much
who have made what few have made and who with your air
of superiority, like the cobra, looks at me
in the metro with scorn
you, I tell you and I scream it in your ear
cause I know I'm right
and there's no way I can be wrong
you don't know what it's like to be me


scientists have put me on a cage
and they have laughed at me, and they have
spat on me
and on my forehead they wrote countless cursewords because,
they told me,
in a hundred years they'll be able to tell
what it's like to be me

but a hundred years have passed and they with their mechanics
with their demonic iron instruments
have not discovered
what it's like to be me

the flower that Jupiter first saw
when he first few in love with Holy Mary
the flower that I gave to Marina
when she first refused my kiss
I have it with me
and I will keep it
for the blue owl
who will soon come and gather it from very my own hand

they still haven't found
what it's like to be me

>>6475670
The two first lines are very good the rest is worthless

http://pastebin.com/vZVvBySq

will exchange critique for critique.

>>6472237

discernible talent

>critique nine pieces
>post own work via pastebin
>17 views
>0 feedback
I want my money back.

Did you feel the rain, that day, and the air chill alike your own, the window hazed with passion
and idle breathes, of time watching time.

Did you remember the days past, when the world was set in pastures, and we rolled
through, grazed on earthly pleasures.

Did you regret the moments, of our ambrosia hearts, now sunk in vinegar, butchered by
our greed, and heretical lust forgotten.

Wind blown kindle sets my flesh ablaze
and charcoal smog blinds me, and vanishes.
I wade in the water, and my tears slip
into the deep, are yours among them,
lost in the sea of time.

>>6475771

will critique yours if you critique mine

>>6475688

>>6475799
The first three stanzas didn't format correctly.

Rolling red hills, snows still atop
Clear rivers rush, dams slow, but never stop
Cold death, forgotten with leaves of green
Natures eternal cycle, what has been cannot be
A time of growth always found fond
Autumns truths, spring sentimental and longed.

Summer heat protrudes, rays enrich
Clear sky and horizon, birds buzz and twitch
New pastures fresh, animals lazily graze
Eternal warmth and longest days
Man takes his spoil, bees make their bread
Summers profit stolen by storms ahead.

The first leaves falls with the sun
Darkness's embellishment has begun
Naked trees, tormented by ices clutch
Hard frozen Earth cold to the touch
Bare hills suppressed by monotonous ennui
No rabbits play no time for joy
Sleep is the cure. Death is the truth.
Happiness decrepit by winters abuse
Youth destroyed by aging disease
Old knees wither, beside rotted leaves
New graves are filled, old bodies still fresh
On which sun rises,
A snow drop shoots.

Is it too boring?

>>6475802
I'm not made of critiques, man! You think these incisive comments grow on trees?!

>wakes into /lit/ for the first time
>posts are too long
>remembers it is /lit/
>cries

>>6473201
I think Kolsti has matured a bit.

>>6474637
This is good. Earnest but not sappy, of the times but not gimmicky, melancholic but not melodramatic. Write more like this.

>>6474637
Better than every Tao Lin poem

>>6474637
The movie Her condensed into a poem

Tear me down so I won't continue /Lit/

http://pastebin.com/Ew1Z1dsn

>>6474125

Hey thanks for this, much appreciated.

As for the use of the word 'bitch,' I wasn't going for shock value as much as I was a play on words. And I also attempt to justify its use because of the fact that this poem is based on this girl I'm seeing who really likes BDSM. Still though, you might be right, it detract more than add.

http://pastebin.com/DReJXmkR critique this

I've been commissioned to write a play for my uni.

Here is the scene outline:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxdOPvt4UK3JRXZGaXJDWS02QTg/view?usp=sharing

And here are the first two scenes:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxdOPvt4UK3JY0RrQ0M2SzV5dmM/view?usp=sharing

I have written more but it is pretty disjointed, jumping around scenes. I've also changed the ending a bit but I'm not really sure yet how I want to do it.

Please let me know what you think. This is just first draft stuff but I would really appreciate some opinions.

>>6478058
This looks really promising. It's given me a spark of inspiration. I enjoy the ideas and the outline but I think your language is lacking. If I give you my email, you can give me scene by scene and I'll do a stylistic rewrite. You can choose to keep what you'd like. I don't want any money or anything. Give me a rewrite credit or a co-writer or a consultant credit if that's what would feel ethical. My main interest is artistic. I could either steal your premise and make my own play or simply supplement yours. Reply if you're interested.

>>6473284
you've got a real way with words, but it's a little on the flowery side. stuff like 'pale bulbs do through spring earth erupt' - its a pretty comparison, no doubt, but it feels kind of like yr changing the order of the words to make it seem more profound, which you don't need to do imho. hope you don't mind my tuppence, i'd def. like to read more.

>>6478106
I appreciate your offer. What kind of things do you have in mind, language-wise? Is it mostly the speech patterns of the characters or do you think the dialogue isn't fleshed out enough?

Like I said, this is just the first draft, but I'm basing most of the family stuff off how I act with my own mother and brother. So, while I think the dialogue still needs a lot of work, I think it conveys the general tone of a distant and disinterested family. What do you think?

>>6477377
What follows is what I had intended when I began to evaluate your text, until I gave up any serious attempt at doing so out of disappointment.

---

I'm no critic, I cannot offer you what an expert's eye with careful precision might hold that I couldn't. I'll try my best, however. To begin, there are some grammatical mistakes, as [3.there] - in this heuristic, the format for referred material will be [#(of line).word/phrase/etc.] for our convenience - I will now attempt to describe what inconveniences my train of thought from the following.

>[1.echoed upon the walls]
Something about this doesn't sound right. An echo is a reflected sound, perhaps "echoed off the walls/interior" would make better and accurate.

>[1,2.the regal ball room, the wide balcony-flanked room]
Too ostentatious, your employment of empty expression as a technique is so pervasive throughout the piece it is almost nauseating. I will now dedicate some time to quote some excerpts that, in that respect, need some loosening or refinement of taste.

>[5.groggy backroom act]
>[6.heavenly prophecy]
>[9,10.on account of the embarrassment they’d just levied]
>[12.two men hung low attempting to roll out the carpet under the women’s legs]

I would also like to refer to the fragmentation of the first sentence [1,3.vide]
>"A echoed upon B, where within (C, D and E) melted with A into the air of F, which pervaded G."
The structure of this alone is so unappealing, so perplexing that--

---

As simple as that, Anon, I turned away from dedicating my time to that pyrrhic task. There are measures one must be aware of, Anon, when depicting a series of events, contingent be or not. I will describe one that you might make use of in the future.

Always, along the course of writing your narrative, attribute the quality of a selected object to what gives it ample enough justice. Do not, under any circumstance, give an object any more attention you cannot justify for in the perception of the character rendering said image.

An example to clarify, scraps of trash scattered about the pavement aren't given heed by anyone passing in a vehicle, a pedestrian, however, might mind, and his mindfulness in focus of the object is almost equivalent to that had it been in his periphery, or from far yonder. You do not go at length to describe cans of soda or cigarette butts lying there, still. Just because they're now part of the story, does not guarantee them any special treatment in the eye of the actor.

The same applies everywhere. An omniscient narrator should not encompass his world, while only he sets the boundaries for what deserves a recital. Quality management is a major component of good writing, you do away with heaps of dead information, or things that cannot contribute to the story. Simplicity is a grander scheme of high complexity, once you think of it.

---------

Can someone please look at >>6473222 now?

The last gunshot was the exclamation point, the punctuation, the end of all of it. As I fell out of the fiftieth story window on the eightieth building on second street I realized that maybe raping my sister wasn't worth it, maybe there was mistakes in my life. My life has been one of misery with bouts of taunting renewal. I've been spat on, stepped on, burned,kicked, electrocuted, stabbed and now killed. Something had finally killed me, and that furry something was now waiting to be pat on the head. Shooting the mob boss was the beginning of the end, the assassination had gone well sure, but sometimes when plans go well there is still an extraneous factor to ensure my misery. The dog, excited by the sound of my gun and the bullet ripping into the flesh of the boss, had twitched in it's sleep just so for the gun lying near it to fire into my spinal column, which forced me to fell out of that damned building. Eight years I spend in that god defying monstrosity, every day wishing to get out.
Well, I got my wi-

>>6478218
this is 10 year old child vomit

be gentle

>>6473222
it's clear that you know what yr doing. and there's some fucking lush imagery in there; it's got a gentle ee cummings kind of flavour to it. but like ee cummings, it's a little abstract for me in places. that's not to say it's not good, just that i struggled to hold on to the themes in places. also the mix of maths & feels in the last one was 10/10

>>6478247

how
I need more

>>6478248

I liked it, mate. The ending in particular.

>>6473788
damn, this is good and gritty. i might consider changing 'onion layers' as its a little bit of a cliche, but other than that the language fits perfectly with the theme.

>>6474197
so post a screenshot

Whenever the big and the brightest are the best of the best and the thick yellow fogs of the winter nights are the among birds of shiny metal are only when the ships of the red are amon those of the stars and the constellations align of the blues and bees. of many and there which of songbirds and crawling trees are months brightest of orange displays of living among the ground. while the ground is a better place of unification fornication and blue birds the birds often fly south amon the perverts and the rich i often feel as if though even when the birds return they are never quite the trees of winter of whence they came whenever the red sky and the birds intersect is when utter Epiphany occurs among the stratospheric planes of the earth many argue of the planes existence of only appearing whence once must occur but however even when there is to say i had utterly fallen in the deepest desks of detrimental behaviour which is to say ultimately without reservoir of among the wells is in which the sadness of all children
-
-
and
-
-
The lavanda voice of sound immemorial struck keys to blue forth and so forth strong in the horizon of bones and gushkh boom trying to fry towards force granush bump presto for a song in birds of paper noise going young to italy and germany and interrupting buildings so that trees cure snakes with cat oil johnson tragano murtis grinding teeth blocks tomato gone wild for thousands of years

>>6474419
i like it. it's definitely relatable, which i guess it what you were going for?

>>6473222
bumping with my material

The Expert/Youth Before the Infamous Demand Media Buyout

I grew up on a content farm.

How to Find a Mesothelioma Personal Injury Lawyer
How to Change a Tire
How to Become a Pastafarian
How to Make a Three Bean Salad
How to Make BBQ Pork Ribs
How to Register to Vote
How to Prevent Arthritis
How to Sell a Used Car
How to Utilize Search Engine Optimization
How to Make Money Using myLot
How to Write a Song
How to Clean a Gun
How to Make Vietnamese Fish Dipping Sauce
How to Make Traditional Easter Cookies
How to Drive in the Snow
How to Clean a Fish
How to Make Chicken Pot Pie
How to Hem a Wedding Dress
How to Hire an Auto Accident Personal Injury Lawyer
How to Do a Push-Up
How to Get Washbord Abs
How to Do a Sit-Up
How to Make Deviled Eggs
How to Get a Girlfriend
How to Start a Compost Pile
How to Change Your Car Oil
How to Make a Snow Angel
How to Scramble Eggs
How to Delete Internet History
How to Get a Boyfriend
How to Find a Job
How to Play Poker
How to Play Thirteen
How to Clean a Grill
How to Surf
How to Properly Discipline Children
How to Invest Money
How to Shoot a Free Throw
How to Shoot a Basketball
How to Fire a Gun
How to Treat Acne
How to Do Pilates
How to Do Yoga
How to Donate Sperm
How to Throw a Football
How to Earn Money Using CashGopher
How to Dance

>>6478787
>>6478787
damn that's good

>>6478787
You have no idea how glad I am you didn't ruin it by ending the poem with "How to Love" or "How to Find Companionship" or something.

>>6478810
>>6478800
I have a feeling the poster didn't write this
http://postmetakolsti.tumblr.com/post/117820201600/poem-a-day-the-expert-youth-before-the-infamous

>>6473201
>Eyes so slanted 50 points off your score
He's going full roof Korean

I know it's not quite literature but I did this for you, anons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsMRe86bcNE

>>6479197
Are this legit books?

>>6479197
That was something.

First attempt at more lengthy writing at around 52k words, always open to review: http://tv.adult-fanfiction.org/story.php?no=600098537

Can we make it a rule that for every work you want critiqued, you need to critique atleast two others?

>>6472237
I'll make one up on the spot, can someone give me three objects and make it as hard as you can!

>>6473035

I really like the use of wait instead of weight here. it's very apt and it conveys the sentiment profoundly. I like the structure too. honestly, at first I didn't because it leaves the phrasing disjointed, however, I feel this works with the imagery/sense of detachment that is explored here. I like this a lot

>>6473788

i reallllly love this. so much. I love the (slight) vulgarity and the starkness. the ending is fantastic. from "compounded chuckles..." on I was in love. several gorgeous images, succinct but powerful. i dig it.

Light on the horizon
A planet beckons places
Never known and never told.
The concrete flows beneath
The sound is dark and
The view is silent.
I approach the place that once was,
Past incarnate
Time slows and I wonder.

>>6480260
muh critiques.

I appreciate any feedback. if you critique this, comment with your work and I'll return the favor.

http://allpoetry.com/poem/11591866-untitled-by-visceral

also a short one I don't have to link:

through a
voice became
a mouth

twitching in the
sun.

mineral-caked
feet
to carry
the thrones
of dead cities,

ache

sewing
the strength
and stench
of men

among the bones.

>>6473411
What is this, a children's book? GTFO

>>6474513
Your use of Sisyphus is a bit off, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Hades might be a better choice.
I guess I'd suggest sticking to the Homeric epithets: grey-eyed, etc.
I'm not sure what you're trying to do in this section.

---------

Myriad perceptions delay their dartings
Atop one another’s shoulders
They animate the trenchcoat of the flesh
Worn shoddy by fashion

>>6478787
This is brilliant. I'm just not sure how I feel about the title.

>>6479197
>I did this for you
That sounds criminal enough.

>>6472505
I don't know how to judge haiku.

>>6481162
don't bother, is shit

Everybody want to live in their fantasy world
Down the rabbit hole
With no school

The Right Reasons

You're not so sure about it
You can feel the weight of it
Is there any hurry about it?
If you're gonna do it, do it for the right reasons

Consumed by thoughts of responsibilities,
Of ought to's and should of's and everything in-between
Instead, try thinking of the consequences
If it'll do good to you and those you care about,
Then you're doing it for the right reasons

>>6481476
What's wrong with it?

So, this one is written in German. Please don't be angry ;_;


Es zittert und stöhnt, es wummert und dröhnt
Der Kohleschipper füttert die Glut
Sein Rücken schweißnass, die Hände getönt
Durch des qualmenden Torfes Ruß

Schippe um Schippe, im Rhythmus der Nacht
Im Schleier der eiskalt tanzenden Flocken
Schaufelt der Mann beständig im Takt
Die Ruhe, sie kann ihn nicht locken

Der zur Maschine gewordene Mensch
Aus Fleisch und Metall und Odem
Heizt und schwitzt und feuert und lenkt
Das Monster durch waldkronenwallende Wogen

Im hintersten Wagen der stemmenden Lok
Sitzen versteinerte Wesen
Mit blanken Mienen in Anzug und Rock
Von wispernden Stimmen umgeben

Durchs dunkle Abteil säuselt der Wind
Und küsst der wartenden Wangen
In den knisternd frostigen Scheiben sind
Die Antlitz' der Puppen gefangen

Und mit tobender, wilder, gewaltiger Fahrt
Prescht das gusseiserne Monster aus Stahl
Durch die verfrorne, verlassene, finstere Nacht
Scheppert und quält, hämmert und wälzt
Sich zum aberhundersten Mal

Sleeping mildly at the middle of the classroom a teacher lectures about chemistry and stuff. The classroom was on the first floor of the hill's high school and left stuck to the laboratory, yet teaching ethics while chemistry by an ethics teacher making jokes.
"Do it just like Gelst!" he said
Everyone laughed, do it and say it like Gelst is always fun because of who he is, which is obv'sly me. Worried since didn't get the joke, like a Gelst obviously, after the bell two minutes past the joke asked to one who among his friends talked about whatever young people talk.
"What did the teacher mean by that?" I asked
Yet no answer was prompted and the simple question, for it was simple and friendly, became a sort of fight of punch and neck-holding.
"Because of how you talk!" someone said
And it was offensive for the teacher to say such thing. I had to, at least, present my complaints to him in person, and I did for when I was in his classroom I touched his back to discover, not him but the singer instead. Everyone shrink in size down to midget-size and they dance to the tune.
Song lasted 'til the last note, note that made the classroom rain and get it down making the street be where the classroom was. Rain pouring down and people melted left only me where the street right to the gas station with nothing but underwear looking for a cab.
Ignored at first one appeared, willing to take me home. Now it was not a good driver, he didn't know how to drive or where he had to take me neither, he didn't know about the fire and the hose and the turn-off trick to let the car pass. He drives through and as it was to expect the car in flames got covered.
"O! O!" screamed the driver when the car exploded
Let alone the car and focus on the body, that still alive ran the road dodging dropping bombs.
"The house! The house!" screamed while running to some doors somewhere there
And there he was where the house, firing to the ones there, the burglars that where in the house since the beginning, with nothing but a cheap gun.

>>6482052
It's not shit, it's just as outdated as any poetry. Opinions differ and you shouldn't take one asshole's opinion above another.

But feel free to disagree.

someone post a pic ITT so we can write about it

>>6472505
http://postmetakolsti.tumblr.com/

is this u

The haikon is ok but I do like more traditional nature themes.

>>6482771

>>6482042
It's good, it's just a bit anonymous. The aim, voice-wise, that i can see you're trying to achieve is some kind of inner voice. As though it's something the reader is thinking, rather than something you've written.

Which is good. If you intended it to be like that. But consider the tiny use of certain small words here and there.
You throw in "gonna" as a shortening of "going to" but then you use the elongated forms of "ought to" and "should of" (which, by the way, is should have, not should of) instead of "oughta" or "ought've" and "should've".
So there's a bit of confusion with your language and your voices, the lexis is a bit unclear.

It doesn't mean you necessarily have to change those parts at all, just make sure you have a justification with what you intended and what you wrote, if you think about it you might be able to think of something better, and then you might be able to use that language and voice to improve on other bits of the poem.

Optimism (Meant to be read aloud)

I've been thinking a lot about optimism lately.

Optimism... is an odd thing.
Because every day a hundred thousand people piss their savings away on the lottery.

Because all our fantasies are filled with dreams and hopes
And in our dreams and hopes we always win
And in that win, we find enjoyment,
We find a goal we want to reach
But we won't reach it.

I've been thinking a lot about fantasies lately.

Because a lot of times, I escape to my imagined place,
I go back to my memories, come face to face
with all those who've forgotten me

It's a funny thing. Optimism.
Because in my childhood although I could've prepared for this,
I didn't think,
I thought I'd be a socialite, a genius, a sportsman but, never, ever,
Did I imagine myself, alone in my bed, crying and waiting for a beep that never comes,
Or just for sleep

I snap back. I retreat from memory lane,
And same again the pain comes back and hits me like a freight-train
Because this is not fantasy or hope or dream or memory
This is reality, this is me, this is all I am and all that I can ever be,
Alone, and miserable, invisible not because I'm hidden,
But just because no-one ever cares to ask and see.

Optimism never prepared me for this.
It was he that said "Just leave her, you'll be fine!"
And now look.

I left, I tried, it worked, it flew,
Then crashed and burned and kicked me down and nobody can help but you

I never anticipated this, though.
Optimism didn't say,
"What if you pester, annoy and hurt, pressure and make people feel like shit?"
"What if this makes them leave you to die, deep in a trench of sadness and pain and misery so deep and so scarring that you retreat from the outside world and into

Internal, sensory, drugs and alcohol and cutting and blood, a world where nothing exists but you, and the darkness and the clink of your bottle on glass and the soft sound of flesh being torn apart by a shaking hand in a desperate gamble of sensory life and hope for the future and
Feeling

So silence becomes me.
No more shall I talk,
If they do not want to talk in return.
Spurned and hated, alone in the dark,
I have but a single regret.

I'll never get to tell her, or show her, the joy
that she used to make me feel,
I'll never be able to enjoy having met her
And never forget her
And never get better
And right all my terrible wrongs
Because she's moved on and she doesn't care but still when I listen to any love song,
I think of her,
And still when I fantasize,
Against my will,
Optimism betrays me.
And I see her smiling and all is put aside and everything fades away,
And for a moment,
it's bliss, until my dreams remiss and I meet with my reality and

They wonder why I resort to drugs and alcohol

I've been thinking about reality a lot lately.
Maybe it's always there to push us away from our dreams,
But what do we live for?

Maybe if I haven't the hope, or a dream,
that's feasible,
Nothing.

I've been thinking a lot about reality lately.

soz 4 length

Let's give poetry a go.

You tell me everything
I never thought I wanted to hear:
like a mirror --
all right, but backwards.
I stare through my image
and feel pity; I'm an actor,
empty and diminished,
but you live a lie
for I can never love you
as you love I.

>>6482797
Thanks for the review. I think when it's about a concept the elongated form should be used. Already changed it to "should have's". It's meant as a stand-alone poem, as something being told to you, maybe as a second voice, maybe by a weird stranger.

I saw Avengers
There was no post-credits scene
Like what the fuck, man?

>>6482810
I don't know how I feel

>>6472237
The first sentence of a novella I'm writing.

"1:13 PM - Thursday, Ulysses has just finished indulging in a session of internet pornography, and after coming to understand that he is going to die, he decides to take a nap."

Its about a painting by Leonid Pasternak, called "The Throws of Creation".


A penny a page, am I overly cynical or am I actually doomed?
A writing writer, What a cliché
letters, words, sentences, stack up, coalesce
Yes, post modernism is now in vogue but nonetheless
romanticism has long been passé.

gah, yes, the OP is a faggot, I was turned into kitsch
quit looking at me, im not meant for your gaze
honest, thats what I secretly wish
I'm just a humble impression(a morning mind's haze)
dont be fooled by technique or superior style
My nature is something something, in short, very mundane
(but, actually, i am very refined).

stuck in this pose, Leonid... I swear he was a cunt
(oh, wait is that a taboo?)
shit, well, henceforth blaspheme promise I shan't
Although, Im obviously tortured already, so might as well curse.
down my knees in this bile, is this what happens to frauds?
This is comedy and its truly divine, now where do i go? Id say to the eight, though
malbolge is a hard word to rhyme.

anyway, yes, I'm a photo, a painting, some colors and strokes
I gotta be honest all those contraptions and rational minds
they just make you look for a nuance, your soul(given the smallest excuse)
desperately begging to "fly"
Do you think me as thoughtful, melancholic, maybe, in total despair?
portraying the strains of creation that poetic endeavors entail?
no, it's been buzzing around me all morning, thats what it is
an annoying black dot and it gives me no peace.

>>6479662
I couldn't stop reading your shit somehow, I don't know what kind of sorcery you've employed here. I actually finished it and it was good and some parts legitimately hit me hard enough to make me physically dizzy for a second. Particularly your twist because it made me go back and look for the amount of times you threw it in, which was constantly right under the nose.

Write something a publisher would actually look at instead of wasting time and skill on fucking Modern Family fanfiction you autistic fuck.

>>6484535

nigga look like the guy from inside llewyn davis

>>6483415
You're like half the thread at this point.

Something I've been working on.

Thirty paces from my backdoor towards the south-west puts you on a path I made. I used my fathers brand new machete to cut low hanging branches off the black spruce trees that grew densely here at the back corner of our yard. This path was made without any consideration as to what its purpose would be or to the trees who had their extremities sheared away, but the new machete had to be tested.

Reaching deeper into the forest greeted me with a faint sound of machines. I had driven past the soil-slinger machines and the dumptrucks that this landscaping company employed nearly every day for years on the way to school, but today was the first time I considered they made sound. Another twenty minutes of hacking away at spruce trees led me to a cliff, and abruptly put an end to my pathmaking. The cliff wasn't much of a cliff at all. A relatively steep but certainly not dangerous incline about fifteen feet down towards the dirt and machines.

From the end of my path I could see out into their work yard. Much louder I could distinctly make out the sound of grating machines refining their soil, keeping the rocks away from their product. If I had my glasses with me I reckon I could have made out the letters on the sign of my school. This had to be the greatest view our town had to offer.

There were a lot of men shoveling and moving the dirt around by hand. These men did not work for free, but they seemed to enjoy what they did. I imagined all the worms in the dirt they displaced, and how they might cry as their homes were destroyed without any rhyme or reason. These worms would be taken from their families and most times never returned. The lucky ones who were not sliced in half or in quarter by the men's sharp shovels would vow, and I'm sure of this, to make it back to their families one day.

I feel like this needs something, but 'm hitting a wall.


____

You are the result of divinity at climax
Shot forth as God’s seed
not as a plan but as a pleasure uncontrolled
You are the inhibition of God
Attempting to capture your beauty in stone or ink would be nothing
For nothing but happiness uncontrolled
(a solidified presence of being)
could make you in your image
You are what happens when people see their lovers
Or their family long separated
You are the feeling of peace entering after war
You are the long sigh of the universe
The heat death of the self
You are the result of divinity at climax
Shot forth as God’s seed

>>6484535
A+

A semi-old piece I wrote, wondering what you all think.
Stepping On Glass.

This city looks immortal.
Far off window lights burn forever,
Ringed by ink-black streets and buildings,
Soaring up into the night,
Proclaiming their height to
Anyone who will listen.
Purring, this city whispers out
Into a careless midnight,
Rising and falling like lungs
In a coma patient.

This city looks immortal.
The cheek-bone spaghetti junctions
That lie like dropped rope
Rear out above littered streets
Choked with the dejected homeless,
The sunken sallow skin that papered over
Promises of industrial muscle, worn out,
Greying in the artificial lights. Somewhere,
Though I'm not sure where,
A child is crying.

Or maybe it's a siren.
This city loves sirens, it's obsessed with them,
It tells me every night, like a story
For a restless child who doesn't yet love his bed.
You can't escape the sirens here;
They get inside your ears, like a ringing
Of a church bell, or a ticking clock.
You can't escape the sirens here.

***

I wander out between graffitied walls
Alone. This Thursday isn't quite as cold
But still the morning dew is threatening
To make an overdue appearance. While
Beneath the trees I walk, the street lamps burn
The haze of stars away. I'm staring up
But, hungry as they are, the lights consumed
What little drops of starlight dared to shine.

***

I finally found stars. I went
From looking up to looking down,
And there, sparkling, tired, on the ground.
They lay. The naked glow of dusk.

>>6472237
Morning voice message, still drunk.

So.. you make cigarettes seem kinda cool again,
From this dreary leech on my throat it has grown to be this winter,
to that fun enjoyable spring thing

For this is just me confusing you with Spring evenings and impressive amounts of fairly drinkable white wine
With screw tops
Correlation does not imply causation
Yeah, You were just lucky to get caught I between me and spring.
Not Lucky.

The really sad thing is I don't know anything actually about you, Im too in love with validation, I should probably just buy a purse mirror.

She tugs the hair clip from her tangled hair and fastens it on the belt loop of his pants as if they were her own. "i'm a mess," she says.

At the stoplight he runs his fingers through her hair before she has a chance to. At first she only smiles but then she laughs. He watches his fingers in her hair and doesn't notice when the light changes. Then, feeling the cars in the lane next to his race past him, he turns from her and hits the accelerator. As he drives past Alewife it dawns on him that in ten minutes she will be a memory. He comes around the first roundabout and hears her thaw, then around the second and hears her drip. He drives faster now, down Concord Ave. and onto Fayerweather St. He hopes there is still something left in the passenger seat next to him, but he doesn't look. When he stops next to her house and says goodnight he holds too tight and feels her soften in his grasps like a bite from a warm brownie.

>>6486176
This was very readable, I became intrigued. Tightly written with little fluff, but still with lots of perception.

>>6472237
This is very Ohara-ish. Really liked it.

http://pastebin.com/0p5ktLNY

>>6486419
>bite from a warm brownie.
feels really out of place after the other comparisons, going from soften, grasps to a hard bite is a little weird on an unexplainable level too

>>6473222
blump

>>6484499
Bumping.

>>6484499

>>6486641
I'm completely serious though. What's wrong with it?

>>6486713
It's cute glib writing, that's what's wrong with it.

>>6486717
And what's wrong with gilb writing?

>>6472237
I
for this I see through my hands burning tenderly
only roads to travel is pain
bare it nakedly for my love
patiently the same falls to my lot
what's inside is then left
and entry precedes departure
for if my heart is wrenched awry
my screams would be for what's left to you
being there nothing left of me
where then do I find my condolence after death?
where then lies my rest?
bleeding for you
in constant circulation
I find myself, but guessing; I find you
clear the tables,
take time to press your pieces advance
I love with an open palm of iron,
here you may place your stand
your affection flaunts validity, still steely,
my apathy demands more,
habits broken, layers folded over,
an oceans width pares us
my water, my lead, my trust, my will
yours to bend

II
I see quite clearly; though my vision
implicitly pleads for more,
all I ask is the feel of your eyes
and a touch.
Love locked I wander
wonder
pander
placidity waking me through tumbling walks
I set my teeth, on edge
I fear nothing but your arrival; still sought
the prideful humbled by a glimpse of your heart
I'd bear it, I would dare
only yours more loving than mine
I'd care, eyelids curtaining the world's glimpse of us
from depths of women would spring my tender,
I'd hold the world upon frail arms
if only to direct the entirety of it's love
then to die

III
death would no longer please me
your knowledge being all I carry
my knife, my wit, my love
skin fair as the judgement of the damned
I'll be damned,
if only to awake within the fires,
if only the feel of your skylight eyes is upon me
feed of their glory
my only recompense in my own timely passing,
such is a king's dealings,
and so without his queen
destined to burial;
unearth me if you please, love me
I've no will without yours
God parted nothing to create
disparagingly I oppose, propose
I command our togetherness,
if only to dissolve his creation's hatred,
such is our love's youth;
such is your strength,
mine less benevolent
twice folded and empty of bounty
lend me my sheath,
only you give me breath
dire is my need, my dream, my death
my heart for your health
given, never lent
have my chest for strength
your breath like wind encircles me

>>6486722
It lacks actual depth. We can see through the novelty; and It's just a way to hide one's own lack of talent and lack of consideration for the written word.

>>6486734
Thanks, I'll think of a way to change it.

>>6486722

Do you know what glib means?
Then you'd know what's wrong with it
not even that anon. But idk, it seems almost a non sequitur, if that makes sense. Shallow deepness

>>6486723
critique me, fags

It was a morning just like any other, with the sun shining brightly through the open window and into the bedroom where my husband and I slept and had slept for the past 15 years. I woke up with my face in the direction of my husbands slumped sleeping body. He seemed as unappealing as ever, half drench in sunlight accentuating his poor unkempt and aging physique (it's not as if I didn't have anything to love about him, but hardly did I have a choice in the matter). I ceased the thought and quickly got up and dressed, waking him up in the process. He slapped my ass and head into the kitchen for breakfast and then it was out to the crops without a single word, the usual routine for the past month or so. At first I almost enjoyed the silence but now it left me in a bad mood, waiting for anything at all to happen or change in my life.

Looking outside the beauty of the bright green grass, birds, sheep, and hills brightened my mood a bit. We lived all alone in a small Greek house west of Athens, and only about twice a year did we leave for it. Sometimes, and always with hope, my husband and I would encounter an odd visitor from the city or a beast of some kind but the chances were as rare as us leaving. If anything could help me escape my dull life here just for a second, I thought, it was the beauty of nature and the animals in it. For a greater, long term satisfaction though, I couldn't escape the reality that it would take something more. A man to make me live and feel like a living breathing woman again, be it human or beast.

>>6486755
>>6486734
I've taken out the "and after coming to understand that he is going to die" part. I think that makes it sound better.

>>6486922
I like this, it's good, though there are a few things I'd drop;
>I ceased the thought
Nah, doesn't sound right - maybe shook off the thought but ceased sounds too clinical.

>we lived all alone in a small Greek house west of Athens
Now I can't tell if the time period is appropriate yet, but if it's classical Greece, there's no need for the "Greek house" since that would be obvious being so close to Athens. Even if it wasn't a classical setting, "Greek house" may still be redundant since you mention Athens.

>If anything could help me escape my dull life here just for a second, I thought, it was the beauty of nature and the animals in it
Yeah I kind of like what you're doing but I feel like it's too much telling and not enough showing - perhaps if you embellished a little further and described one instance where this did happen, it would connect a little easier and you wouldn't need to say "if anything could help me escape"

B-b-b-bump

>>6484441
I mean, is that a good or a bad thing? Anything about how you received it would help a tonne

The Promise of Disaster

I look in your eyes and my stomach drops
like when the tide pulls back from the shore

Posting a sonnet here. What do you think of it?

We made our palace of the locker bay.
You, Juliet, and Romeo I, till
The cleaner came by, swept our love away.
I remember the rusty hinges still.
(They flaked, golden, as if under a spell.)
So we removed, to a glade in the wood
And in its dappled shade we stood—I knelt
Said, Lo! Forgot the taxi fare—Not good!
And now we're walking detours home. We trade
Ball-gowns for jeans and chandeliers for lamps
Duck in for tea in a shopping arcade
And lean, into the childishness of lambs.
For this alone will make the world divine:
A cocoa ring around your lips and mine.


>>6486340
Final stanza is great. The enjambment and caesura in the final line really gives it a lot of impact. The transition from stanza 2 to 3 is sudden too and fits well in its context. I question the effect of "dropped rope", however: it feels a little lifeless as an image, though perhaps lifelessness was precisely what you wanted to convey. Also, "hungry as they are, the lights consumed/[the] little drops of starlight" is difficult to make sense of. "Hungry as they are" suggests that the lights won't consume starlight, but you go on to say they do. There's a tense inconsistency there too, just pointing it out in case it was a mistake. Finally, in the last four lines of stanza 1, the drop in tone from the languid "purring" to the doom and gloom of "coma patient" kind of kills the restful mood you had built before. I would choose a more oblique image for "coma patient" so the turn in tone is not quite as abrupt. All said, though, nice poem, and I liked the irregular rhyming you had going on there.

>>6488701
>the childishness of lambs.

No kidding.

I don't actually write like this, I was just tempted to try.
>also pic is unrelated

You don't remember when it was that you began to notice him, or even when he first appeared. You only know that in the twelve or so years that you have been in attendance, you have never seen such a beautiful boy as he is. You are slowly drawn in by your growing fascination; but, it must be stressed, at the outset you meant to be an observer, and nothing more. To go any further did not once cross your mind, for how could you? He was almost too ethereal, and more importantly far too young, to notice one such as you. You were free, at least, to admire him from a distance, and to wonder about him. For beauty so pure and untouched is in itself a thing of perversity, a flower that shamelessly and unknowingly opens out its blinding white petals to the world. Is he as innocent within as he appears without? His eyes are gentle and heavy-lidded, giving the impression of the magnanimity of a saint; and yet could there be the suggestion of the seducer? Moments of idleness are bountiful, and during these the mind wanders, and invents intriguing and unlikely truths lying underneath otherwise plain veneers.

>>6472237
>I love being shit
Needs a lot of work, barely even a skeleton. Pretty short though ;)
http://pastebin.com/RPbC8XYG

>>6479662
It's good actually you freak the fuck is wrong with you.

My nose has bled again
Not from the pressure of your fist, bitch
But from the constant wiping and cleaning
Of these damn little green and yellow pollens
Attacking the insides of body
They missed their chance of conception
Now they must fuck with me
And I laugh, bitch, because it wasn't you that did this
In my room alone
The blood dries in my hands
My tongue cleaned some of it off
The saltiness endured there for a second
And I'm reminded that you can't hurt me
Because you're not around
Now I laugh alone
Bleeding like a sick perverted living pouch of evil

>>6488701
Hi, thank you for the feedback - when you say final stanza, do you mean the third part, or the third stanza of the first part?

I agree with what you're saying about the dropped rope image, and as lifelessness was what I was going for (I don't mean to discard your critique though, so if there's something you think that would be more effective please say).

On the "hungry as they are" lines, the meaning was that the lights consume lights because they're hungry to make themselves brighter - would some embellishment here aid the imagery? Or just a few grammatical tweaks?

Finally, on the "coma patient" imagery, I have to agree, it jars too much with the rest of the poem but does it not aid the general image of a city that's been hollowed out and left for dead? I'm genuinely asking, I'd like to know.

Necessity's pendant holds
The world on a yo-yo.
Fuck #yolo; Er's dead.

>>6486922

You need some commas in there. I don't think the parenthesis is necessary.

>my husband and I would encounter an odd visitor from the city or a beast of some kind but the chances were as rare as us leaving.

Kind of confusing way of putting this idea. Just say it was rare.

>I thought

Unnecessary for first person, we're already directly reading this person's thoughts.

Wait, am I critiquing bestiality erotica?

>>6474637
This is really good, anon.

http://imgur.com/qVne6Ya

Context: Laura is a nineteen year old girl who's just recently found out she's the product of a beard marriage and her father regularly cheats on her mom. She's out at a go-kart track with her family.

614 words

>>6486429
Thank you. Hopefully in the next couple days I'll have a full short story finished up. My first ever.

Still looking for more critiques on this:

>>6486176
>>6486176

>>6472909

Remember that scene where that guy in Indiana Jones did some fancy whip techniques for a while before Indy pulled a gun and shot him?

Don't hide behind pretty words when it's all too clear that you've simply got nothing to say.

Remove "certain" from "North African governor." Sounds far too poncy.
I don't care about the helmet. Too much filler for too little content.

Be erudite without being a smartass.

That man was by a moonlit river, leaning against a tree, thinking on his banishment.

Turn that into three sentences. Not a large cliff-face of text.

You've got the language skills. Now apply yourself.

>>6473411

Spoils of war.
Starting a sentence with a connective?

>>6473525

Best in show, best in thread.

>>6473525
I dont understand your attempt at freeverse. Why is it not just a paragraph? The line structure seems to add nothing.

>>6484535
Well, its actually about a post with the topic being - write something about the picture.

>>6490015

This is an excellent way to ensure people have low W.C and then come on /lit/ to bitch and moan

good idea, you pretentious fuckwit

>>6490552
WC?

>>6489112
>>>6488701 (You)
>Hi, thank you for the feedback - when you say final stanza, do you mean the third part, or the third stanza of the first part?
Final stanza of the third part, the "They lay. The naked glow of dusk."

>I agree with what you're saying about the dropped rope image, and as lifelessness was what I was going for (I don't mean to discard your critique though, so if there's something you think that would be more effective please say).
If lifelessness was your aim then this is good.

>On the "hungry as they are" lines, the meaning was that the lights consume lights because they're hungry to make themselves brighter - would some embellishment here aid the imagery? Or just a few grammatical tweaks?
It's mainly a grammar thing. Like I said before,
>But, hungry as they are
Suggests a turn to follow. It's like saying "but, although they are hungry". Yet the line which follows contains no turn, which throws the reader somewhat. I read that line expecting "but, hungry as they are, the stars knave untouched the starlight", for instance

>Finally, on the "coma patient" imagery, I have to agree, it jars too much with the rest of the poem but does it not aid the general image of a city that's been hollowed out and left for dead? I'm genuinely asking, I'd like to know.
It aids your general image, yes. To fix the tonal issue maybe you could just make the line longer. Right now "coma patient" has too much impact, so if you were to stretch it out, like
>rising and falling like lungs
>in a [something something] coma patient
That might be better. Try it out.

By the way, since we're both posting poetry, mind critiquing my poem at >>6488701?

Picture because I wasn't sure if 4chan could retain that layout

Breach of basic rights, the domain is eminent
If you circumcise your kids you're as bad as a meninist
Look at my shins man, socks like a pensioner
When the summertime comes imma keep it the temperature
Unless we're talking Celsius; then, bitch, I'm boiling
Opposite of factoring, bitch I'm FOILing
Introduction to a book: bitch, I'm spoiling
Fuck punctuation, but I like parentheses
Partially equal, bitch I am isosceles
Can't think of a connection but I should rhyme dioceses
Stubbornly inefficient: I'm a midrange jumper
Double over/under-rated I'm Imam Shumpert
Confusing like sherbet; what the fuck is that?
I prefer sorbet; I look like Kevin Sorbo
Put it in her torso, "God's not dead"
If you want proof I'm available til ten
I do not appropriate I got like four cultures
200 dollars for my poem on a sculpture
Give me like ten years I bet that'll double
Half of that's inflation so I guess I'm in trouble
Israel for all colors, Russia for all lovers
Fuck Manny Pacquiao, give them pills and rubbers

That was shit

>>6491642
Someone listens to Das Racist

>>6491642
>Double over/under-rated I'm Imam Shumpert
The way this moves the mouth is really nice. The assonance and rhythm is Shakespearean.

It is so difficult to write about people you know, even more so when they're people you don't seem to talk to anymore.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A1QD_U8cq-SMg4q_TuFqF8fCA75FZI8PuKAQUyPTX00/edit?usp=sharing

>>6492176
Really like the dialogue, but the rest needs some work, I think. It's written with a clear, sort of crystalline prose apart from these paragraphs, which stick out horribly:

>Now this time Trevor noticed where his mind was...
>She also began friendship with a small girl...

Edit them down into more digestible chunks that aren't so "tell". Nothing wrong with "tell", just make it simple "tell". Or you don't have to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYwds8CS8vY

"I don't care who's it is, it's floating!" is a great example of using dialogue to set a scene or mood; maybe we don't need to know all the details. Kay's line in that ad tells me: "impoverished, dysfunctional family" and it's just about shit in a toilet bowl.

You seem to be better at dialogue, so you can take that route.

>>6492663
Oh yeah here's some shit I wrote last night:

infinity’s close by
(at it’s precipice now)

all the light is lightless
reality’s a riptide

gateway thoughts
dance for me here
at the gateway to
a million thoughts
— ideas all melting,
cheap cheese slices

a truck at a hot dog stand
its grille a grin

a thousand naked nuns
leaping london’s lights

no need for counting sheep
when towel dispensers
sing you to sleep.

speech of homeless man:

"Reclaim the body without organs! Reclaim the body without organs! Sure, I'm filthy. Sure, I have mysterious maladies and growths that defy classification. But I assure you, all is not wishy-washy! My body is liquid at times, though I do my best to escape matter. Sure, every other night I go to heaven. Really, I do. But here is a secret: I watched myself go insane! As words became letters and shapes became sounds, I was able to say to myself "Something is wrong. Something is not right." If only I hadn't! Then I'd have removed my heart, sold my stomach, chewed on my liver, and broken my bones like twigs for fun. Even you, formal containers, fluid form, have ping-pong balls floating around on currents in your spine. Stare at yourself in the mirror until the blink of your eyelids finds synchronization with the sparkling synapses inside your skull. Sit in a circle with yourself and feel your breathing freeze as your heartbeat goes flying into nets of electricity. Seize the grid like empty diamonds of fencing to climb higher to fall! I am watching myself now! I know you are here and know I am in here! Reclaim the body without organs! Reclaim the body without organs!"

>>6490015
I'm very much in agreement. It's more pretentious to act smart behind a bunch of big words - I went to middle school once too.

Also, what's WC?

>>6492696

i like this a lot. but take it with a grain of salt because i write like shit and am far into a bottle of wine and am also one of those people that feel a lot when inebriated

>>6492696
>>6492756
I dig that. Reminds me of Ionesco's "I will not capitulate!"

>>6492696

I would mess around with the punctuation a bit. I can see a few spots where a semi-colon might work better, or maybe a couple of commas removed/moved around.

>>6472237
I started writing my story and I'd love to hear what you think so far. Please feedback!

https://writtenbyruby.wordpress.com

>>6492756

"sentenced to be nuzzled over a full trillion times for ever and a
night till his noddle sink or swim by that ideal reader suffering
from an ideal insomnia"

Megali proti zois [4-4]

You that is nothing,you that is truly the only death, you that hath risen from black waters!
truly it is you that has cast the waters from your brow! You great one that crushed his teeth and blew ash
into the waters of your palm! [1-4]

You that has begotten the last one from ash and water!
Him, the blind one, the sole Dreamer, the great Archon, the Ignorant one, the Creator. [2-4]

Who is wiser then? You that emerged from black waters.
Hear you that can not hear me, it is you that is last, for the first begotten is the begetter to himself.
Only a fool would embrace your house of black waters.
It is the wise who wish to behold and behold trully, like him that behelds us and is beheld by you. [3-4]

Great first life! The one beneath the other beneath and the other beneath him, he that was last.
In you is the house in which dwells the blind one whose vision is only that of himself.
He that is bulbous and sick in appearance, he that viciously beats upon his robe at the river of lost mankind.
truly they have dug deep enough to forsake the light. [4-4]
Althine logiye [7-7]

Between the sands there were two great cities, truly they both flew the banner of sword and sail.
Truly! they lay forgotten now. [1-7]

Mankind made in the likeness of the great fist life who was begotten in the likeness of the one who hath risen from black waters.
Truly we make an unending lineage of beggeting by beholding the great life. [2-7]

Mankind can not know the only death, for he who beholds nothing is not a beholder, truly! it is the only way for those who can not
bear to behold the great life. [3-7]

In myriad of generations the seed of mankind hath changed, reflections of all that is one in it self being the beholding of him
that hath risen from ash and water, truly! The beheld self is the same as the dirt under ones feet. [4-7]

Cast away your life ye truly behelding ones, into the house of black waters. [5-7]

Behold ye sick ones, the great first life hath no ending word. [6-7]

Myriad of behelders within the one who is beheld by the one who behelds the beholder of the great first life,
truly! Ash and water. [7-7]

Bumping

This is a monologue I just wrote. A dictator realizes that his life is just the act of killing and torturing his way forward, that everything he does now is simply crawling through a swamp of blood and violence and that living has no more flavor, but it's just an endless web anxiety and boredom. The original is in Portuguese.

My delights are now all dead.
My grape-bunch of tomorrows, my suns yet
Unborn, they are already all abortions
Of boredom, anxiety and violence,
An eternity of slaughtering and mold
In the bloody womb of the future:
My horizon hibernates in rotten wine.
From wreck to wrack I drag my creeping spirit,
I force my moldy carcass to chew
Every minute and to ignore the heartburn of existence.
I wander in an anemic desert
And endless procession of rachitic suns.
Time coagulates in a dimmish
Wandering of corpses: my apathetic days,
For dead days do hatch dead days,
And dead days do hatch dead days,
In an endless march in which fresh tortures,
Still hot and sweating blood and pus
(The warm dew that raw flesh cries)
Walk upon the fossils of ancient agonies
Of the past, ancestor pains, and this big and rotten open
Pustule that is my kingdom never silences
Its bloody canticle, that will continue to flow
And gush, echoing horrors, until the breaking of the misterious
Hourglass that we know by the name of time.
My life is also my prison; breathing is an incarceration of the mind;
To get up from the bed is a torture:
The gummy and blear light of dawn invades me
With nausea, to the point that I want
The night to crown herself eternal crown and that the sun,
With his smile, no longer erode the darkness,
But that the blanket of the dark drown all humanity
And that all bud-button of life
Would be suffocated in silence. Life, what is life?
Life is a brief dream and dirty shadow,
A nightmare that creates flesh and, for
A grain of dust and ephemeral spark
Of time, shrieks, howls and contorts
In the polluted stage of existence
Until a single blow do solve it in smoke:
The breath of dying do melt the flame
And all that remains, sited on top of the candle-wick, is an eclipse.
Life is a disease that stings
The coarse scarecrow of inanimate
Matter and makes its aware of itself, makes it notice
The very absurdity and meaninglessness of its own existence;
It is a lightning roaring the fleeting
Rumble and chaos of its voice and then dives
Again in the eternal swamp of darkness
And infinite silence of emptiness;
It's a frantic spark and confused torch,
A chimpanzee modeled in fatuous fire,
Stranded and lost in a dark jungle, that reabsorbs him again
Even before the poor beast invents
Any form of sense to the sudden flash
Of being, his existence: the soap-bubble
Caravel that, without any destination or port,
Navigates through a sea off savourless mists;
A ship of nothing, that nothing has conceived
And that, after floating for a few seconds, will drown in nothingness.

>>6473222
Last time I ask for a review. http://pastebin.com/kH4XNNSe

quicky no edit rhymey poem.

are you drowning in that pond you're in?

wild flowers form pacts,
entwining two leaves.
we drink saliva from palms
while dining on pleas.

i think we've gone missing-
i'm forgetting your name.
please do not grieve me
when i'm washed out by rain.

now in the mourning
as the sun shines through vines
i'm leaving you voiceless-
i've taken your lines.

how do I come to terms with the fact that I am a terrible writer and will never, ever improve?

>>6494725

Practice more fucker

This may not be the right place
but how do I start writing poetry?
If rhyming isn't necessary
than what makes poetry
different from a nice
description of a locale?
In a format that reads
like a scroll.

How do I become a good writer if everything I touch turns to shit
I am 18

>>6494766
have unprotected sex with prostitutes

>>6491642
you listen to too much DOOM

>>6491642

I sung it in my head in DOOMS voice.

Posted it in another thread but anyway.

>>6495603

Don't need to use the words 'doctor' and dermatology department'. It's redundant, pick one or the other.

Squirming and fidgeting also redundant, imo.

"Slight unusual affliction", nothing technically wrong, but it sounds like a real mouthful, I'd change it.

In general, your writing has way too many words.You talk about a lot of stuff that doesn't help your story. You don't need to tell us all about how the guy saw his new ears in the mirror. I would delete everything from "Perhaps I had, had too much to drink..." to "...twitching incessantly with agitation." Just superfluous info. We can imagine all of this on our own. The only really unique stuff here is him wondering how it happened, which you can do a little bit better.

I don't buy the comparison between pounding on a door and a knife in the solar plexus. I also don't like "sang my name in a taunt of a soprano". Is she taunting people who sing soprano? Is she taunting Fran?

>>6494766
I like the last two lines a lot, the ones that weren't part of the poem.
I'm young too and I find that my observations make me sound like less of an idiot than my thoughts. I also write comedy so it's a good exercise in style without the need to be profound.

>>6486176

Back door is two words

> I used my fathers brand new machete to cut low hanging branches off the black spruce trees that grew densely here at the back corner of our yard.

I don't like the metre of this one. Count the syllables. 1,1,1,2,1,1,3,1,1,1,2 (not bad so far, but here's where it starts to wear) 2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1. And zero commas. It gives the effect of a bumpy road.

And it's flavour info, too. Most of us can imagine how paths are created. Nothing wrong with flavour info, but it's gotta be aesthetic.

So this guy created an entire path just to test out his machete? Hard to buy, but okay, maybe he's weird and has nothing better to do. Creating a path (especially through dense woods like you said) is very labour intensive.

>Reaching deeper into the forest greeted me with a faint sound of machines.

Awkward phrasing, imo. How can one be greeted by an action that they themselves took? "Picking up the phone greeted me with the sound of a dial tone" "Turning on the shower greeted me with a stream of water".

Also, this is a great time to get sensual and imaginative. Exactly what kind of sounds are we talking about? And I like the sound better as "in the distance" rather than "faint". Sets the scene better. If it's just 'faint', maybe it can be coming from somewhere inside the earth? Or maybe the machines are just naturally quiet?

First time he considered that heavy machinery made sound? Really?

Your prose is not clear in terms of who, what, where, when and why. This guy is making a path and he's stopped by a cliff. Is he at the top of the cliff, or is he staring at the face of the cliff? I can't tell for certain until I get to the part where he talks about being able to see things in the distance.

"Sliced in quarter"? That's gonna take three cuts, isn't it? Or are you talking about just taking a quarter off? If this is a common phrase, I've never heard it.

You use the word 'families' two sentences in a row. Bust out that thesaurus.

Really I can't do anything besides critique your prose since it's such a small passage. It's a story about a weird guy who lives in the woods. I'd turn up the 'weird', because it's unclear whether this eccentricity is him or you.


Now someone do mine:

imgur.com/qVne6Ya

>>6491642
More like Heems than DOOM.

She came to me and said she loved me. The lights flickered, my thoughts shut down.

Wrote this a year or more ago. Don't let the pastebin link deter you, it's short. Just not short enough to fit in one post and I don't want to spam the thread.
http://pastebin.com/E2LS8zDJ

This is all there is of it. I'm pleased on the whole with it, but I'd like other opinions. The one thing I'd say is that I reckon there are too many "made up" names and concepts, too fast.

Here is mine, please give me a concise critique:

There is a particular pang of conscience that I experience on a regular basis, one of which inspires me to bear this question: is there more to life than this?
The degree to which this pricks at my livlihood is most unbearable, for I can never seem to find a remedy which would fain to bring me a most intoxicating relief.
However, this is of no concern to my well-being, insomuch as I have all the necessary distractions which will allow me to turn a blind eye to this crippling inquiry.
Ah!-There it is again! I felt it once more, and I have also noticed a distinguishable pattern in which it rears its ugly head: when sickness of vanity drowns the spirits in a deluge which would render even the most cunning and hearty men into a drowning whirlwind. What sickness of vanity? The desires which urges one to seek the most comfortable life. The life which ignores all possible conflicts and seeks for the nearest stable foundation in which to edify their trinkets with. Conflict which presupposes the emergence of a victor, and this victor would fain to feel ashamed of his triumph-he would rather wallow in the comforts of peace and equanimity, and return to the flaunt of his achievements in matters which only concern the imaginary realm of humanly-things.
Yea, I may have found a solution: would if will is the most appropriate remedy to this sickness of vanity? A will which commands all things in oneself? A will so thick it is almost as if it was inhuman? A will which is completely cognizant of a all-things good and all-things bad and can freely remove and replace all of the constituents thereof, with no regard for the consequences thereof? Such a will does not concern itself with the instability of vain things, for it knows that it can command into its life the most pleasurable things that this humanly world can offer-in addition to the path in which this will has laid forth for itself, a path in which nobody other than that will could ever understand, for that will knows only its desires, and the means of acquiring that which is desired. If one were inflicted with the sickness of vanity (that feeling which sprouts when the gratification of value, honour, ethics, admiration, imitation, security, morality, belonging, obligation, the material, peace, money, loveless friendship, the decadent arts and a multitude in which I have failed to identify extinguishes), then one is surely possessing of a fate which they cans’t operate upon. Unless, however, they knew of that inhumanly trait which stands tall hence over all expectation, morality, and the things which should never concern two or more.

As painted on a subway wall
__

A thousand fangs
Made of ivory and glas
The only true gang
Is dancing to the bass

In halls that echo
Far and wide
No fancy dinners, no art deco
Just stone and blood and pride

A sprayer with a broken eye
Jumps onto the tracks
A thousand faces passing by
All have turned their backs

Red on Grey, and White on Red
A couple words in some dead corner
Mothers' tears are shed
She's the only mourner.

So the words they stand alone
Next to a beggars dirty throne:
"I'll be taking my leave
Wonder what it will achieve."

I'll do some feedback in an hour or so.

If it sucks please let me know any sort of advice would help.

I came to you but I felt no sense of pleasure
I just layed on my back devoid of life without measure
Eyes blank while my mind went to hell
I don't remember what I thought of but I think it was you
I don't remember the day coming to an end but I remember coming to you
The highlight of my day was the cold tile floor on my back .
The short ragged breaths in between consciousness and beyond
I've never cried so hard in my life
The highlight of my day was the cold tile floor against my face
I only remember the thought of you
Whilst the rain hit the roof a constant steady beat I felt my heart start to falter.
No intention to float instead I decided to drown
The highlight of my day was the cold tile grave I decided to lay on
Nothing left but an empty feeling having come to you empty handed

I don't write very often, any comments, criticism or feedback is appreciated
_______

It is 12:43 am, I am sitting in a bar in Tokyo, the man next to me is eating fish chips, and I am in hell. I am not here, of course, to chat about baseball, to try and meet a woman, or even to drink. I am here because I have nothing to eat at home, and this is the only goddamn place in this district that serves decent food past midnight.

If it were up to me, I'd be at home, in the comfort of my bed, watching Netflix and fondling my balls. I'd be eating a nice bowl of ramen too, but I ate the last cup and now I've been confined to writhe in torment in this bar. I figure that once my ramen comes, I will still be in hell, but at last I'll have a friend to join me.

At this moment exactly, I'm working to ease my unrest by attempting to spin a 50 yen coin. I'm briefly successful, but the coin always falls into the cracks of the counter and topples over no matter how hard I try and dodge the cracks. It is after the fifth topple that the fish-chip man turns towards me and says: "Looks like this counter just isn't made for coins eh?"

As he says this, I notice the crumbs around his mouth, the way they break off his lips like rocks fallings from a cliff. His mouth moves in conjunction with the heavy slabs of fat that create his cheeks. The combination of crumbs, fat and the repugnant smell of fish and alcohol that composes his breath serves as convincing evidence that this torment was created exclusively for me. This bar is hell, and this fish-chip man is Satan.

Wrote a short story while travelling along the I-5 in California. Any critique esta muy appreciado.

>>6497198
The abundance of the word "I" is distracting.

>>6497226
Generally feels a bit artificial. As if you're writing for a certain style, without actually meaning half the things you say. Lines like
>His mouth moves in conjunction with the heavy slabs of fat that create his cheeks
just seem meaningless, unnatural, and distract from the flow of your piece.

However, I do enjoy the opening few sentences, which create an evocative atmosphere of sincerity and humanity.

Generally, work on staying human. Not sounding human, but being human.

(I'm >>6497255, so you can judge whether or not you should value my critique of your work.)

Languor's vessel I;

Am one amongst many
Rivulets swelling
To crests,
Subsiding to troughs

Subliming, then frothing
In countless convocations
Where meeting myself
I depose

Seamlessly coursing seaward

>>6497543
thanks for the response, i use some of the descriptions which you didnt like to try and express how stale and vapid the scene is to the narrator. i suppose im treading the line between adhering too strongly to stylistic prose and producing something authentic.

anyways, i have a couple of comments on >>6497255

i like your piece. however, i thought the abundant descriptions in the first and second paragraph were excessive to the point of redundancy. the second paragraph isn't so bad, but I definitely felt like the first paragraph could be more concise. but as for the descriptions themselves, i really enjoy them. for me, it is the quantity of descriptors that is the issue.

i do enjoy your story though, the last paragraph is great.

>>6494306

Can I have some opinion? It would mean a lot to me.

I generally don’t criticize works in English because it is not my main language and I don’t feel able to do so. I feel that I will be unjust to the author, since the music and the rhythms of English are foreign to my ears. But I was happy to review Portuguese fragments.

If any of you guys have some time, please, give me some ideas of how I can improve my work.

I drove my car with the awareness
of never being able to violate any driving rule
and, accepting this condition,
I violated the physic rules that regulates it:
for being with you some minutes earlier
and reach your love domain,
a blonde alcove with the scent of a burnt siberian church
that resides in your perfume vial.

Your sick child body resembled fabric
and made me realize I like things not beautiful most of all.
The void you created around yourself, the exclusivity you seemed to grant,
which I enjoyed.
It was all sad, but fulfilling.

I tried to hate you, and you also did
but we ended up being fond of each other
because we never really cared.


(I translated it from italian, hope it sounds good in english too)

>>6495793
>>6489303

Anyone?

THE E-MAIL MACHINE

There is a black face
it does a wraith in
throughout and is channelled
through the wires of the
intergalactic life support machine.
That exists, outside the laws
of human comprehension.

Plugged in to once every
ashes drawn forth and
laid still as they weed
further to ensure their roots
and financial stability,
with springs for defence
against earthquakes.

No cheers of thunder
two hands. With elongated
fingers and dirty nails
that establish a grip.
As an ancient rite.
And a house of mirrors sprays up and
over from the glasscrapers saying,
“Then what am I here for?”

“To teach English.”

Too many posters, not enough repliers.

Are these threads reserved for poetry and fiction?

I took a prompt from a random SAT prep site and managed to write a paragraph on the subject before I got bored. Curious what you guys think of my ability to get through complex thought.

Prompt: Should people who are more fortunate than others have more of a moral obligation to help those who are less fortunate?

Answer: I want to resolve an issue that probably isn't so complicated yet the opinions seem to be scattered all around. Should people more fortunate go out of their way to adhere to the less fortunate? First, I'd like to clear the issue that one might firstly, wrongly, encounter and come to conclusion: fortunate doesn't only entail, simply, those who are better off financially. Without digging in too much into the abstract realm of what it means to be “more” fortunate, one could argue simply being of greater age will land them on the spotlight of the definition. The goal we have been facing within humanity since the dawn of civilization and prior has been creating a peaceful society. Now if you ask me what will create a peaceful home for a particular family I'd automatically answer what is good relationships. I don't think in a family home there can be peace if the family hasn't gone out of their way in order to understand what their sibling and parents; and children are going through. There will be protocol and if it's not handled with the sensitivity of catering to a certain personality that's grown alongside the household and not only meant to feed the needs of a single person, possibly the one in charge, resentment will grow and the individuals will seek out distant sources to mend their frustrations. This is a certain pattern that can be stretched, squeezed, and dug into different scenarios, but the answer will always settle the same: yes, people who are more fortunate will need to support others who aren't so if they are to live in a morally righteous manner.

>>6498521
Oh, sweet sticky female dearest
I've tasted things
My voice runs down serrated knives
not like yours-

When I visited Hades we had a banquet
to leaking respiratory systems and missing ovaries
sliding down the boundary of Earth
and something else.

"Oh you, you, you, you,
does the taste run through?"
Yes, it was of strawberry laces and men in suits.
I eat them for breakfast
my good man!
My tongue, it turns men blue.

Come here dearie, let me make love to you-
Yes, perfectly capable I am this
..
enigma will envelop you, as she has a
knack
for being herself, s-s-she is new in stock!
They will stick with you no matter what you tell him.

but they continue taunted with my jelly candies
and parted oceans
my limbs splutter out a word
and they lick it through
through and-

"She is not a pretty thing", the salesman said,
"She is not a thing at all."

A butt that plump is hard to find. I wouldn't mind massaging it every single day, with much loving care given to each single inch of it, from every possible side and angle. I'd keep doing it until the butt and its owner feel thoroughly satisfied with the treatment they've received, in a way sure to leave them asking and longing for more of me, as they'd be constantly missing my touch whenever we're far apart. By the end of the session I'd have gotten them completely addicted to this feeling that I can provide, that much being the dedication I'd put into releasing their stress.

>>6472237
Wrote this for /adv/.

>>6472237
Here's something I wrote for fun after reading too much Barth.

http://pastebin.com/f1hiRPdQ

>>6498556

What amuses me is that people just post their shit in here without reading the 12 other unread submissions behind them. You would think that people would at least employ a one to one system of posts and replies.

>>6474637
Best in the thread

First time over here.
Tell me what do you think.
English is not my first language so there may be some flaws into it.

"Quiet and stillness in the blackest of nigths
rides a shiver thundering down my spine
like a marching of regretting memories
one reflection follows another in line.

Silent dawn of new born lights
shall you bathe me in crimson shine
let my soul rejoice in my past glories
the path I've chosen remains as mine.

Hear my plea oh ghosts of shattered times
may my scars find healing in tomorrow's way
lend rest to the wanderer's troubled self
must my sight remains in what's ahead.

Mistakes, they break, what not, stain
wounds will close yet marks stay
beware of losing the grasp of yourself
the past is a guide that never misleads."

>>6499692

>i've never heard of paragraphs

>>6501694
It's bad. Very edgy. Like a 13 year old's band lyrics.

>>6501700
Yeah, just as I expected. I sound edgy as fuck when writting in english, I guess dark words are easier to rhyme?

>>6501707
Hey, it's probably better than I sound in your language. Just try not rhyming for a while. Poetry doesn't have to rhyme, and when you force a rhyme scheme in a language you aren't great at, it sounds immature.

>>6501711
I think you are on point. Well, nice to hear your thoughts man. See you around.

New thread when?

"Im a tear's bastard child
im the offspring of a muffled smile
descendant by anima
of a forgotten poem."

Bedrest

I counted 1337 sheep fore sleep last night,
almost all of whom were named Rufus.
The cheddar moon hung by strappado
and 26-2 spun on wax in the thin corridors.
Toe stubbed on the davenport aft the john
annihilated my opioid lack of pain, deft.
So I thanked the blessed transience, trotted on,
splashed my face, eluted the pus and tar.
The mirror reflected like scales of shad,
pleat of pajamas, meat and hide draped on bones.
Soon supine warmth, darkness recompensed;
a tip to Charon, a nod to Morpheus, nullified debts.
Silence drawn, lids lay down on eyeballs smiling.
When the ert firings of my mind expelled
more than just an arcade of electoral buzzing,
I submited to vanishing in the supple mist
and dozed off into the zen tribunal
centered in the basilica between temples.

Go, go, go, win, lose, or draw the curtain.

>>6501697
I dislike them, I prefer the the text to be read in one go.