/lit/ - Literature

>>7132205

Some demonic songs from a play(I dont have time to translate now: it's on the original portuguese)

Bebê que a mãe sufocou
E logo ao lixo legou,
Como amora inchada e preta,
Restos pros cães na sarjeta:
O próprio ninho do feto,
A alma do leite e do afeto,
O ninou como um dejeto:
Piscar fugaz de agonia
Deu por vida a sua cria.

Na rua um ébrio mendigo
Que a noite achou sem abrigo
E a neve, açúcar polar,
E a faca do frio a bufar,
Em múmia azul congelaram,
Trêmulo e triste o empalharam.

Um bêbado com cirrose
Que o saquê, de dose em dose,
Num podre e bege abacate
A carne flácida inchou,
Que em escuro chocolate
O fígado mastigou
As tripas, com cada trago,
Digerindo em triste estrago.

O acre sangue dos suicidas,
Almas que foram comidas
Pelo estupro e possessão
Do demônio depressão.
Porém qual é a natureza
Do monstro-mor da tristeza?
É querer viver dormindo
Por ter no sono saída
Do sonho horrendo da vida:
Pesadelo em pleno sol.
É um insolúvel anzol
De angústia a picar a mente;
Morte muda em meio a gente;
É atravessar todo o dia
Um lamaçal de agonia.
É asfixia solitária:
Seco e interno afogamento
Que ocorre no pensamento.
É sombra parasitária;
É enlameada neblina
Cuja ranhenta mortalha
Dentro do tórax se espalha,
Como opressora toxina:
Coração, pulmões, garganta
Esmagando com tal manta.
É neve que cai, sem fim,
Um frio câncer de marfim,
Que enterra a vida em inverno
E faz, do existir, inferno.

>>7132205
I woke up. I took a shit. I went downstars.
- "I'M NOT GAY MOM"
I got some food. I went back to my room. I am gay.

>>7132205
why make this one if there's already a current poetry thread?

>>7132303
Because prose-writers are people too

>>7132211

>>7132330
Reads like a bad DFW impression

the aesthetic of noise to grain,
lovely flower and frantic brain
beaten by the storm,
what worm will come
and eat the rose of hollow fright
and orgiastic tone --

let down your hair, ghost

unknot the searching
cavern pertaining to your
high freedom
that I’m searching for
and I’m burned
by no one’s indiscretion.

we call the history of the rave,
the scavenger’s flight to
streetcorner and blights
of misbehaving --

we bring God down
through a portal in the mind
powdered glass in the feet
kept awake by walking
and the tyger’s eye
briefly met bleeding.

the crowd becomes the pleasure organ,
the heightened
pulse a sign of arrival to the world you birth, and
the world which then runs over you,
wretched accomplice, intruder
in your own home.

every strand must be tied together into a knot
so elegant one must spend their life
tying it, at the expense of love
and care regretfully -- no, resolutely
surrendered for “no promise”
“no choice” but the holy light suffusing
the night in shimmering joy to be found!

Hallelujah! we are awake
and join the bard’s harp
with our voices so broken,
our chests so pierced
by a lance from Heaven

exploded head swimming grins
mourning
the light’s
morning
a balance between
wake
and sleep

our eyes upturn
know we are watching
something that’s always
been watching us.

>>7132370
>I tried to get up, and I tried for several minutes but it turned to be something I couldn't do no matter how hard I tried.

Seriously. Read this out loud for yourself.

>I stood with no one but my own shadow, but I'm afraid it didn't last long, for it hardly moved as I pleased,

Get your tenses right

> A few moves I could do by sheer will alone, but only after great effort and by no means at ease.

Utter shit

>and since I could not move my body nor the shadow,

Show, don't tell.

>watching my own body move as my shadow stood there just alone.

Dog shit

Keep at it, though.

What was it that lay far beneath at the clapping place? Wishing to know, I tried to stretch myself enough from where I was to caught a glimpse of the space below and heard the voice of the speaker that did not reach me from where I stood. The never-ceasing laughter covered the voice from the proscenium in an ever lasting murmur, so loud that even that place right below was covered entirely by the noise of the voices, claps, and laughs. I could see no part of the downstage, and barely the people lying in front, all of them staring their phones, recording each second of my turmoil which seemed to be the cause of their happiness. Looking was sufficient to notice their thrill, how here and there black pupils grew bigger from joy and their dog-like tongues shivered ecstatic, drooling over their fancy clothes in a lip-licking twitch that unconsciously repeated endlessly among them.

Frau Vila. Eine Mitpatientin aus dem Kongo. Ihr Cousin wohnt in Deutschland und irgendwie hat sie es in die Anstalt geschafft. Sie schläft gerne. Es gibt zwei Sessel im Hauptflur der Station, einer von diesen gehört Frau Vila, ob spät, ob früh, Frau Vila schläft, merkwürdige Schlafgeräusche amüsieren andere Patienten, wir haben sie alle lieb. Es ist schwer mit ihr zu reden, sie spricht Französisch am Telefon mit ihren Angehörigen, ihr Deutsch ist gebrochen, wir geben alle unser bestes um mit ihr zu kommunizieren. Sie ist kein gerngesehener Gast im Fernsehraum, so lustig ihre Schlafgeräusche im Flur erscheinen mögen, so nervig sind diese wenn man gerade eine Sendung schauen möchte. Sie hat 2 Handys und kommt mit keinem von diesen klar. Ich hatte nie wirklich mit ihr geredet, eines Tages erblickt sie mich im Flur, sie ist flüchtig wach. "Komm hier, guck, was ich machen.". Die Tastatursperre ihres Handys war an. Ich zeige ihr wie sie diese lösen kann. Ihre Tastatursperre lösen wird eine meiner Hauptbeschäftigungen für die nächsten Tage. Wir kommen ins "Gespräch". Nach etlichen Minuten von Wortfetzen die ich nicht verstehe kommen wir endlich zu der Einsicht, dass ihr ältester Sohn auch Sebastian heißt. Sie schließt mich in ihr Herz. "Sebastian, Sebastian, mein Sohn". Während wir "Das Dschungelcamp" schauen bemerkt ein gehäßiger Mitpatient während des auftretens von der Tochter von Roberto Blanco, dass diese die Frau Vila des Dschungels sei. Alle lachen außer mir, ich habe Frau Vila ebenfalls ins Herz geschloßen. Ich versuche eingehender mit Frau Vila zu reden:" Heart of Darkness von Joseph Conrad spielt im Kongo, haben Sie dieses Buch gelesen" "Kongo" "Heart of Darkness, der Horror, der Horror" "Kongo großer Fluß". Wir kehren zurück zu unserer normalen Konversationsweise, für aussenstehende wahrscheinlich eher in der Kategorie Phantasiesprache anzuorden. Ihr scheint es kalt zu sein in Deutschland. Sie lebt seit 4 Monaten im Krankenhaus und hat Aussicht auf Entlassung im Juni, wir verstehen uns. Ich bin geduldig und ich finde es interessant, was sie mir erzählen möchte, die Erkenntnis kommt früher oder später auch an. Sie vermisst Afrika, sie möchte zu ihren Kindern zurück, in Deutschland ist es kalt. Sie lebt auf, sie hat eine Diät gestartet, kein Mittagessen und nur Brot morgens und abends, sie verliert 3 Kilo in einer Woche, sie strahlt wie ich sie niemals zuvor gesehen habe. Ich sitze auf einem der Flursessel während des Wiegens, jeden Donnerstag werden alle gewogen, sie ist die Freude in Person und ruft "3Kilo" in meine Richtung. Ich gratuliere ihr.

>>7132348
>talk about office life for a paragraph and get accused of mimicking DFW


welp

>>7132395

Ich stopfe für gewöhnlich, aber ich habe es mir angewöhnt für 1,90 Euro Cigarillos nebenbei zu kaufen. Diese gingen mir eines morgens aus. Draußen war es am Schneien und es zog sich eine gemütliche Stimmung durch die Station. Mona hat angefangen einen Schneeman zu bauen. Ich muss runter zur Sparkasse und zum Kiosk. Tobias fragt mich ob ich ihm eine Bildzeitung mitbringen kann, natürlich. Dana möchte über das Wochende nach Hause fahren. Sie bekommt ein Busticket der Klinik, wir verabreden uns, 9:30 Uhr gehen wir zusammen runter zu der Bushaltestelle und zum Kiosk. Ich bin nur leicht bekleidet, Dana ist im Schneesturm-Anzug. Wir watscheln durch den Schnee, sie erzählt mir von ihrem Sohn der in England wohnt, ich erzähle von meinen undichten Schuhen die meine Füße gefrieren lassen. Wir kommen nur langsam voran. Am Kiosk kaufe ich die Bildzeitung. Als wir unten an der Haltestelle ankommen fängt sie an ihr Ticket zu suchen. Nicht auffindbar. Sie sagt, sie hätte das Ticket wahrscheinlich bei dem herausziehen ihrer Handschuhe verloren. Wir gehen unseren Weg auf und ab und versuchen das Ticket im dicken Schnee zu finden. Eine Aufgabe der wir nicht gewachsen sind. Wir gehen zusammen zurück zur Station und Dana muss den Pflegern beichten das Busticket verloren zu haben, die Pfleger nehmen dies locker, aber Dana kommt dieses Wochende doch nicht in ihre Wohnung. Wir setzen uns auf die Terasse. Wir erblicken einen wunderschönen Schneeman, Mona hat ganze Arbeit geleistet, es ist doch nicht so schlimm wenn man sein Busticket im Schnee verliert. Ich übergebe Tobias seine Zeitung. Er fragt mich warum dies zwei Zeitungen seien. Da hab ich wohl ausversehen eine geklaut. Tobias ist noch stiller als ich, er sitzt den ganzen Tag auf der Terasse und raucht. Ich setze mich gerne zu ihm. Eine Person bei der kein Zwang besteht sich unterhalten zu müssen. Ich unterhalte mich nicht gerne, wenn ein Zwang dazu besteht. Wir verlieren gelegentlich Sätze und sind danach wieder zusammen still. Es entsteht kein unangenehmes Gefühl während dieser Ruhe. Wir schweigen gerne zusammen. Auf der Terasse gibt es zwei Sitzgelegenheiten, eine große Sitzgruppe und ein kleiner Tisch mit drei Stühlen. Ich sitze gerne an dem kleinen Tisch, mit Tobias und Mona oder Doris. Mit Doris gehen ich öfters Abends in die angebotene Akupunktur-Therapie. Die Therapie hilft nicht wirklich, aber die entspannende Musik die während der Akupunktur läuft ist angenehm. Nach mehreren Wochen wird die Piano CD aber auch langweilig und ich gehe nicht weiter zu der Therapie. Ich liege lieber im Bett und lese auf meinem Kindle um mich zu entspannen. Ich lese ca. 1 Buch am Tag.

I wrote this for slam poetry:

All I do is shitpost. Sitting in my personal mist at my computer desk, it chokes and evokes that depressive entity in me. He hits me. He helps me. I stroke the keyboard gently. Each press like a light kiss, a roundhouse kick to the ego. Keeps me there in a cage. Can't escape - can't escape! I need help! All I do is shitpost!

>>7132387
>Get your tenses right
??

>>7132399
No.

>The #Reasons
>That One Time
>(productivity-wise)
>... But probably not
>the entire first paragraph

Come on.

>>7132405
10/10

>>7132404
Auf zum Essen. Um 18:00 Uhr gibt es Abendessen, wir stehen alle schon 20 Minuten vorher in der Schlange, wir sind hungrig. Karsten, mein Zimmernachbar steht an der Front, wir stehen alle schön in einer Reihe und warten. Vor dem Essen muss der Gong geschlagen werden, das Pflegepersonal regt sich auf, wenn der Gong zu früh geschlagen wird. Herr Waldgrün ist von der pfiffigen Sorte, er stellt die Uhr in der Küche um ein paar Minuten zurück, damit wir auch ja nicht zu früh mit dem Essen anfangen. Die Ofenuhr geht jedoch noch richtig. Wir kommen ihm schnell auf die Schliche, uns kann man ja verarschen, meint er. Nein. Wenn es um das Abendessen geht sind wir schon auf der richtigen Fährte. Die Uhr, welche zurück gestellt wurde um uns zu zügeln, wird ignoriert. Wir wollen anfangen. Abends gibt es aufgebackene Brötchen vom Morgen und Brot. Das Pflegepersonal sieht uns nicht gerne aufgestellt und mit hungrigen Blicken. Sie müssen den Aufstrich vorbereiten und fühlen sich von uns gestört. Meine Spaziergefährtin steht vor mir, ich stoße sie an und sage ihr, sie soll doch bitte den Gong schlagen gehen, sie hat Angst um ihren Platz in der Essensschlange. Karsten erklärt sich endlich bereit den Gong erklingen zu lassen, ihm darf jedoch niemand den ersten Platz in der Reihe wegnehmen. Wir fangen an unsere Brötchen und Brote zu schmieren, ich habe meinen Stammplatz an einem der Essenstische, guter Blick zum Buffet und viel Beinfreiheit. Ich esse meistens ein paar Müsli-Portionen, ich bin auf Diät. Montags gibt es Körnerbrötchen, auf diese kann ich nicht verzichten, ich sündige. Ich vergleiche den Kaloriengehalt einer Portion Butter mit dem einer Portion Müsli, es kommt aufs gleiche hinaus. Ich lasse die Butter weg und esse lecker Körnerbrötchen mit Käse. Ich versuche den Abendbrotdienst zu überreden die Milchkanne mit fettarmer Milch aufzufüllen, meine Überzeugungskraft bewährt sich. Kakao mit fettarmer Milch ist auch lecker. Der Freund von meiner Spaziergefährtin ruft während des Abendessens an, alle regen sich auf. Keine Telefonate am Essenstisch, ich rege mich tiefgründiger auf. Niemand bemerkt meinen Kummer. Ihr Freund kommt wie sie aus Polen und ist im selben Alter wie sie. Ich bin zu jung. Hoffnungen schwinden. Während eines Spaziergangs im Park ruft ebenfalls ihr Freund an, sie sagt sie ist im Park mit "Boyo", ich nehme an dies ist die polnische Bezeichnung für Junge. Ich bin 27 Jahre alt und sie sieht mich als kleinen Jungen. Ich muss lachen, was für ein Glück ich doch immer habe. Wir spazieren am örtlichen Skaterpark vorbei, hinein in eine kleine Seitengasse. Sie möchte mir einen Waldweg zeigen den sie entdeckt hat. 45 Minuten hin und zurück, sie hatte die Zeit gemessen, als sie alleine unterwegs war. Sie ist froh nun jemanden neben sich laufen zu haben. Der Waldweg ist überseht mit Pfützen, es hat oft geregnet in den vergangenen Tagen. Wir meistern den Weg in 60 Minuten, wir lassen uns Zeit.

>>7132417
Basically all I'm getting from this is that I'm not allowed to use the word "productivity-wise," since Wallace doesn't have creative ownership over capitalization-based references and numbered lists.

And I hardly see how the first paragraph is anything like DFW outside of meticulous description.

>>7132421
thanks mate

>>7132446
You're an embarrassment

>>7132399
i got the same impression of dfw imitation immediately. it's the obsession with packing things in to pretend there's life there

Sexuality is sin from
Ocean and belly deep within
From clang, clinging, clamoring so—
Sensual flagellation at the sound; weaving blood and beau.

With dust and withering stone floor
No one is asking anymore.

>>7132465
you posted this in another thread you fucking nigger, get creatin' bitch ass mother fucker whore fuck you

ps. dont talk to strangers

I quickly improved my first poem in years, please tear it apart!


She spoke in spiced sentences
cardamom scent coating good sense-
mine and yours alike.

Green peppercorn, with unique bite
still blackens if left to the vine
no matter its merit.

No seal, no lid could save us
no portrait could hope portray this
a listless longing melody.

Capsaicin aftershocks come sudden
burns that will heal
give or take time.

But mostly give.

>>7132478
I have nothing to contribute. I just liked reading your poem.

Words? No, hear me for a little while, man's got feelings, clothes, restless eyes, hear the birds are chirping too and there the plant has formed little green tubes, and so on in my mind, as I recall, but now as you appear to me, in all your radiance, looking away from me, stripped away all I could remember of you, and as I glance to the side I see a picture of my mother and wonder why and how it is that I feel sorry, was it the naivety or just an old memory, now no one will understand me, not even he who has forgotten me, or so I'd pretend, no more of this, see, it's just a game, no more.

>>7132525
>>7132525

distinctive voice; nasally and scientific, regretting something surely buried in the words but that i do not have access to.

I'm a street nigga, dog, everybody knows that
So a hater get smashed, bond money on deck
Gave my dog half a brick for a '73 donk
Got that bullfrog yay, cause I know it's gon' jump
I'm a real street nigga, do you understand me?
I'm a walking bankroll, breezy, rubber-band me
Red Monkeys on my ass, Gucci frames on my face
Got that "Tony Tiger Kush," man, pimpin' smoke great
Every time my phone ring, dog, it's eighteen-five
Only problem that I have is what car I'm gon' drive
Im a real street nigga, I ain't never had shit
Man, this chain 'round my neck cost four or five bricks
I'm a street nigga, dog, I don't love no bitch
I ain't talkin' to you, baby, 'less you buyin' ten bricks
Bought an '06 Lamb' with the butterfly doors
That's a quarter-million dollars gone, just to pull hoes

(Chorus)
I'm a street nigga, dog
I'm a street nigga, dog
You a street nigga, just like me
I'm a street nigga, dog
I'm a street nigga, dog
No industry, I'm in these streets

Im a street nigga, dog, hoes love my swag
And the Jacob on my wrist, that's a drop-top Jag
Bought a drop-top Vette, and a super-bad bitch
"How much you think you worth?"
'Bout 95 bricks
Way back in '94, it was 95 cents
Now I'm 95 south, with an R&B bitch
Every time I leave the house, bring at least ten grips
Cause it's two or three stacks just to park my whips
Got a small amount of niggas, but a large amount of clips
And a blue Bent' Coupe same color as the Crips
Mean mug on my face, nigga, ain't nothin funny
60 grand on the Jacob, nigga, time costs money
Got a quarter million plate, that's eighteen blocks
When the cops try to whip me, man, I ain't gon' stop
Im a real street nigga, dog, I ain't gon' lie
Bought a pound of Bubba Kush, just to get the clique high
I'm a street nigga, dog, so I love my whip
Car-jack a street nigga, that's how niggas get killed
Im a street nigga, dog, so I love my block
Paid a junkie three grand just to wash my drop
Street niggas love me, and I love street niggas
Got an out of town trap, come twice a week, nigga
Im an East Atlanta vet, man, I ain't done yet
Bitches standin' in line just to wipe my sweat
If you make a good count,then you under good check
Never beef with street niggas, dog, that's ya best bet
Street niggas make a college bitch's panties so wet
To a project bitch, I'm the best it's gon' get
Street nigga of the year, dog, yeah, that's me
Just to see my wrist twirl, man, it's eighteen G's
Gucci eatin' real good, dog, what about you?
Im a street nigga, dog, you a street nigga too?

>>7132744
beautiful

>>7132613
Ah well

>>7132475
:(

>>7132489
Thanks!

>>7132525
I like the style you used, but it feels like it isn't going anywhere, if that's the end the pay off is weak. I'd say expand it

Also I wrote a new poem, because I had fun with the last one. I only really focused on the pacing, I'm practicing changing tone and mood with it.

The new bus stalled out on the tracks
Flashing once, twice or thrice Out of Order
Passengers in limbo called out through the cracks
Doors jammed! Please help! Sending other words too
But sound was swallowed by silence that echoed too loud
and heat rose over chill, and the problem of people, too many too few
Exploded.

>>7132237
I like it.

Yeah, I'll just repost my poetry, and post some of my prose here. R8s are appreciated:

Cranreuch

Hoarfrost, crispen hoarfrost;
That slaps the crossing east-wind,
Over sea and leaf-helms shorn-lost.
Who, to make hoarfrost, has sinned?

High the poplars, solemn bare,
That peek the grazing mist over;
Sweet the shining shadow's swear,
Of boats, Calais to Dover.

For slicing buds of dew on fens,
That sting the numb-swamped face.
Dough-skinned, the harshy hoarfrost lends
Speed to a deathing race.

Those poplars swallowed, by the grey;
The boats of docking do
The throw of rotting cargo. But stay
The ship, no ventures new.

Yet, switch the hoarfrost on the day,
There! New breathen light!
But morning only lasts so long;
Just wait till there is night.

>>7133710

I saw on the bally bough, a nomad,
A facial, glacial, beggar form up the crest of the hill.
His ten teeth lay like yellow rocks,
And beach-pebbles in his gums.
His stubble grew like white wheat, on his leathery jowls.

His heavy face and berserker-eyes, he looked like
Ulysses, when he enobled himself to the wretch's stance.
He wore a thick coat, he wore a thick hat,
The grey and brown colour, laden somewhere between dye and dirt.

We withstood the plump air of late July,
And the pulsating of the shooting sun.
It had wretched my fire-swollen, gasping mass,
Up each vein and hill.

Yet, he did not vigorously swallow air or grunt,
He trundled a cracking blue bike, dark on the day,
In front of the sweet hay-cocks and reels of fields,
The winter's dark green to the summer's burnt yellow.

He told me he'd hope the weather'd hold a month.
I wished the same, god-willing. We parted.
That Jack Noman, a man of the steppe of Éire.

>>7133713

I was weedling up a highland tract,
Down to the crofting city of grit and draught;
Where I passed whistling sheepherds with
Stone-stern Corydons;
Bricky stubbles on tarted faces.

Dripping blood o'er these hills, as a lad,
I had skited rock-ways, feeling my
Open elbow after, white with work.
Weeping curdlingly, shrieking over dusty moors,
But growing fonder.

Adonis was not an adolescent.
When I were't, gacky and witless I was,
With long-fodden hair, that was matted with grease.
I pressed a girl's leg once, to mine, and heated;
I was infirm, awkward, boring;
I was my parent's weaken.

Where I am now, though, sailing up the Bosphorus;
The boughs are happier than e'er before.
The green fields of Canada are daily blooming,
And the thrushes on the fen sing, lyreless, to the cicadas.
The fresh, twisted, pale trees on the groves give
Supple whispers; the orchard wipes the land
With gruff beauty.

And around the supple sensitives, the mind first
Opens Alexandrian libraries, fully comprehensive,
And looks at the slickened, cool marble, to first admire grandeur.
Standing as if, a gold-woven eagle, made from lines of lines,
Glimmering, twisted threads lapping on red satin.

Yet, the folly. Youth gruntingly breeds hubris,
Feelings of pointed Cortez, of discovery;
And the brain jokes that this epoch is better for them,
Though it is quite the same.

>>7133716

And an excerpt from a piece of writing I'm doing:

As he slipped the laxing cloak over his shoulders, the little pockets of heat in the gaps made his body warm. The colour-sweet tartan swore out sweat-patches and little puddles that dripped of melancholy dew. The grass padded his bare feet as he took strides to go outside, and the cultural soil held up his stance, muddying his soles. The conviction of fresh air shook the skinny man; he held up his cloak over his thorax to defend himself from this, as the pikeman holds up his leather and bolt-nutted shield to the blade. There, the man looked out on the green swells of land, that his thatched hut oversaw. There was a plodding valley, cut deep between two ground-waves, that harboured wisp frost as the man wiped his burning-cold nose in the stinging winter.

Going back in, there was little to think of, so minutes were sat looking at the lyre, the man's instrument of strings. The small glints and lights flighted on the pig-gut, those had hit the instrument from the vestal in the middle of the room. Incapsulated in stone, the hearth didn't spread, but sat gently droned behind the sitting man. The smoke-desert smelled of sweat and steam, and coughs were let out by a man, so rarely sweetened by the swinging nature of warmth. This cough shook the weak's ribs and bade him splutter on the ground. In the air were desires, to run, play and work words, but the first was the most forcible, only that he had numb feet, bound him to clodded ground of home.

>>7132392

this is very poor

you need to learn function and concision before you can do form/poetic writing

>>7133720
same advice but marginally better as you have a few instances of strong imagery

I am an uneducated waste of life with no value.

>>7132234

OK, so I was reading this aloud and it sounds really cool.

But here's just 1 excerpt that just went over my head:

>Um bêbado com cirrose
>Que o saquê, de dose em dose,
>Num podre e bege abacate
>A carne flácida inchou,

The are the excerpts that I found coolest:

>O acre sangue dos suicidas,
>Almas que foram comidas
>Pelo estupro e possessão
>Do demônio depressão.

>É sombra parasitária;
>É enlameada neblina
>Cuja ranhenta mortalha
>Dentro do tórax se espalha,
>Como opressora toxina:
!!!!

>Que enterra a vida em inverno
>E faz, do existir, inferno.

This is all really good, congratulations, please keep posting these on /lit/& get this thing perform'd

>>7132205
Sidney Baker sat shakily in the dark, carefully removing his swastika and laying down a grass-stained peacoat before crying briefly, nervously, and then counting his buttons. He had decided last month that he was not depressed but long talks on the veranda, Mediterranean styled houses with white bubbled walls textured like cave, cliff falls and sea salt air, sashaying footsteps of soft skinned girls, dry ground, unlit pools, forest fires, the chattering of insects: all of it was a slow irritant to his weak nerves.

In the garden however, there was enough drink and solitude to move into a silent blur of a place, a thin embryo to escape back to. Outside, friends and others would be fucking the night to a husked memory but Sidney -- a boy of twenty-two years and fifteen buttons -- had smuggled himself past dimlit furniture to cry alone here. Teetering in quiet mania, he flashed between sanity and bright scenes of Egyptian Airlines; he twitched as images of stuck clouds and tinfoiled halal meat behind purple drapes and cramped seats made rude arrivals on his thoughts, throwing him horribly. I miss Linda, Sidney was and should not be thinking, I miss all of them, and instead, I’m dreaming of Cairo. He fingered each button violently while he recounted, I miss Linda, Oh, I miss the fucking bitch and here I am: drunk, outside, and thinking of Cairo! The haze of alcohol foamed up like fever, fuming to a boiling point until five buttons later and he was undone, motioned into a wailing now, the silence killed, screaming out his secrets louder than all the music behind him, uncaring to all of it, beyond the coming of upset crowds, moving back to dusty Egypt, floating; in the lonely freedom of a distant Spanish garden, he sat shakily, remembering his news, necromancing away in the pitch black.

it's a fancy dress party, not a nazi gathering

>>7135411
>>7135411
Also specifically, how is my scene description? It's more wordy than usual because I want to learn how to properly dress a setting and also transition between them, which is why it's a bit schizophrenic in tone.

>>7132234
I always see you, at least I think you're the only portugese anon who posts here. I like when you post in a language I can read.

>>7132465
I liked this both times you posted it.

The room

any room
is not
the walls, ceiling, or floor
it is
the space in between

so to we
are not
our body, name, or consciousness
but rather
the void that
our unique stream of experience
influence and association
can flow through

this is what we mean when
we say, of a loved one,
who has died:
“they live on inside us”

we are only as good as that which flows through us

>>7133722
>you need to learn function and concision
but how?

>>7135461

an essay...
as a poem it's shit, but still it made me think.
I'll probably remember the room-image you created, and that last line too.

so: this is nice, but make it less vulnerable?

>>7135461
That could be one beautiful sentence in a nice story.

Perhaps it would be better there.

>>7132205
roses are blue
violets are red
i am dead
in my head

>>7135461
I get what you're saying here, Anon, but I think your imagery is a little inside-out. Your metaphor for the room describes 'room' as the space between the walls etc, but your description of people doesn't follow suit. From the words themselves, I'm led from the room metaphor to the people metaphor to believe that the 'space' in a person, the guts and organs and whatnot, are what constitute 'person'. But I think what you're trying to say is that the body isn't what constitutes 'person', but the space around them that they influence throughout their life. Do you see what I mean here? I've also never been a fan of such rapid-fire line breaks, but that's a different matter.
Sensual bruise
O visible love in blue-black hues
Put your hands upon my throat and squeeze
Sweet pressure, please, do not relent
Until I see the Little Death
So sleek and black and heaven-sent

Strung out states, where thoughts pervade,
Where suns ring and the mind spins
Of nature's offspring, bursting
Dancing and finally, leaving

>>7136149
I like this.

>>7135411
The second line, 'He had decided...' is difficult to follow. I had to read it three times to really figure what you meant by it. If I could recommend a change, I would rewrite it this way: 'He had decided last month that he was not depressed but irritated, his weak nerves disturbed by incessant talks on the veranda, Mediterranean styled houses with cave-textured white bubbled walls, cliff falls and sea salt air, the sashaying footsteps of soft-skinned girls, dry ground and unlit pools, forest fires and the chattering of insects.'

I'm not sure what the swastika has to do with anything, but that's probably just a lack-of-context thing.

I think your structure in the lines 'In the garden however...' and 'Outside, friends and others...' looks good, but your word choice is odd. 'A thin embryo' isn't really a place one can go. It's just as cockeyed to envision as '...to move into a silent blur of a place, a thin antelope to escape back to.' I think I understand what you mean by 'fucking the night to a husked memory', but I need a little more data to see the setting as 'husked'. What about the party, or the partygoers, makes their celebration hollow? Whether it's a factual thing or just Sidney's observation and judgment, I want something to clue me in to it.

You do have some interesting stuff in here, but it's getting tripped up in places. I think this would render well after some editing. Did you find this helpful? I could go on.

Subtle scents of summer flowers blooming in the green,
They sing of sweetness often seen here among the hills,
A simple sort of melody, enchanting, oblique,
Charming our inner mind, dazing us,
The ants are marching, into our domain,
Offering respite from the lack of creatures we can see,
All we need are days so clear and free of skitter noises,
In time we understand it's here to stay, it's unavoided.

Laden dew and chilling winds, barking, biting, cold,
We cannot live to grow old, sun takes us away,
In the air, spice, a smell of warmth, foreign exotic aroma,
We are home, not of time but of sense,
Forbidden nostalgia, hostage to our inner memory,
Tales of missing monuments, our own knowledge deceived,
Any time we have spent away hastens our appreciation-
Upon return we discover our love, unbridled.

Orange tinted glasses, we smell dirt, naked skeletons,
We seek shelter, sodden,
Outwards we travel fighting, relishing,
Sedimentary comfort, nothing but howling,
Lights and bells, family, we spend our sentiment,
Logistical infarction, phones calling,
Skies are falling, oblivion,
Endless warmth together.

Intermittent storms of prospects,
Meat meets bones,
Cascading,
Hostages to hope,
Plans to leave,
Inevitable return,
Renewed love,
England.

Chipped Stanza #2

I spew black ink. Vomiting inside the endlessly
stretched balloon, I hope my bile is caught on
the concave, a disgusting constellation glistening
against the blacker canvas or net of ether.

Arrange the sopping granules into a tower
far enough from the shoreline to avoid the
waves, but don’t let the grains dry. Plagued
by Pointillisms, minutiae worries me
with thick heels on bent wrists. How to
describe the fractal! Sorting is so tiresome.

I long for that great smear. To make a clean
gradient. No longer stuck point by point, but
make a sweeping arc. Is it fire or leaves in
the wind? It’s orange, curving to the left.

I hope to sling my guts onto a cave wall and
have my insides coagulate into a painting of
Nimrod. I will plunge into viscera because,
I’m not ready to confront the typewriter. Its
tacky clacking scares me. I am brickwalled
by abstraction.

>>7136217
Hey thanks so much for your advice man.

Your right, my syntax is a bit clumsy. I was trying to practice scenes and wanted to see if I could do transitions as well so that was the focus. I'll add to it and re-write it tomorrow, please do go on, you know what your talking about.

>>7136451
Glad to help. I've got to ask though, Anon, is English your first language? Your word-choice is really striking in places. I pointed out a few in my last post, but here are a few more stand-outs for me: 'In the garden, however...' immediately precedes 'Outside, friends and others...' but the imagery doesn't sync up. Is Sidney in the garden? Gardens are an outdoors thing, and it makes referring to the partygoers as being 'outside' silly since he, himself, is outside.

Later, you say Sidney is 'necromancing away in the pitch black', which is a neat turn of phrase I might steal for my own use some day, but I'm not sure what it's referring to here. If I had to guess, you mean he's dredging up old memories and bringing them painfully to life, but it's a stretch on my part.

You're trying to do a lot with this piece. Given its brevity, you really need to tighten up, focus, and clarify. A scene with a dreamlike, otherworldy element to it is fine, but I don't get that impression here. It seems confused, muddled, stumbling from one idea to the next, and there are too many details that don't add up to the overall picture. Again, this could be an issue only because I'm reading two paragraphs of a whole work, but if you want to take this piece and build on it, you've got to focus. Pick two things and run with them. If it were me, I would expand on Cairo and Sidney's relationship with Linda, letting the party serve as a kind of fever-dream backdrop that sometimes intrudes on Sidney's wild remembrance of the past. Ditch the swastika.

>>7132348
This.

>>7132205
I want to be pretty like the rest isn't that a sad thing that some have decided to never love again closing the doors of life and the sun dropping far far away out of sight far the sun went away dropping past the hill with no wind I was sitting there all alone I watched the sun disappear I want to be pretty where did everything go when did it slip away back then I was a girl I was fifteen looking in the mirror I was so happy I could not breathe he called me he sounded so nervous he thought it was pop hello Jane is that you yes it is me Jane Jane is my name I was Jane and I am Jane my name is Jane but I was Jane in a white pullover and socks and I didn't sleep talking to him looking out the window at the stars wishing he was there the sky is always there it is big and purple it was made for those things and the words died in my throat i was so happy and looking in the mirror and will he like this or maybe that and let me wash again just once and I opened the door and he smiled that way he did he was standing in the dark the street crickets he looked at me hello hello I said would you and he took my hand he said my name Jane it sounded so nice to hear him say it my heart jumped and can he hear the excitement in my voice and that was the time the far time before the sun dropped over the hill where I watched it disappear and walking on the beach I tossed my sandal the surf under my feet and the stars trembled blue and I yelped the way he grabbed me falling on the sand with no sound no birds no one to see no sound but the water and his heart dear God I was so happy I touched his fuzzy chin and his arms were so big around me so big when he smashed my face I wanted to please him I just wanted to please him but I was his darling fucktoy and why is it always like that it seems you think it will be different why is it why and my heart is a barren plot nothing grows there and each time it takes so long to uproot the weeds would you have a walk with me Jane ok the band was playing and the strings sang through the heat and his skin was warm and capable did John Keats have a fucktoy too is it all the same I want to be pretty

>>7136786
with this post I confirm that I read this

>>7132478
>>7132478

Decent, but cardamom doesn't really go with the other tastes of the poem: the spicy peppercorn and capsaicin. It is mild and aromatic, like bergamot.

Maybe a typo, but portray should be an infinitive (just add "to" before it).

The first stanza is a mess, jumping from third person to a first-second person interrelationship.

Here's a part of a much longer poem I wrote:

Gunwhale's leaned on,
made into load-bearing piles,
Henry eggs on the seagulls and cormorants
begging them jump but not fall

shaky ship saddled with moonlight
and a tune nailed under arbors
all minced with the delight of rounding steps
down by the port-time off, quaint harbours

down, piles of fish hang about in nets

a chain of possession, super nova star burst

a skull in the hand – a bone for a memory of a jest

Which troubadour brings home the trophy first?

Which brings it best?

>>7136786
Dude i swear this sounds Exactly like the stories this schitzo girl that i used to party with used to tell me. So good job, it really evoked her image and voice ib my head.

>>7136417

Interesting. I like how the last line is kind of a self-criticism of the rest of the poem. Reads kind of like the experience of looking at a Kandinsky or a Moholy-Nagy painting.

Minutiae I think is plural, so you should change worries to worry. Nice work.

>>7135461

The Black Mountain School would not approve, but I do.

Get rid of that "to" in the first line of the second stanza though.

Nothing here for me only that which I can be decieved,
Walking through only blue flowers bloom around the silent grounds,
We end the world in thought of ending ourselves with no regard,
Regard for all that sounds so highly drawn to make amends to court,
We take and break and scream and place our faith in higher power,
We end the march and still the trees and lay down among the ashes,
Only in our lives can we wake up, up to the sound of sleeping,
Making our way along the road with which we know we must regret to see,
Trying not to mask our broken thighs and fateless passing wreckage,
See here to there the weight we bear, the bear we find to pass our mind.

Only the way we came from makes us feel the way we went,
The time we take to make amends is barely passable in context,
We know not who the city dies for nor who lives to tell of it,
Time taken tells of sodden marsh and flattened blocks miles since past,
If only the telltale signs of starving exemplified our right to know,
Known in truth the way of signing to the one that is in tow,
We end the journey in the place we never wanted to become,
To crave another difference is to find something more than us,
Dead leaves and breathe and up to towers fallen to the waste below,
Unless we are not worthy must be conscious in the hell we know.

>>7132205
Dialogue 1

[Enter TYCHE, wandering in Elysium]

TYCHE
O Father,
O Son of Kronos
Why do you desert me thus?
You let the fertile country of my heart lie fallow,
You let my youthful eyes turn to ash in their sockets,
You let my spring pass for mild summer.
I was not made to be one of the mortals!

[Enter ZEPHYROS, dancing, adorned with a wreath of hyacinth]

ZEPHYROS
O Tyche
O goddess of the white arms,
Weep not,
For you no longer have eyes with which to weep.
Is this not true?
Take my hand,
And rise with me,
And taste the airy vault of heaven.

TYCHE
O lovely Western child,
You were dear to me in my worldly mornings,
But your words now are mere rain
Against the granite cliffs of my resolve.
Go now,
Yes, go now,
O you who may still be restored!

ZEPHYROS
Words?
Your fear deludes you,
O mistress of all men’s days.
I speak not,
For I have no tongue with which to speak.
Is this not true?

[Exit ZEPHYROS, TYCHE watches as he leaves]

TYCHE
O Zeus,
O my Father,
Why do you tantalize me so?
The fine bracelets you once gave me
Now begin to tarnish.
I must fortify my heart against all things.
It is a good thing to give way to the night-time.

Fuck these threads. I haven't visited one for like a year I thought I would give it another chance. Every time I do, I give at least three people constructive criticism, and never ever have I received the same in kind.

>>7137235

Which is yours?

>>7137248

I'm

>>7132478

>>7135675

stop jerking yourself off and write to get a point across

try to remove as many words as you can while keeping the meaning/mood the same

if you're >>7132392 you also need to learn how to alternate your sentence lengths and cadences

idk I feel like you would need to read a lot more and a lot more widely

try some conrad or kafka to see (what I assume) the style you're going for is done right

>>7137323

I like the spice metaphors, however I agree that the first stanza need to be sorted out tense-wise.

I enjoyed reading it.

>>7132352
has its moments

In garden there might be some salamanders maybe a snake under rocks I lift them theres only a worm and some ants it falls down with my hands off it I cant see only green the garden is nice green leaves are nice I wish I had a snake to play with in my hands I remember the snake with blue eyes bit finger it bled a little afraid it might get hurt worse I dropped the snake it went away too fast for me to get but I still wanted one so I looked more but didnt find another. Mom doesnt like it when I play with snakes because shes afraid of them because shes from Texas where theres rattlesnakes that shake their tails and they rattle and are scary because one bite can kill you but Im not worried because I think theres no rattlesnakes here only garter snakes although once I was at the park with Mom she drove there and I saw a big snake it was so long bigger than me I think it was from a zoo maybe it got out and they couldnt catch it but if I worked at the zoo I could catch it because Im good at catching snakes I grab them from the back with my hand around their neck so they cant turn their head around and bite you I learned the hard way I got bit not by the blue eyed one but a different one the first time. I remember the blue eye one was like me I have blue eyes too and he was the smartest one I ever caught because hes the only one that could get away from me without me letting him. After that time though I stopped trying to catch them very much because I dont like getting bit at all I dont want an infection I want to be clean in my blood and skin very much I always wash my hands very well before eating because I dont want to get a disease.

As you pass you will see it: gut and bone and blood and marrow; and you will think to yourself: there is no good reason for this, no benefit. And you will be right. But do not forget that fortitude doesn't lie in having, but in lacking, as much as you can; so the heart that beats half broken is stronger, and the clock that with every tick welcomes its own death is most. So as you keep on living, remember this, and as the origin of all vision and all terror rises once again, you stand up as well, and look too. And breathe.

He had fallen asleep on the carpet again. On most days he would have just pushed himself to get to his room and collapse onto his bed, but today was not most days. Plus, his bed was getting old and stuffy, and the mattress springs had long since become mattress sprungs. The carpet in the living room felt so much nicer to him; it was soft and fuzzy, like a blanket of sheep's wool, and tickled his belly when he rolled over. Oh, and all the wonderful scents that existed there, like crumbs from last night's burnt TV dinner, bits of grass and dirt that had been trailed in from sneakers and dirty work boots, and the residue from last week's beer spill--Joey still hadn't forgiven for him that.

>>7137667
I hate stream of consciousness, exactly as ugly and disconnected as modern line. I can just hold down spacebar on twitter.com and get the real thing

>>7137735
nah
>>7138128
*life

>>7137667
this is really colourful, and good
anon above is born in le wrong generation

Trail Running 1/2

It is hard to describe the sensation that I call the ‘freedom of the hills.’ I went for a run this morning near a town called Scuol in the Swiss National Park. I strapped on a pair of old trail-running shoes and a lightweight backpack filled with only the very essentials: first aid kit, water, and a map. It was a clear, sunny morning, and at about 9am I hit the trail, weighed down by nothing but my own physical limits.
Having grown up in London, the mountain air is always the first thing that I notice when I come to the Alps. Running in the smog of Britain’s capital, I tend to use clichéd descriptions for running– “lungs were burning” or “gasping for breath”. When running through the crisp September woodlands of Alpine hills, it would be wrong to describe the cold air rushing through me with any such negative descriptions. The mountain air instead seems to invigorate, to strengthen, and with each inhalation I feel almost cleansed in some way.

>>7138914

Trail Running 2/2

The other sensations are even harder to describe. There is a distinct and almost indescribable feeling when running along a river-track slick with a thin layer of cold spray. It is a scarcely perceptible moment of skidding when your shoe first touches the wet surface, followed by an almost instantaneous revision to stability when you gain traction on the solid ground beneath. A peculiar transference from instability to sturdiness, from uncertainty to sureness; like watching a marble break the surface tension of a viscous oil. It is a sensation that a concrete London pavement could never hope to emulate.
Perhaps I should describe the sights – but mere words can only give a tarnished reflection of that sublime province governed by the eyes? As I emerged from a dense forest, the Sun, straining on its curved reins towards its apex, cast its rays upon a tiny lake shimmering in an untouched meadow; the flawless azure of an eye fashioned in the visage of some Grecian nymph. In the prologue of Euripides' Hippolytus, the eponymous hero plucks flowers for Aphrodite from a “meadow undesecrated”, a meadow in which no shepherd would dare tend his flocks and where no iron sickle has ever dulled its blade. It is not often that something in the physical world can truly embody the loftiness of Attic tragedy, but this was a rare and welcome exception.
It is all of this, and more, that embodies the ‘freedom of the hills’. It is the combination of beauty and physical pain, the perfect sun beating down on your aching calves as you ascend pine-laden forest paths. It is the exhilaration and fear as you fly down mountain trails towards the roar of a deep-blue river, cutting its way through the valley. There is no other experience so primeval, so connected to the pulsing nature of our Earth. Wordsworth once wrote that “One impulse from a vernal wood // May teach you more of man; // Of moral evil and of good. Than all the sages can.” And he is right.
While it is vital to cultivate one’s mind in at least equal proportion to the body, there is no literary substitute for worldly experience. We can only learn so much from the leaves of books before we must turn to the leaves of the forest. Spend one day running through dense thickets of sweet-scented Alpine pines and you will realise that paper is no substitute for the wood from which it was torn.

Have no interest in reading anybody others just shit on mine pls

Every day begins with the haphazard inconsistency of the waves when standing on the shore, teetering on the teasing edge of the wave line, never sure when a wave of energy is going to crash into my ankles, never sure if her love will be enough to build a tumbling wave of energy to reach me.
So vast is the ocean, but much like the love of men it can only reach the edges of our hearts along pebbles that hurt to tread. Sometimes one will find their own private beach of seclusion, this is where the lovers aim to find. Only the bravest outgoing men venture into the middle of this ocean, as for the rest, we are afraid of drowning. We allow the waves to cleanse our bodies by the shore, and how it makes us feel alive, but to be lost in loves sea is too far a venture for most.
The seagulls squawk and the children laugh as they throw stones into the sea; they have yet to turn it to metaphor, the pebbles has have yet to refuse to be part of their game. How silly I feel to apply such metaphor to that which means nothing, but I cannot throw stones at my love today. The crashing waves, the sound of the gulls, the pebbles crunch beneath strangers feet, the blazing sun; to many men it can make them lose their mind, a gunshot seeming appropriate to break the silence of uncertainty. Distant longing envelopes a man and he sees her everywhere, she does not know this. She is alone; she does not know she engulfs his every thought. So harrowed is life’s experience without her here that every externalisation of his being is of her.
Today I don’t want to kick the stones, for the world has laid them in such a pattern she has yet to see. I don’t want to pick the berries for she has yet to see them ripened. I don’t want to experience the waves crashing anymore for they are like her love, so strong they tumble in, but from where I am sat on the shore, they cannot reach.

wrote it yesterday when sat at the beach being in love sure is tuff

>>7138914
>>7138917

I know it's not all that poetic or esoteric but I got back from a trail run yesterday and just had to write something down. Feel free to shit all over it.

From the moment we met I eyed you with intrigue,
For I was unsure of your customs, your ways, you're a mystery,
I felt a great draw to the style you presented,
And for a while in confusion I blindly resented,
The remarks you made to me left me dissuaded,
But the idea you displayed it had me persuaded,
Of your worth, your love shining through bitterness,
With all faces the same embracing the lonliness,
Conform I did try to the world I was found in,
To conform is to die, I felt I was drowning.

Much later we now cannot sever our baggage,
I know too much of you and of I you know nothing,
Just a moment of thought and you have me for hours,
A familiar face, featureless and astounding,
Bonds we all share with those who define us,
We share with each other though you never remind us,
For we know it too well I'll never forget you,
Or forgive your trespasses you've made since I met you,
You're much too important to keep in my wallet,
And of all of my friends you are the least to my knowledge.

East am I far from the largest of body,
In a land you may know but not very well,
For they say we are lovers in mind and in honour,
But as long as I live I cannot savour your smell,
Help is at hand for you if you falter,
As we know you were hardly raised by some altar,
By the altar of eden and all of our failings,
From the tree of knowledge we ate, Endeavour,
We shall bow to us forever, oh nobody knows-
Knows who we are but we don't need to.

All of us alone and yet together oh so very often,
A concept far removed from reality for most,
Perhaps even something to scoff at, we know not,
Not what we are or who we are but we try,
We seek that in each other when we are at our side,
Of present conflict and past instigation, we are marked,
Markings make our life and in our world is our mark,
They take our mark and spread it and it loses meaning,
We make it anew and re-weave the broken seems,
They tell us it was not our mark to begin with, dreams.

Lies are just a string used by some puppeteer,
They make us uncomfortable, we know why,
They know not why, but we feel them pulling,
Our emotions remain unchanged, All of us pulling,
All of us want to kill our puppetmasters,
Puppeteers have no power and still they try to stand,
Only they need their strings pulled before they can rise,
To run, they only exist because we do, fulfillment, demise,
Ideas we have change the world, we are one, and many,
We have changed the world, and we love each other.

Safe is it to mention of what we discuss?,
Surely not, the fuss - of what is it we speak?
We are known and unknown for we know now why,
They know now why and they are one with us,
We try not to intimidate, but it is known,
They think us a mystery, we do not explain,
As nobody did to us, why should they? learn,
We have no use for you, you are nothing, earn,
We love you, think of us always, never leave.
I think of you often, I love you, I will never leave.

>>7138963
I really don't know anything about anything but I really really enjoyed this. Would make a beautiful monologue

>>7132205
i love the sound of my own voice. pls tell me if it's bad and if so how bad.

http://pastebin.com/a7SU64mM

>>7132205
http://pastebin.com/nRcPjh0i

a pretty high skied picture hangs
from the drifting bottom of wells
and somber rooms with empty guests,
those silhouettes of shattered light
that interrupt how bleak the corners,
how low beneath and high we stretch.
from a shifting seat according high
to a standard figure thrown nearby,
such that the dead and their like alike,
with sharing tombs in frightful night,
all equal share with forgetting soon
where lay bare we down under the moon.


but follow me hither, in the afterdream
where safe and still rest side by me
below which brings back yesterday,
in a broadback valley's image in grey,
a calm but prospering shadow at noon,
and introduce ourselves, so it begins.
to my loveliest a most the terrific you
that i dedicate better and make anew
an assembly of words that all can see,
private hooray and greatest victory,
to it that i make with justice more
for what i too lightly asked before.


proceed the creeping dawn of terror
and color my picnic a terrible mauve
then embrace the ascending cloud aloft
or take refuge, strewth, the incredible
takes grace in laughing at our escape,
and while you are the intangible string
that sets the heavens right and sends,
and a pretty eyed picture in the sky,
you haven't taught the world to paint
but peacefully settled as our manor
with practicing your palette and brush.
run by my eyes the colorful array
and strike me harder, for i'm a world,
marveling, complete in your glory.

Teeth yellow like turmeric, she smoked a hand-rolled cigarette. She stood at the old factory dad used to work at, trying to see film grain in the air. She picked up a pipe and swung for the windows. Her cigarette fell from her mouth and landed in her boots. It burned. A dog in the distance looking for signs of life.


This is pretty bad tbh

>>7141103

i arbitrarily reworded/condensed/rewrote first stanza

a picture in the sky
well bottomed up
roomed somberly with guessing guests
light of shattered silhouettes
bleak interruptive corners
low below, stretching sky
shifts of seats
near figure forms
alike-alive, dead neath-side
sharing tombs at frightful night
quick forgettings
moonlit spare

>>7141232
I prefer OP's, this is butchered all over.

When bliss is seen from forlorn eye,
it's first ignore, and then denied,
and then it's twisted, and then it's cried,
somewhere (not here),
absent gods sigh

>>7141262
great

unto the dawn of mediocrity
the sky is grey and the girl's not pretty
the birds sing tra-la-long-de-cluck
the mornings porridge no more a grey muck
the sunlight journey of coughs and wheezing
your tattered clothes have got you sneezing
tap or hammer or maybe sell
all the while consider it hell
not the fiery hell of the absolute worst
but the long for drink with unquenchable thirst
not the red devil and lake of fire
but the stone-walling of human desire
and so sit and weep and consider life's pain
or just write poems to bitch and complain

>>7141262
neat

Because of the gifty of telepathy. That gift was given me by a wood spirit who visited my garden, when I were but a kid, in the guise of a tortoise. The spirit took over the body of nextdoor's kid's tortoise, crawled under the fence and over the lawn to where Iwas sunbathing. I was about eleven.
"Wake up you cunt," said the tortoise spirit.
"What?" I said, sitting up. I had crisscross imprints on my right arm from blades of grass. And a few blades were stuck into the skin too. I picked and wiped at these and looked about to find where the voice had come form.
"Down here you fucking twat," said the tortoise.
I looked down. The reptile stared back at me, mouth hanging open. It looked like OAP.
"Don't be rude," I said.
"I like being rude," said the tortoise. "It comes naturally to me, and I feel like I've discharged abit of nasty energy that had to be got rid of when I'm rude to someone. Don't take it personally, you girly little fuckwit. I come bearing magical gifts, so you can withstand a bit of harmless abuse."
"There isn't any such thuing as harmless abuse," I said. "Ms Jennings taught us about this. In Personal Education lessons. She said everyone has the righ to be respected. And that verbal abuse was as bad as violence. And that it was especially wrong to use insults like "gay" or "girly" becuase being a gay or a girl is no worse than being anormal boy."
The tortoise/spirit sighed audibly.
"Look lad, I'm going to say this once. You take it to heart straight away. Your Ms Jenning's is a vapid cunt who doesn't know shit about the world. She has the emotional maturity of a sixteen year old, and always will have. She'd be happy if we were all sitting in the desrert pissing blood into our eyes and arseholes provided everyone pissed the same amount of blood and nobody was ever "mean" to each other. Next time you see her, tell her that her fanny smells, and that she can fuck off and be nice somewhere else. Tell her to go piss blood and be nice in the Gobi desert like a slant-eyed chink skank. Chingchong fingbong."
I was taken aback by the tortoise's foul-mouthed diatribe. I didn;t know what to make of it. Ms Jenning's weas possibly my favourite teacher. To hear her reviled in such a manner, by a small, ugly reptile, made me angry. But also the tortoise spoke with such authority I could not help but listen. Hiw could a creature so confident of what it said possibly be wrong completey? I decided to steer our conversation awayf rom the politics of peronsal insullt. I wanted to learn more about the tortoise himself, his reasons for visiting me, his history, his story, his hopes and fears.

>>7141576

"What is your name?"
"Pah - you can call me Colin. That isn't my name, but you wouldn;t be able to remember or even pronounce my real name."
"I bet I could, Colin. What is your proper name?'"
"Drop it matey. My name is long and alien, and totally irrelvant to our business together. Call me Colin."
"It wouldnt feel right calling you Colin." Iobjected. "It would have been okay if you'd said, "My name is Colin" when I asked you, but you said "My name isn't Colin - call me Colin" which is silly. It seems you wanted to play a game or make yourself mysterious in some way. So I am not going to call you Colin."
"Look you little shit," said the Torsoise. "You don't understand a goddamn fucking thing. I said call me Colin because that'd give you something to call me. But I couldn't just say "My name is Colin" because my name isn't Colin, so I'd have been lying to you. And the truth is very important to me. I am, in some respects, an avatar of the truth, on the cosmic scale. So if I were ever to lie - well the contradiction would possibly be too much for the fabric of the universe to bear. You're messing with shit you don't understand. You're a mere boy. With a squeaky voice and no pubes. Accept the fact that i am not going to reveal my name to you. Call me Colin or not. That's your choice."
"I am going to call you Fred,"I said in teasing defiance
"You little stick armed faggot," replied the tortoise. "You don't get to apply names. And you don't get to flirt with me like a woman. It's disgusting. Your dad ought to have beat you more than he has, I'm certain of that. Call me Fred again and I am slinging my hook. That'll be it for you - a lifetime of betamale mediocrity for you. Despised by men and shunned by women. Is that whay you want?"
I shut up. The tortoise had fury and intensity. His mien spoke to something deep in my soul. Something in the hidden memory store of my DNA flickered into life, some reaction or pulse of electricity across a long dormant helix, pruple charge in synapses, something, somewhere deep in my biology, stirred. All of us are descended from men who were butchers, and all men are enlivened at the prospect or the presence of butchery.

>>7141584

"Great, you've shut the fuck up. You're learning. Okay I will keep this mercifully short - mainly because I'm not mad keen on being in possession of a tortoise - we've picked you out because you're a faggot, basically. Another dumb spindly boy coddled by his mum and poisoned by the women who run your schools. As you are you're useless, but I'm going to give you two special powers - number unos: telepathy. Bazing. From now on you will be able to look in the hearts and inds of the people you meet. Two -duo - the lust, the desire, the burning, all consuming rage to communicate the things you learn with the first of your powers. You're gonna be the faggot proophet of the age of blood mate. Sucks to be you. But better that than a life of beta male nothingness. Of whinging, whining, passive aggression, blocked off rage. Honestly that is to burn a burn worse than Dante laid out for Odysseus. To burn in a sexless silent solitude for a life entire. Yeah gods. What a horrible fate. And badoom - matey - you've been rescued formt hat. It ain;t gonna be pretty for you or much fun if troth be told, but anything is better than what we've rescued you from. Pissing blood in your own arsehole for fun, marked out by nothing but your own shit stains and smell. OKay - cheerio mate - now get the fuck out of my sight you disgusting little prick."

any tips for people starting to write prose?

>>7141594
Dont worry too much. Have fun. Language is God.

>>7132205
Blake of Nazareth

The boy walks the lonely streets
Near where the hood does grow
And sees in every face he meets
Signs of realness signs of woe

In every Gangsta’s pained holla
In every father’s enigma
In every 94 till infinity
The sadness becomes enema

But walks with Thee
In avoidance of the misery
Wearing fear as Hatred

Guilt ridden and pain pasted
showing no loss
authenticity’s never existed
neither has his cross

for God is real
and this he feels
is his own cross
To know

Peace is never first
but is a sign of thirst

>>7142503
Dip your finger in the water come and cool my tongue ‘cause I’m tormented in the flame.
The words drill their way from memory to the front of my mind as the spray-fan lanyard putters lukewarm spittle on Margie. It was a mercy move… correction, a twenty dollar mercy move to buy this pathetically cheaply made thing, molded blue plastic with head the shape of an aeroplane, stickers of Mickey Mouse already peeling off the sides. But bathed in the mist of placebo the melodramatic groans “It’s too hot in Californiaaaa” subsided, to be replaced with the faux unique statements and inquiries that I’m probably supposed to find cute or endearing about her. Kids certainly say the darndest things, but they say the same darndest things as every other kid.
That’s not true, I’m probably just jetlagged, I do love her, but its… frustrating. In part because I can’t remember the rest of that goddamn song, and it’s an unclear battle for the lesser of two evils between having that or Zip-e-di-do-dah stuck in loop for the rest of the day, which is, by the way, a lot more racist than I remember it being. But I don’t know, I don’t even know where I heard it, maybe flipping through channels and accidentally getting stuck on a 700 club for a millisecond too long, maybe thin and popping over an old Victrola while Laura and I were dating… when she was into vinyl, and I was into her, ergo…
I’m tormented in the flame! I’m tormented in the flame! Dip your finger in the water come and cool my tongue ‘cause I’m tormented in the flame.
“Daddio and Margio!” she yells, waving out turkey legs in each hand as though directing air traffic.

“I’ll race you over there!” I say in what I feel is playful tone before Margie bolts out, clutching the fan like a relay baton. I doubt she heard me, the mere sight of Laura at a distance beyond twenty meters is the implied beginnings of a footrace. That’s how it always worked, I slowly jogged over as she sprinted at top speed. My dad cheerfully exclaiming “we’ve got a runner!” the last couple Christmases as she mushes her way through the deep snow of the front lawn, making what seems the first scurrying tracks in a vast blank canvas.
“Look what dad got! Now we can survive in Disney forever!”
Laura whispered in my ear as I got there “Aren’t those like fifteen bucks?”
“A little bit more, but don’t worry, I’m paying it back at 15% APR.”
She doesn’t respond beyond a small chuckle before handing me a monstrous slab of meat on the bone.
“Jesus… how do they make these? Was this an animal?”
“welcome… to Jurassic Park!” she wheezes, mimicking a hopping motion with her leg-slab.
Margie giggles and I know I should too.

>>7141594
Read first.

>>7141262
very solid

yummy yummy in my bummy
a big black cock about to cummy
the juice dribbles out and screams are heard
because it's not hot cum but a runny turd!

The ocean rolled with churning lisp
With thrash and splash and sneeze
While the sardines and the jellyfish
Peered from wavecrest balconies

The Billinox amidst the 'scape,
Drenched from piglets to noggin
Carried a crew of captain and mate
Whose boots were cold and soggin

A storm is nigh and we hant the port
Said mate to captain grimly
I fear we may be swallowed up
I hear some kraken calling for dinny

I loved you sir, you ought to know
Like a brother, father, and son
if fate should have our journey end here
I say it's been a remarkable one

Aye said captain with mirrored heart
But we must hold tight position
And If primordial seas insist we return
Surely It will serve a grander mission

Just then a watery maw glomped them under
Down to the briniest brine
And while sardine tears were washed away
The jellyfish paid no mind

Bump

>>7133713

I know jack all about poetry, but I love this, it's focused and vivid.

>>7133716

And this not so much. Things become a little too verbose, and the classical references start becoming self-parody.

>>7137667

It's extremely rough, but practice should be. You have the raw material, now try doing something with it.

>>7137988

Love this too, it's got a nice sense of humor a lot of stuff like this lacks, but isn't any more dumb for it. It's biggest weakness is all of the fat still clinging to it, like the "Plus," and "Oh," that had unnecessary vowels that make the whole thing stumble a little bit more than it should.

And my turn at BS


It would sneak in with something really mundane, wedging itself into whatever dream was passing through. She would take a round to the neck or head and be dead, but not dead, and they would come and collect her those bald rats posing in their coats and trousers, never anybody else. They would clean and dissect her properly, taking their time to educate her on what each piece did, then poking in some fluff they sew it up nice and neat to hide the scissors' work. They would replace her eyes with shiny new marbles, pinch her lips back into a snarl, plant a plastic trout under one foot and hang rubber entrails from her jaw. She would pose for years in one of their classrooms. Stars aligning, she would survive the gum and paperclips, taken home to gather dust and scare grandchildren. Then the dream would move on.

>>7137219

so is this like the new avid reader copypasta for these threads? I've seen this like 7 times and ignored it but now I simply have to say it's awful and everytime I see it I wonder how someone could write something so sincerely awful. What the fuck is with the vocative? Those metaphors are beyond stale. There's no musicality. The dialogue is like a teenager complaining after they took a dare to stick habanero seeds down their weiner hole. Christ, please don't post this again. Read Shelley more closely if you're going to write such a blatant copy of him.

Sorry if this is mean but I can be more constructive if you reply in earnest to prove this isn't just copypasta, because I'm not sure it isn't. I've read Prometheus Unbound 20 or more times so I know it inside and out and can help if needed.

>>7136764
Hey anon, I'm sorry I took so late getting back to you.

English is my first language, I'm just pretty dyslexic and learnt to read and write way later than my peers. That piece was also kind of a stitch-job between two random scenes I wrote separately, so I could see why it reads kind of silly in parts, I'm sorry for not proofreading better.

Anyway, I thought I'd clean the slate and start again with your advice in mind. I'm still not happy with it, and I will continue to edit this for fun and focus until I have a couple of good little story.

------

Sidney was alone in the dark, his stained peacoat set against the wet garden bench and his mind away in whiskey-greased fever dreams of Linda. He twitched blankly to the sounds around him, frozen numb to the sobering waves of music and chatter curling past, the watery splashes of noise forgotten for flashing dreams of Egyptian Airlines. There, bright scenes of stuck sea-foam clouds and tinfoiled halal meat made rude arrivals on his thoughts, burning against a swirling sick-caramel backdrop of cramped violet seats and honeyed sand. Around him, the skeletal cabin was cocooning to hard metal and in the blurred distance he could hear air-attendants hawking their goods: viscous tones of “Dates? and “Almonds?” reverberating violently in the Ramadan starved capsule.

There was a low grumble of response from the Ottomans; the desert sun had seared them raw in the sky, sweating out all reason and pickling thought and instinct down to a dry thirst. By his side and behind, he heard the rising breath of the bushy Turks, all of them robed in emerald silks and sweltering out a fierce, greasy ecstasy. The airplane girls had stopped for them, halting politely between licey snakes of thick beard, vines of matted hair climbing angry around the floor and netting Sidney’s blue windows dark.

“WE,” they chanted in unison, “DEMAND REASONS.”

Oh Christ, Sidney managed to think, oh my dear Christ, wouldn’t that be nice. Below his feet, he saw Cairo, lonely against dusty fields and lipped around her caring Nile. Falling, Sidney span a graceless pirouette for the clouds, then, hearing faint music, shrieks of laughter, piano keys -- Linda! he should not have thought, Linda! he screamed out to her now vulgarly, summoning the dancing girl, no blood at least but instead dressed in black gowns of funeral clothing. In that awful descent, he could have hugged her, held her shuttling corpse close and kissed those dead lips alive but as with every motioning reach he felt the grave inertia of the fall respond, sliding to a square edge he saw his horizon flip, Sidney hurtling to the sandy banks below, Linda left loose in the sky above, cruel, quiet, stuck along the last slip of the setting sun, her iron vitamins splayed out like stars, burning with it’s deadlight, angry, so angry, for falling alone.

(p1)
“I was gone two weeks, did you miss me? Were you bored?”
“Nay, for it was utterly serene, lay down and spread through the lands,
That piercing cry, drown my heart and across the flowing river,
That breached her banks and went between the lands, awash with fury.
Spreading seeds, a myth of bemused confidence, concealing hate,
But smiling, she was crying, an echo of patience and lost fire,
As the streams lush in vapor grew with passion that punctured my lungs,
Breaking my speech, the words I had for her, no longer in vocabulary.
Adrift the dry log beseeching the veins bringing blood to my shaking head,
Around the pastures, casting gazing cattle’s stares into the soul of red-eyed sync,
Absolution in castration, no longer free to mine lithe rood of holiness to hers,
It was asleep, thou look alive, nigh wakening as her heart dreams in disguise.
The sprouting seedlings drenched in sunshine elegy of a singing spirit, all gone,
This drought just no weary sigh, but a doomed sign for our togetherness,
A kitten call, a meow of nothingness breaking down a crumbling riverbed,
Dried up in scarcity, as she ran the lands, no vacancy in her wetness but a desert for me.
Condensation all ignored for freedom’s net twas caught in a parlor of providence,
That expanding city, the metropolis a tree, the branches brandish life of glory,
No place for my being, breathing, falling down the hole, deeper the rabbits run,
The canyon of extremity, twists and scissors, the heartline of my palm.

(p2)
That was a story of pearl places defending the tranquil tome of consoled hush chords,
Played by an orchestra scarlet in differing coats, sequined lines in my eyes,
The heterochrome blush surrounding my pupils that stared her down, just outside Yuma,
As we parlayed a faceoff, a showdown beside marooning dusk.
The revolver tight against thigh, and fingertips piano-prodding above, thinking of inside,
Her lost cave, a desire for those nights together alone, the glowing silk worms spinning,
Hallucinating dreams that are nightmares in wetness, west and all giving, a waterfall,
But not to be, time to draw, as the dust rises, Orpheus and his shadows beside him.
All be mine and now for once! Can I pull and strike to make it my own?’
A cloak she burdens for thee, the bullet screams and enters the lost chambers,
Roaring a gravitating past that never came to be, but a fantasy of a time in weariness,
About my drowning head, sinking and drinking, the low busting dam.
That broke down and slept, that gazelle grazing at the river’s edge,
Just like us, we were standing, lost, but I think happiness is above,
Alive and singing, in the stratosphere, ready to strike down to the ground,
The lightning and thunder, my broken heart was asunder, in grief and release.
She is next to me looking away and I am joyful at what was and what could be,
The water trickling through the gorge in smooth sway, children laughing, hearty play,
And on the cliff I sat, pondering all of the serene, her desire lay down and smiled free.
And I wish, oh I wish we were in bed together, love blooming, with you cradling me.”

Best paragraph i've ever written in my opinion, thoughts?

The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for (at some forty-five hundred heartbeats an hour). I know, however, of a young chronophobiac who experienced something like panic when looking for the first time at homemade movies that had been taken a few weeks before his birth. He saw a world that was practically unchanged--the same house, the same people--and then realized that he did not exist there at all and that nobody mourned his absence. He caught a glimpse of his mother waving from an upstairs window, and that unfamiliar gesture disturbed him, as if it were some mysterious farewell. But what particularly frightened him was the sight of a brand-new baby carriage standing there on the porch, with the smug, encroaching air of a coffin; even that was empty, as if, in the reverse course of events, his very bones had disintegrated.

>>7146655
try someone less lauded on /lit/ than Nabokov and maybe we won't recognise it

>>7146659
I was actually about to call that pretentious after reading the first two sentences.

Reading it through now, it looks like I'm an idiot, goes to show what a position of respect can do to an opinion.

>>7146663

yep, it's a good blinder for quality

Nabokov a shit

>>7146663
perhaps the tag line he added prejudiced you
perhaps Nabokov is a tad pretentious

>>7146649
Just realized I had a type for "as with every motioning reach" should just be "with every motioning reach". I mean I suppose the first sounds interesting.

Here's what I've been writing:

I dream every night now, and I am in hate with it.
It is the same place every time, but never the same time twice. Why am I cast like this between two illusions? Like the television beside the window, why must there be two dreams to see?
I have been cheating sleep lately. I hold my eyes wide as the sun dies, and as the sky closes its own eyes, my lids dry up and turn to sand that grinds shut under the impossible weight of exhaustion that takes me hostage for the ninety six hours of debt. And then the sleep arrests me into it’s blacker than black waters thrice as deep as the last, and I dream. Why do I dream.
Drowned below a sky azure as mine, almost touchable and thoughtless and divine, I dream. Now see the flocking birds in the sky; why do they fly so like the ones I know at home, outside this world so far past my own? This place, it should not be. I should not see its rivers from mountains flowing down, down to that glimmering blue heart from whence it came and roaring there, curling the air to twisting pillars of fury that dance forth to lash the coastlines, be they green or red or cold hard white.
Why do these mountains nest people, why do the plains thrive? Swollen hubs of life spatter the vertical divide, and in all of them I am there.
So I’ve started writing a dream book. When I wake I write my dreams whether I wanted them or not. My waking life has nothing for me, and me for nothing, so why try? All I have left is this. Maybe I can bring it all here. So with words, I’ll try.

I’m going to tell you about Jakannes. What had he done? What had he done? He lay in snow and wailed. Jakannes will never die.
When I go back, he will be there. When I die, he will stay there. Jakannes is the man who outlasted me, the one who will remain.
What has he done? What has he done?

Aethyr

Doesn't life eat itself and smile
Doesn't the mother kill for her baby
Doesn't the spirit of romance spill blood
Doesn't the circle end where it began
Don't the Immortals laugh at it all
Don't the children hate their innocence
Don't the wise hate their knowledge
Don't the many hate the few
Don't they all love themselves
Doesn't fear face itself and disappear

Okay here we go:

(1/3)
Varllee was silent for a long time and Jakannes thought he could feel her gaze through the fire making all the images of his dead go like ice around him.
“You really want to know?” he heard her say.
To know how she could not die, how his beloved might not have.
Jakannes shut his eyes against the image of his beloved, his beloved image, and but the blackness behind the eyelids singled her out in screaming image, like a figure in the spotlight, the blackness behind his lids found her edges, those crippled dying edges in all their life, running out, like water from a sponge, running out. And he opened his eyes again to stare hard as he could into the heart of the fire until his eyes became dry stones grinding with grit in their red raw sockets and he started to feel the sweat pooling at the corners of his pulsing temples and he dropped the pebbles on the ground where they thudded and he rubbed his forehead and breathed and the world tipped sideways and the ground bucked and the ground swayed and he put a hand on it to steady himself as his stomach coiled around itself in a shrinking spiral of catatonic hate and in his head a storm erupted and swirled and curled and twirled and lashed and thrashed and from the fire came a scream, a screech, a deep black cry from inside itself bending in and bending out and twirling round itself and twisting up and out and over and into the sky in umbrellas of clawed dark eruption and its sound climbing far up and up and out and more out and down and around and inside his ears and snaking through his veins and going cold and hard and stopping his heart—
And Jakannes breathed.
Breathing, he breathed.
He looked.
Around himself, he looked.
The woman sat on the other side of the fire. Still she sat. Had not moved. Still she seemed to be watching. “What,” he said, pushing himself up and sitting straighter. His chest was small and hard and tight. He took in air and breathed.
“Nothing,” she said.
“You aren’t immortal,” he told her. “It ain’t no way you can be.” He felt the ground for the pebbles he’d dropped and picked them back up and kept twirling them round each other.

>>7146694
(2/3)
“Oh, I am. How can you know I’m not? Twenty years ago I fought a bear. I lived. It died. Ten years ago a tree fell on me, crushed me. I lived. Tree crumbled. It’s still there. Seven years ago I was swept downstream by some rapids. Got wrecked up. That’s why my arm’s crooked. Lungs filled up with water. Should have drowned but I didn’t. That’s when I realized I didn’t even need to breathe anymore. So I stopped breathing. Still alive. Last year a dog bit my face. That’s the scar on my cheek. Lost a lot of blood. Lived. Killed the dog. Just a few months ago someone shot me with an arrow. Kept running. Pulled it out. Lived.”
Jakannes frowned at her and tried to make words.
“I’m not joking on you,” she added. “It’s all real. I don’t even need to breathe anymore.”
“Prove it.”
“I have been. Ever seen me breathing?”
“What, I dunno. How would I know, why would I look for it? I don’t watch people breathen’.”
“I don’t even have to eat, either.”
“Yes ye do, I seen ye.”
“That’s for fun. For the taste.”
“Prove it then.”
“Okay. You watch me. I won’t need to eat a thing again. See, I don’t need to.”
Jakannes found nothing else to say. They were a day from the border to Sidiel, and past it the woman and he would go opposite directions with money gone from her pocket to his.
Suddenly he stood up. He brushed the dirt from his back and rubbed his head and said, “Getting some wood,” and walked away from the fire and into the dark and away from the woman. For a short time he pretended to gather firewood they didn’t need in case she was watching. It was not until he was far away enough so that not the fire did crackle in his ears and only the silence of night did rule over his head that he sat down against a tree and let the whispering cold sway around him and in and under his clothes and over his hairs, and as it came close to him he slouched. He hung his head, held it in his hands. And then a weight dropped inside of him. Over his shoulders, the weight settled. Settled and hung like a pendulum to beat beat beat against his cold raw heart. And he moaned. Into his hands, he moaned. Dead death dying, all of them dead death died. Died to death, dead and dead as dead, they were no more and where were they now? Dead. Death dead died, and he was dying - he was dying. He looked up. He was dying. He stood up. Dying, he was dying. He turned and ran back to the fire. “How?” he yelled at her. “How? How, tell me how!” He jumped around the fire and squatted in front of her and gripped her arms. “How?”

>>7146695
(3/3)
Varllee recoiled and tried to get away. “What?”
“How?”
Her eyes were wide and intense and serious as he kept shouting, “How? How?”
Varllee looked into his eyes for a moment longer trying to understand what sudden fury of heat and anger had fallen from the sky. Then she relaxed and sighed. She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “How am I immortal, do you mean?”
“Yes!” Jakannes shook her by the arms.
“Alright, alright.”
Jakannes slowed himself, stopped. He looked at his hands, how they gripped her. Slowly he let go and sat back on his haunches. He looked to the side and at the ground and tried to say something. But then he got up and went back around the fire where he lay down to rest against his bag and let his eyelids droop to watch the blaze again. “Please tell me,” he said to the fire.
Varllee said, “Did you say something?”
Jakannes closed his eyes. He sighed. “Just tell me. I have to know, need to.”
There was a long pause. “Fine then.”
Jakannes opened his eyes and waited.
“It’s supposed to be my secret. Why should I tell you? But alright. Okay. Ready? Go find the Loranshy mountains. There’s stuff called blue life in the hills. In, like inside. I mean proper inside them. In their undergrounds.” She stopped as if that was enough.
“What else?” he asked.
“You eat it.”
“What, it’s food?”
“No, it’s rock. Ore, like minerals.”
“...Ye eat it?”
“Yeah. Or rub it into a wound. Or drink it, if you can make it watery.”
“Ye did this?”
“How about you judge for yourself?”
“But I need to know.”
“Well now you do.”
Jakannes was about to tell her how she was a cryptic lying bitch, but he stopped with the words meeting his mind only to miss each other and scatter and fire apart into a mess, and now they were lost. Lost and gone, because now at the dusty window of his mind there walked past again his beloved—the image of his beloved, his beloved image, and he sank and he shut his eyes and there came again that ghostly pendulum weight settling on his shoulders to go tap tap tap against his hard and brittle heart. Jakannes did not speak again. For the rest of the night he was silent.

>>7146677
Disclaimer: I have no taste for poetry at all, so I'd trust someone else's opinion more than mine - but I thought that was pretty okay.