/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.16759096]

WRITING CRITIQUE THREAD:

Post your stories, poems, theses, essays, manifestos, papers, memoirs, etc. here.

If you post your own work - make your best effort to critique another post in the thread.

“People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.”

[Anonymous No.16759177]

I have no control over myself.
I am specifically lacking in self-awareness.
All of what I do just happens.
I am functioning as a life form.
It occupies the time.
It is hard work for me.
That is humbling.
…
It is no pep talk.
No trophy is won.
No judging gets held.
So this ain’t the defeating of that.
That is, frankly, my notion.
I should keep my mind open.
Stay on guard for blockages.
Keep up this flowing.
Keep it running my course.
Work at that farm.
Harvesting that genus.
Modestly doing stuff that will work.Upholding the commonly held sense.Learning this by oneself.
Conjuring it up out of nothing.Downing a wall.
Piling-up pressure.
Inconveniently this.
Disinterested in revolutionising itself.Okay with how things are.
Ignorant of the things.
Not burning then.
But in its restoration.
This balanced energy field.
This perfect mixing.
This dazzling teamwork.
Collectively, our best of our best.These cleanest workings.
Not ever overused.
Organised for its unfairest exercise.Psyched-up over starting it.Concluding this age.
It is put behind us.
As we delve straight into the next territory.
Involving ourselves one hundred percent with this.
Averse to your obscurity.
Falsifying you as a secret.
When you are simply a racket.
Those consequences, in the end.Some dent from each.

> from my website

[Anonymous No.16759461]

I enticed bigger fishes than you Killy
So why don't you love me
I found someone 6.5 so why not 5.3
Does previous sizes not matter?

The man she kissed called her ugly
But I thought he was fuckgly
His knees bend like a lunger whilst he walks
Just proves your gangle

But I thought she was a beauty
When a woman gets so petite
Their boobs cover their ribs
And Killy surely had this feature

That feature is important
Since it removes a step
From Boobs, ribs, stomach
To Boobs, Stomach

Many men may love womens ribs
But I claimed dibs
On the stomach and the tits
I will now go onto…

Womens ribs
For surely we men love ribs
We can scarcely massage them
And who wants tits that touch the stomach

But let’s get positive
For more stomach and abdomen is cute
It’s all preference and if the muses don’t inspire
The positives that flash white in my eyes

Then be charismatic yourself and justify your own preferences
But if you want equality then height bedights status
If I do cause a global shrinking let the size amate
For truly space ships will need smaller passengers

[Anonymous No.16759854]

>>16759177
I've read your piece twice and almost certainly I will forget everything you have written here in a few moments. This is not a good attribute for a piece of poetry. The first stanza strikes me as too self-indulgent and self-defeated. These second part works fine as a string of positive aphorisms, but it is fairly bland, and uses a fair number of cliches. It reads more like a string of loosely related sentences than an entire piece.

>>16759461
I thought it was an entertaining piece. Humorous and well-written in parts. The discourse on the boobs-ribs-stomach trichotomy is certainly novel to me. You're not Japanese are you? The final line "For truly space ships will need smaller passengers" has a mystical quality that accents the author's preceding small boob fantasy very naturally.

[Anonymous No.16760333]

I’m on the steps across the street
watching the bus
hoping for a picture of
an old man coming off
because later
a beautiful woman will feed me vitamins
to keep my head on
and he will become
a distant construction
unless I devote
this chemistry
to him.

There are no old men driving anymore
because we figured
it was too dangerous
what with
all the beautiful women on sidewalks. It’s the same reason
old men always shop alone
why their music has become
mostly internal
unlike the smile honey
please smile
I can tell you’re smiling
because you have such a gorgeous smile.

A beautiful woman comes off
carrying a hose
but when the driver opens his pipe
the nozzle is broken
and water sprays
over her dress
turning her into a child with too many joints. Luckily
the other good boys and I
used our youth
to stop the water
at which point she rewarded us
with access
to her private account.

a good good boy am I.
my brain bears not a wrinkle.

[Anonymous No.16760336]

>>16759096
The house is warm,
And all the guests are in
Outside the window,
In the grey,
The leaves are trembling
And in the room with chandeliers the night will soon commence
I hear the people in this room
Pretending to be friends.
And I should go,
And I should meet
And greet them,
But alas
My eyes are partial to the leaves
Beyond the cracked glass

[Anonymous No.16760340]

This is the first page of my novel.

Shouldn't have lowered my standards.
Even her moans sound greasy.
My hands are wrapped around her knees, collecting sweat. Revolting.
Trying to push her knees into her shoulders.
Fat, tits or a combination of the two getting in the way.
I look down.
Her slabs of belly fat have come together somewhere near the middle of her torso, forming a crevice that runs from one side of her body to the other.
Her saggy tits rest on the upper slab of fat, forming the eyes of this crude, yet peculiar face I'm looking at. The nipples of her droopers staring at me like the world's saddest eyes.
The frowning face formed in her belly is putting me off.
I put a little extra vigour into my thrusts. Get it over with.
And with every thrust I deliver, her tits jump up a little and the crevice that forms the sulky pout of this belly-face rises a little, briefly taking the sadness out of the expression. But it doesn't turn into a smile. No, the belly-face is shrugging at me.
It doesn't know what I'm doing here. Why I spend my time like this. Sleazy motels, sleazy women, sleaziness so thick a hundred showers wouldn't wipe off the first fucking layer.
I don't know either. What am I doing here? Clearest thought I've had all week.
I share a moment with the face. There's a moment of understanding.

I finish.
She lets out a disgusting roar.
I pull out, my dick completely flaccid before it even exits her exit. Yes, I fucked her in the ass. Probably the tightest thing left on her body, save for a couple of clogged arteries.
Retracting my shrivelled up penis sends a shiver through my body. I feel sick. I hold my breath. Any bad smell is likely to make me cough up the cheap liquor I guzzled down earlier that morning.

I put on my coat and light a cigarette.

"I'd never been fucked in the ass before,” she says.

Behind the cloud of smoke, I crack a faint smile and whisper "That's the only thing we had in common."

[Anonymous No.16760403]

>>16760340
Great for YA

[Anonymous No.16760653]

>>16760403
What's a YA?

[Anonymous No.16760760]

[Anonymous No.16760996]

I looked deeper into the ivory skin, paler than snow. Smooth skin and iron. How soft her neck was when I grabbed it. And I am amazed to see the edges of her body sculpture.

I wanted to get to a point where she didn't go my way. Sudden warmth and goodwill have always come as the aftertaste of my memories of her. Omnipresent to me. But it's not here. And I don't want to stop.

I felt hysteria when I was silent and rested. Who knows if there is time to suffer? But don't steal the best harm of our lives for freedom.

I don't know what is the reason, but I concluded that this procedure will remain within me for the rest of my life.

She broke my ear and remembered me at some point when she could. She was driven by the flow of the river, immersed in the place where the blood of the earth is, the hand of experience, now where she had left forever.

The leaves will be harvested as miasma grows over time and will remain a quiet forest for her flesh.

When one of the passengers comes to us, they do not believe and do not want to let go of the idea of the motherland. I lost my possessions, and she is no longer the subject and I’ve left the pleasure of her use.
In the shadows of our hearts, our dreams of a foreign language, in the eyes of my thoughts we experience under the illusion of steering. And we are with others. The flame of life, we know that when the sun goes away, it leaves a candle.

[Anonymous No.16761196]

If you post in the thread critique another writer you selfish fucks.

[Anonymous No.16761287]

Statues
The symbols to the folly of an age
Are brought down in iconoclastic rage.
Accused of an anachronistic sin,
Their might no longer earns reverence in
The mad society that seeks to purge
The last remains of their ancestral scourge.
History's endless vacillations raise
The short-sighted tyrants people praise --
So switch the fool upon the pedestal
With one in line to the ephemeral
Virtue espoused today -- claim victory
Claim vindication, claim what history
Denied the cause, inscribe it on the fallen
Shards of stone and bronze. You, heroes -- call on
All your shambolic rebels to do what's right
Today, then shade tomorrow's sin from sight.

[Anonymous No.16761298]

>>16761196
Don't like it. You keep mixing your meter up. Also there should be a comma after thread. The anger does seem authentic though

[Anonymous No.16761324]

>>16761196
I wanted to critique >>16760996 but it is completely not my type of literature and I don't quite understand it and therefor feel a little unqualified to give my opinion on it. I can say it comes across as convoluted and somewhat generic.

>I looked deeper into the ivory skin, paler than snow
Sounds like something I've read a million times before.

>Smooth skin and iron. How soft her neck was when I grabbed it.
What does the iron part mean?

>And I am amazed to see the edges of her body sculpture.
What does this even mean?

All of it just exudes ambiguous, vague, psuedo-poetic symbolism for the sake of it. There is no meaning, there is no message, there is no emotion in it. It's just a collection of empty words and hollow descriptions glued together with the hope of someone who wants it to come across as deep and meaningful. It doesn't. Not to me at least.

But I'd love to hear other opinions on it.

[Anonymous No.16761341]

>>16761298
Well played.

[Anonymous No.16761345]

>>16760340
I think it looks good as a first page for a short story, but for a longer work like a novel, it doesn't give the reader any sense of the rest of it. The opening pages should be like an overture, and while you do capture the readers attention with graphic and repulsive imagery, it doesn't really captivate me enough to want to go through 300 pages.

[Anonymous No.16761380]

>>16760333
The first two stanzas are lackluster but the penultimate is good. You need to mince your words more, it doesn’t feel as though each one is necessary so much as hastily thrown together to make a point. You do get there of course, but the reader isn’t intrigued along the way because your diction is often dry and sentiments a bit cliche (such as the line about vitamins and keeping your head on). Overall not bad, a sincere work and that’s good to see. Has a bit of a beat / New York School feel to it.

>>16760336
There are a million poems about alienation so you should be careful to try and make yours valuable. You spent several lines setting a scene yet your descriptions lack poignancy and overall flavor. Don’t get me wrong, the imagistic style is appropriate and conveys the feeling well, but it feels so plain because you’ve used it no differently from any novice poet of solitude. I suggest reading Patrick Kavanagh if you want to learn the poetics of seclusion. A decent piece overall, keep writing.
>>16761287
I usually hate when anons write traditional verse but this is actually working. It has a bit of an archaic feel that you should be trying to shake off, but otherwise the sentiment, diction, and imagery are there. Unfortunately, that archaic bit keeps me from feeling that I’m reading the real you rather than how you filter yourself through a 19th century gaze. Read more contemporary (at least from the 1950s and on) and you will improve.

[Anonymous No.16761432]

>>16761380
Thanks for the solid analysis on >>16761287. I understand what you are saying about the archaic feel, but for the most part I prefer writing like this. I'm not really trying to get published and, as you correctly pointed out, I do mainly read older poets such as Dickinson, Frost, Lord Byron, and Shelly.
However, I am very open to your critique and wouldn't mind picking up some more contemporary authors. Do you have some that you would recommend?

[Anonymous No.16761452]

>>16761345
Thank you for the feedback. I actually lied about the novel part, this was just a bit of scribbling I did (honest!).

[Anonymous No.16761481]

To Ginsberg

You saw the greatest minds of your generation destroyed by madness,
Starving, hysterical, naked.

I see mine moaning impotent air
Pacified by pixels
Noise a constant hum
Growling thoughtless in a deep fog
Ever present yet evermore formless

I see mine silently screaming, bloodless bellowing,
At a vacant villain
At winless wars
Dueling forever to a fired fervor
Death drenched cannibals
Chanting cold iron chants

How can such potential be hushed?
Doom like a sweeping gust
Washing wisps of smoke from
Extinguished wicks

I see the greatest minds of my generation
Duped for a quick vote
Chained to a vapid banner
Slow torching their souls
To a blaze ashen and infinite inferno
Preaching hollow ideals
Reeking of driftwood
Never questioning
What true hurt brought them there
In the first place.

[Anonymous No.16761505]

>>16761432
You have good taste, Dickinson is my favorite poet and if you like her you may like Edna St. Vincent Millay and Louise Glück (I know she’s controversial on this board). If you like Frost I suppose Theodore Roethke may be up your alley too. As for Byron and Shelley, well, I can’t say those styles have contemporary remnants. At best, if you like the moodier stuff, I can recommend Robert Lowell, but as for Shelley, that hyper-aesthetic style is nearly dead. Except for I guess Robin Coste Lewis and a few others, but it’s an entirely different direction. You may like Frank O’Hara too.

[Anonymous No.16761532]

>>16761481
>silently screaming
A bit cliché. Other than that, this is a strong poem. You can feel the forcefulness behind it.

[Anonymous No.16761586]

You aim high and strike so low.
A line drive meant to be a home-run.
You hit hard and you're out, but nobody remembers all the people you struck.
Grandstanding like you'll have fans someday.
You were never gonna change the game.

[Anonymous No.16761727]

>>16760996
>paler than snow
Stop writing.

[Anonymous No.16762002]

Upon firmament's outer bound,
These waves recede and swell
Creating such a soothing sound,
Relaxing all whose near.

It has no chorus, rhythm, time,
Nor a bard to sing;
Still, waters of a sweeping chaos
Break in euphonic ring.

[Anonymous No.16762287]

how do you write free verse on random suicide without being an edgy cunt?

He must hear the crickets
falling asleep
under the lit
apartment windows,
observe them keenly,
slowly, one by one,
see the lights go out
one, by one.
Notice that
rebellion on
that 4th floor room,
see the defiant red glow,
a heart shining suspended
halfway from the ceiling.
My numbered days make
me numb, more and more.
The song grows quieter,
the crickets grow quieter.
If I wasn't a bum, maybe
I would do the same.
But the sorry lad could have
at least had his curtains drawn.
I turned away on my bench
and joined the crickets.

[Anonymous No.16762374]

Not final version and I admit that my knowledge of writing is very limited. Still, I've decided to write a book for the fun of it.

The art of kingship is a difficult one to master. Few are given the chance to aspire towards the achievement of this mastery, and even fewer are persevering in their attempt. However, in the late 6th Century, fate had decided that Osric, having recently being crowned as King of the North Gyrwas, would be given this chance, and he had seized it with zeal. Since his coronation, just a fortnight earlier, he had spent most of his waking hours pondering on the subject of ruling. His father, the late King Ælfweard, had died a relatively unexpected death, leaving Osric without the departing words of wisdom that he felt were so needed in these first few weeks of rule. Furthermore, the Kingdom was a small one; not so much a Kingdom as a small Chiefdom, as well as being isolated in the bleak marshes of Fenland, with the result that minimal education having been given to Osric in his days as a Prince on the art of being a King. It was due to this predicament that Osric had requested the help of a locally renowned scholar-of-sorts, named Alcuin, in order that he might advise the new King using his acclaimed logic and knowledge. However, the problem was that Alcuin, despite being a member of the North Gyrwas people, was an inherently independent and wandering soul, and there was great difficultly in contact acting him and even more difficult in convincing him to visit (for he was much sought after by the Kings and Chiefs of Fenland for his knowledge). In the meantime, Osric had enlisted the help of Winfred, a loyal member of his late father’s court and also Osric’s personal guardian during his youth. However, Osric was dismissive of Winfred’s advice, seeing anything that he said as being inferior to the superior instruction of the wise Alcuin.

[Anonymous No.16762384]

>>16757907
critique this thread, lads. also join in

[Anonymous No.16762437]

Wrote this a few months ago, didn't love it but I like it more than a lot of the stuff I've written

The sound of the truck driving down the road was too loud for them to hear each other as they sat in its bed. No one was in the mood to talk anyhow. There were about six of them, sitting on make-shift benches of cargo. Legally, they ought to have had seatbelts but that law was completely forgotten, except when a cop used it as a cudgel. The truck drove down the dirt road and didn’t launch a single bit of particulate in the air; the dust stuck to the ground, devoid of energy.

The entire landscape around them had the same stasis. The tundra didn’t have the energy of a grasslands where the wind kept the landscape changing and alive. There weren’t people around or any structures which marked the landscape as distinct from any other place in a hundred kilometers. There weren’t even trees providing a rough facsimile of a wall or a structure. It was as void as a desert, without even the heat of the sun to keep you up. Time stopped here.

They’d been on the road for about a day, taking shifts driving. None of them had slept, even if that was their intention. The only sound they could hear when they closed their eyes was the roar of the truck—its muffler had broken some time ago—and it kept them up like a fly buzzing in your ear. The cold had worn them down, they often looked as though they were asleep even if they were wide awake. Still, rarely, one of them would stretch his or her neck and look at the landscape around them instead of just idly staring at the cargo. The landscape looked the same each time, so they always went back to staring at the cargo.

[Anonymous No.16762447]

>>16762437

This time, when the oldest of the bunch finally stretched his neck, he saw something different. In the distance, there was a small, shimmering silhouette. It was nearly imperceptible, had the contours of the landscape not been so thoroughly memorized by the passenger, he never would have noticed. He knew the destination was still a ways off, but regardless a feeling of relief washed over him. There was finally a physical reminder that this purgatorial trip would end at all. He didn’t tell his fellow passengers but the instantaneous relaxation of his body language alerted them that their destination still existed. They each in turn sighed, not so much in relief but in the way that someone spurts back to life after nearly drowning. The cold air filled their lungs and it hurt a little.

Hours later, still in the enforced silence of the truck, the group could finally make out their destination in full. It was a large silver tower which shot out impossibly from the desolate landscape around it. Featureless and grey, it shone with the promise of money inside, but without a single other defining characteristic. The base of the tower was encircled with a tall wall which came up about an eighth of the height of the tower. The wall looked diminutive from the truck, but those who had gone to the city beforehand knew that it was anything but small. The wall didn’t glimmer or shine or hold any promises. It was simply concrete covered in lookouts and floodlights which constantly surveilled the tundra around it.

There was only one road in and out of the city, the dirt road they were on. Soon though, the dirt would give way to asphalt and their ride would become much smoother. At that point, they’d slow and approach the wall itself. None of them had every gone past the wall, it wasn’t necessary for their trading. Finally they reached the outer edge. There was a small compartment that they loaded the cargo in, slowly, as their collective exhaustion took its toll. One of them carrying a wooden box, tripped over a stone that had been left on the road---unusual as the city usually had men clean the outside each morning. The cargo slipped from his hands and broke on the asphalt. He landed into it, crushing it and spilling a black sludge which oozed across the already dark asphalt. The blackberry juice stained his white shirt, ruining it.

[Anonymous No.16762499]

>>16759096
I tried but it kept getting marked as spam

[Anonymous No.16762525]

Before time, there once three separate universes within the endless multiverse.

There was Sachi. A realm where an unknown foreign substance known as Lux matter swirled and drifted around clumps of dark matter and dark energy.

There was Geli. It was a small realm surrounded by a cosmic bubble called Murus, where particles of matter and antimatter laid still in darkness.

And then there was Sana. A realm which was an endless void dominated by the force of Primis, where abstract essence including unknowable senses didn’t attach to any material things.

These realms were separated by untouchable borders lacking lines within the sea of the multiverse.
But then Lux matter latched onto the force of Primis and used it to pull Sana, Geli, and Sachi closer to each other. Then the three universes merged, encasing them in Murus. Lux matter then separated Primis into gravity, weak force, electromagnetic force, and strong force.

Then Lux matter collided itself with matter and antimatter, making itself solid; as it absorbed the thoughts and feelings from Sana making itself conscious.
The being called itself Prim.

Then Prim called onto the forces and ordered them to expand the universe.

Prim collected the particles of matter, antimatter, and dark matter drifting around it. Then Prim created three separate beings, from matter it created Enu, from antimatter Prim created Qanu, and from dark it created Malusa.

[Anonymous No.16762528]

TRISECTION A

The rubbing will be loud but the rubbing is fulfilling. It is precisely what I am getting at here. And this night is true, enemy. So why not light up? Because I live in an unnatural “Society” “Family” that is very delicate. To maintain other openings, to keep other barriers from dropping, on both sides, I must have foresight patience, unnaturality. The issue of C. love - Freedom is less important from other issues. But what are the real issues I do not know: It is my enemy, I am sure, is more simply emotionally dysfunction with mom and dad. It is bound to have economic, political consequences.
If I want to read books I have to have a library. Conversely, if I want to be fully human, I must be I. It is the same issue.

false self barrier self others Political economic barrier
self others ----* If I C. loved

self others If I was to be a good boy

X

What can I do? So many things, now, So many more things at university. This writing preserves self-autonomy: I--* is a variable

TRISECTION B

You swing out further, for further evil and further good. But together they make morality, the supreme human fulfillment. That is what you want, after all, human fulfillment (This rambling on computer paper is worth more than the printer)
Why don’t you fight up that C. love right here as you work? You want that C. love? Because of political consequences. the rubbing will make a noise, the noise will be loud. It will break your eardrums -- you will not be able to hear beethoven anymore will this be a barrier like a division?
But not to fight, to let enemy take over is to black out the enemy and your room *------*/ * fulfillment

make yourself unembodied unreal nothing
like pendulum, swings optimally, naturally the same amount in both directions
now, if you combat this evil by de-ontologicalizing it, you also make yourself unembodied unreal nothing

real, social, others
may swing out here but feel someone some society
swinging, rubbing in the same path, opposite directio
But this is a pendulum

[Anonymous No.16762534]

>>16762525
Keep in mind this is merely experimental I am not 100% certain if it would work.

[Anonymous No.16762561]

The fogs avernal orn the rigging-web
With ebbs of glouring dew,
Raise masts as brands in silver row
With flags as smoke in skulking tow

How noble do they creep in faded,
Silent suite, those courters of the coy below,
Whose cocksure prows of boast
The graves of epochs discompose

The tremendous brow they furrow,
Forthing in age the youthful depths
Though newly rist from the abysm's welling womb,
Already wearying of kissing men
Whose breaths tell of the tomb

So the sun's ascent demerits me,
Though had I the sun, 'twould tire me, anon-
I, who gaze on high from hopeful mounts
And bless my luck for wanting kiss of sun

[Anonymous No.16762581]

>>16762525
be more concrete. also say something.

[Anonymous No.16762589]

>>16762581
What do you mean "also say something"

[Anonymous No.16762590]

>>16759096
My first real foray into writing poetry, I'm learning more of the technical aspects right now.

Eyes blinded by the dark,
A familiar scent hangs in the air.
The calls of children back inside;
A haze of mind under matted hair.

A choked note drones softly on
Suffocation sits above the covers.
I stare into the void
Through the broken ceiling fan.

[Anonymous No.16762595]

>>16760340
i loled
this is quality

[Anonymous No.16762628]

>>16762589
I mean there's just a bunch of nonsense words attached to meaningless definitions. It's not fun to read

[Anonymous No.16762633]

>>16762628
okay

[Anonymous No.16762656]

>>16762633
I think as a general rule of thumb you can have, at the absolute most, only one new made-up word per page. Otherwise it gets tedious to read.

[Anonymous No.16762927]

My head wags over colored steam
that strays from a pale pond, it flows up my nostrils
and cushions my cold brain.

Then it morphs into an old picture,
a group of strangers breathing basil in a room,
their faces snug in new laughter.

And for a minute I see my own face streaming
from their warm lips, breezing through the room
light as a handkerchief.

But I remember where I really am,
earthbound like a stump while death
disturbs the air and authors isolation.

[Anonymous No.16762959]

My head wags over colored steam
that strays from a pale pond, it flows up my nostrils
and cushions my cold brain.

Then it morphs into an old picture,
a group of strangers breathing basil in a room,
their faces snug in new laughter.

And for a minute I see my own face streaming
from their warm lips, breezing through the room
light as a handkerchief.

But I remember where I really am,
earthbound like a stump while death
disturbs the air and authors helpless isolation.

[Anonymous No.16762974]

My head wags over colored steam
that strays from a pale pond, it flows up my nostrils
and cushions my cold brain.

Then it morphs into an old picture,
a group of strangers breathing basil in a room,
their faces snug in new laughter.

And for a minute I see my own face streaming
from their warm lips, breezing through the room
light as a handkerchief.

But I remember where I really am,
earthbound like a stump while death
disturbs the air and authors heatless isolation.

[Anonymous No.16762993]

My head wags over colored steam
that strays from a pale pond, it flows up my nostrils
and cushions my cold brain.

Then it morphs into an old picture,
a group of strangers breathing basil in a room,
their faces snug in new laughter.

And for a minute I see my own face streaming
from their warm lips, breezing through the room
light as a handkerchief.

But I remember where I really am,
earthbound like a stump while death
disturbs the air and authors heatless isolation.

[Anonymous No.16763024]

Make me weep.
Me know that myself.
Dumbing that down so that I am made to.
Being as inclined as I am to notice something when seeing it.
Having an eye for that which is distinctive.
For some discernment of what is around us.
Which is somewhat that discerned.
Somewhat, perfectly seen.
With this somewhat damaged vision.
With less than the 100%-level of this vision.
It held somewhat back.
In my specific action.
Where I exclude every one but it.
Every type but it.
Meaning your fixating onto it.
As it abides in being so.
Contrarian among us, those enemies.

> From my site

[Anonymous No.16763084]

>>16760340
It’s great.

[Anonymous No.16763104]

>>16761287
uninsightful to be honest

[Anonymous No.16763119]

>>16763104
Do you mean the theme is flat? Or do you just not get any emotion out of it?

[Anonymous No.16763149]

A poem I made a few months ago.


A man needed a decision
Betwixt two types of women
One courteous, gracious, and of sweet mind
The other fiery, a handful, but was indeed quite fine
Both girls seemed good, with sensibilities he found in each.
Which was why his decision was so hard to reach
To which he went to his council of friends
To convince him which way his bamboo should bend
He talked of the former, named all her qualities
They might have thought he committed a sin of simp blasphemy
As he finished he looked, expecting to be derided
"But do she suck good dick tho?" One friend chided
He hadn't really thought that much of sex
To which he couldn't answer, he was quite perplexed
He thought to stay where he was; best not rock the boat
When he married he was no King, but occupied the moat
As without leader, the Queen ran amuck
the husband seemed worried, but thought, "At least I got my dick sucked."
Now to who, you may ask, did this man marry
It doesn't much matter, and that's what's scary.
That is not to say all women are of bad temperament.
But rather what he made was a sexed-up judgement

[Anonymous No.16763282]

>>16760760
What a gem anon, lovely :)

[Anonymous No.16763324]

>>16760340
Fantastic, maybe a little too funny. "shriveled up penis" and "my dick completely flaccid" is redundant.

[Anonymous No.16763333]

I can't write about nothing, vacuum of my mind.
The more I analyze, the more numbs me the thought.
I need a stream, a surge of water, so that I remain hydrated.
Beauty is not created, it is both the quality and the observer.

We look, we feel, we think, and then we praise how it is.
Form this, paint this, why must the delicacy sing for me?
The song is the essence, it is what drives me to hum along.
The lyric is in its whimsy, it's movement in the air.

[Anonymous No.16763631]

just wish it was a digitally converted yard sale home video VHS-C tape from the audience of a musical, a musical that had been played at the institute each year as a tradition ever since its institution in the 19th century. sadly this recording is of the last time the musical was performed at the institute, as it was shut down later that year due to financial problems; the son of the grandfathers daughter of the institutes founder had laid claim to the heritage of the founder after a historian (and a curator of the “intuition in institution” collection at the museum dedicated to the founder) had contacted him claiming that he, (the heir of the founders daughter that is) was the lawful heir of the founders fortune as modern science now could prove what he’d (the grandfather of my friend, the historian) suspected — the founders will had been forged, the heir reacted by quickly taking steps to make sure the fortune was to be returned to its lawful owner, which was indeed nonother than him himself. unfortunately this will which now had been scientifically proven to be forged, had stated how its writers fortune should systematically be given to the institute over time with specific amounts payed out each year, of course adjusted for inflation and specified with specific circumstances under which the funding should be adjusted in case of crisis or unforeseeable economic circumstance, point being that the fortune that was funding the institute had switched owners which in turn meant that the institute was out of funding and immediately had to shut down all operations.

however, an adapted version of the musical is currently running on broadway and has in light of its success spawned a box office mega hit hollywood kids movie which is why i mention this here on /lit/ as i happen to know the guy whos grandfather was the historian who originally mentioned the forgery to the son of the grandfathers daughter of the founder and apparently my friends grandpa had, after request in aspiration of preservation of tradition, received ownership of the rights to the play as gift from the heir once the fortune was "so called returned" so my friends making bank from the rights of the play and as we were having coffee earlier today he told me hes planning to use the money to fund and re-open the institution in a new location lol

[Anonymous No.16763698]

>>16762447
I really like it, do you have more? Is this a short story?

[Anonymous No.16763760]

Andrew Carnegie
Your legacy is hidden savagery;
Two eyes that turn from cast malevolence,
Two lips can preach of your philanthropy,
A miser who spent millions to convince
Himself there's virtue tied to his vocation;
The evils you refused to face now taint
The steel veneer of your sophistication.
Frick, the honest savage without restraint,
Knew brute force was a part of industry;
Floating on the black flood he released,
Your name retained unblemished dignity
So you could boast goodwill when you've deceased.
A toast to you dear Mr. Carnegie,
We despise and live your legacy.

[Anonymous No.16763769]

>>16763760
>Two lips can preach of your philanthropy
Two lips that*....
I should really proofread but fuck it

[Anonymous No.16764331]

>>16759096
I wrote a rap song but I think it's kinda poetic.

SUICIDES
we the suicides, yeah
nigga night the suicides
we dont care bout right or wrong
cuz we the suicides, yeah
nigga the suicides
we dont care about yall
this shit too tough yo
but nigga we don't mind, no
nigga night we too rough
cuz we the suicides
nigga night the suicides

[Anonymous No.16764348]

>>16764331
If yall want i can record it or sth

[Anonymous No.16764359]

>>16764348
Yea, rap reads like shit. Put it to a beat and play it.

[Anonymous No.16764605]

if love exists within your mind, then pray
tell where she hides among your lies for I
am lost in skies so clouded; yet I stay
beside and wait upon the last word cried.
And had you died, left me forlorn that day
my eyes would fill, the pain remain; but hope
now frayed does dance away among the rain,
instead, in death, tomorrow we elope.
Now under winter’s sun, I stand alone
and neither time to love, nor time to mend
between dark nights away, and weeping snow
Last kiss, not given, and so comes my end.

I wrote this. I’m not sure how I want to change it. Could you help me lit? I’ll give feedback in the morning

[Anonymous No.16765517]

>>16763698
Thanks anon, that's all I wrote though. It's just a little thing based off a dream I had.

[Anonymous No.16765830]

>>16765517
You should write short stories anon you'll do very well

[Anonymous No.16766044]

Is this thread still alive?

[Anonymous No.16766202]

>>16762437
>>16762447
I like it anon, nice imagery. Just one thing to be conscious of is varying up your prose a bit. Try to switch up the lengths of your sentences more.
For example:
>There was only one road in and out of the city, the dirt road they were on.
>Soon though, the dirt would give way to asphalt and their ride would become much smoother.
>At that point, they’d slow and approach the wall itself.
>None of them had every gone past the wall, it wasn’t necessary for their trading.
See how these sentences all have two clauses and similar lengths. Playing around with short or run-on sentences can be fun, bear in mind the effects that the flow of your writing can have on the reader.
Another suggestion would be to use words like "this", "the" and "them" a little less often.
Again this is just one thing, otherwise I liked it.

[Anonymous No.16766214]

>>16766202
Thanks for the tips anon! When I was re-reading I noticed I was abusing the gerund a little bit too much as well.

[Anonymous No.16766273]

>>16762437
>>16762447
Nice work. It engaged me from the first couple of sentences. You managed to evoke the barren tone and desolate landscape surrounding the men and its effect on them very well. I'm not sure if the "reveal" at the end (the cargo being blackberry juice) works since or doesn't. On the one hand, it makes me wonder what type of world requires blackberry so urgently or why it has become such a commodity. On the other hand, the mundanity of it sort of outweighs the mystique of "the cargo" earlier in the story.

I also agree with what >>16766202 said, and, just to be pedantic, I would argue that

>It was nearly imperceptible, had the contours of the landscape not been so thoroughly memorized by the passenger, he never would have noticed.

would read more fluently if it was two separate sentences, i.e.

>It was nearly imperceptible. Had the contours of the landscape not been so thoroughly memorized by the passenger, he never would have noticed.


In any case, the "flaws" I found are very minor and I enjoyed it and hope you write some more.

[Anonymous No.16766275]

>>16766273
*Ignore the word since

[Anonymous No.16766413]

Sometimes Lumi picked flowers with Riina and Denise and sometimes they picked blueberries and Lumi’s cat Jisu followed them into the fields and they pranced around in the fields and Jisu pranced along and they had sleepovers at whoever’s turn it was to host the sleepover and they got cookies from the bakery and made blueberry jam and sometimes it snowed so they went over to Denise’s house because Denise’s house had a roof that connected with the ground so it formed a ramp and they climbed on the roof and slid down on Denise’s sled and sometimes they made it to the start of the hill without slowing down to a stop and so they slid down the hill as if they had gone down one big ramp with double dips.

But now in a museum on a field trip, Mika gulped and clenched his fists because he was dying. He thought, “I’m dying” and he thought “Think of a nice thing” so he thought about the thousand year old crayon drawing of girls on a sleigh sliding down the roof of a house on display, and he thought, “It’s fun” and the display said, “Lumi’s Sleigh Ride” and he thought, “Lumi is having fun.” But he was partnered up with Sylvi and she said things like, “I broke my ankle three years ago while trying to surf standing on my sleigh with my sister because my sister wanted to get indoor surfing lessons but then they shut down the indoor surfing place because the wave pool ate one of the kids.”

So he threw up on her.

[Anonymous No.16766468]

>>16762561
Feels very derivative of Hart Crane

[Anonymous No.16766483]

>>16764605
Idk why no one crit but
>iambic pentameter
May be time to change
>abab
Some of them feel a little forced
Not sure if you want to kill yourself desu

>>16766413
If this is meant to be a stream of consciousness, it fails. There are pauses in your thinking and you barely trail on and on and on and on and on and on and then you feel like you can’t wait for a reprieve and then it doesn’t come and then you want it to but then it doesn’t. Could be comfy but it’s a little unreadable with how much you are trying to describe in one breath

Hopefully others can give these two some more feedback

[Anonymous No.16766494]

>>16762525
i care about these types of experiments but its really imprtant that it feels divine and mysterious but this doesnt at all. it feels like a parody of mythology.
>anti matter
>multiverse
>realm
>substance
>particles
>dark matter
>forces
are the kind of vocabulary that ruin the mystery. its just too known and solid. it has to be more subtle. and the names all feel made up and undivine. this is just my opinion of course. you should read the kabbalah and maybe random paragrapghs from phenomonology of spirit. there is a kind of divinity to complex grammer.
>>16762002
pretty nice and flawless
>>16761481
i dont respect it. its a message poem and it really does boil down to kids these days. ginsberg said something more universal and timeless, but he was still pretty gay

[Anonymous No.16766515]

>>16759096
the immensity of a life touched by the light... a screwed up dream that when you awake from you remember without having slept... one time you saw a miracle, 5 years went by and still no explanation... god makes no comment, age seems to bear witness to it; with each new year that moment shines brighter, gets further away and shines more and more, hurts then confuses, can't be remembered, can't be understood. the inferno of the rain lit on fire by the street lamp, the cradle and stage of the wet woad shivering and shimmering beneath you as you watch, the humvee doing his turn... "i'm in my glory now" as it approached... that night you shivered, this is all there ever will be, this memory will burn my body forever, i will live in the shadow of this memory which is being formed before my eyes, there will be nothing else later, everything later will hurt because it is not this, it will be unrecoverable, nothing will ever come close.

[Anonymous No.16766543]

>>16766483
thank u thank u. nice feedback

[Anonymous No.16766590]

>>16766273
>>16766202
>>16765830
>>16763698

Really appreciate the crit guys, definitely makes me to want to try my hand at writing more, thanks!

[Anonymous No.16766665]

>>16763631
peak postmodernity lmao

[Anonymous No.16766712]

>>16764605
This is me, I’ll try crit now:

>>16764331
Yeah, record it, I don’t know how you’re going to rap it
>>16763149
Nice, made me lol which I assume is the point of it
>>16762993
Idk maybe I’m wrong in this critique but I think each stanza would be better if they worked within themselves, small ideas that all allude to the larger concept you’re writing about
>>16762590
It’s not bad. The only odd things I find with it are the single rhyme in the first stanza and then the too short line in the second. Both made it a little jarring for me
>>16766413
Agree with the other anon. I didn’t like how the lack of punctuation made it feel like it went in forever. The same effect can be achieved through repetition of “and” at the beginning of each line. Honestly, I didn’t like the second paragraph. With the homely beginning, lines like
>threw up on her
Feel very out of place. Write more like the start, just punctuated.

[Anonymous No.16767172]

>>16766413
I liked this one. It is certainly idiosyncratic and somewhat off-kilter, but I liked the pay-off at the end, symbolising Mika's appreciation of the wholesomeness of Rina, Denise and Lumi versus the ugliness felt as a result of the vapid and inane blathering by the egocentric Sylvi.

The lack of punctuation in the first paragraph didn't bother me. It adds to the innocent and naive scene being described.

Do you have any more? By the way, for the captcha I had to click on hills

[Anonymous No.16767425]

>>16767172
thanks for the thoughtful comment man. i think you really get it, though i still want it to flow well and be readable. and i imagined Mika was just sick from the shaky bus ride to the museum :) if i write more ill post it. but thanks for the happy. especially the hills

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.16767498]

>>16764605

I know this is the pot calling the kettle a nigger here, but I feel like the enjambment Is kinda arbitrary and is constraining you and not being used to your advantage. Like try to speak that out Loud and you’ll see that Pray>tell comes off awkward, same with I>am lost

Another tip I would recommend is before writing try to think of either a emotional effect, an idea or an image you want to induce and then work backwards, it feels like each line was spontaneously written in order to fit the structure and not a natural organic unity unfolding a singular idea.

Other than that in general I think there’s potential you just need to tighten up a bit.
>>16766413

Actually I have an opposite critique, while I don’t think the lack of punctuation is a problem, I would suggest making things more dreamy/fairy like. I see what you’re going for and there’s not enough of it being written, but you need to intensify the flavor. Go deeper into the childlike feel.

>>16762525

Nah, your mixture of imagery and terms doesn’t work for the intended result, read someone like Dunsany to get a grasp of what mythology making is supposed to be like and then you can tweak it for that scifi taste you want.

There’s a great power in using adjectives and allusions without directly stating what you want, when making myth it is key that vague imagination and ethereal imagery be used in order to induce the mind to that Supra-celestial zone you’re going for. What kind of effect or image or feel or the like are you trying to induce in the person? I don’t mean that rhetorically, I am genuinely asking, it would be useful to know since that would allow you to tweak it better.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.16767505]

This is from a series of 9 poems I’m writing, each one in praise of one of the sins of Dante’s infernal/each hell, 36 lines because 6 in normative abrahamic symbolism is imperfection and 6 x 6=36, these would be followed by a 60 line poem (60 representing primal evil in a grantian context) and a 57 line preface (75 being Lucifer in gematria) thus making the entire poem 441 lines (441=truth, a god name of kether or the ultimate godhead) the point of the entire poem is to evoke and expand and explain my conception of Evil as identical to nothingness and how nothingness is a Supra-rational aspect of Godhead which pervades creation. Once complete it’ll have 5058 syllables which is the same as the value of the Greek phrase “I have the keys to hell and death”.

Each of the poems are meant to evoke the conception of these sins brought to their most ethereal and spiritually divine state, synthesizing their nature as a sin with their transcendental core, Each stanza has 36 syllables to reflect the whole in each grouping.

hymn to the Great Usurer

Come lord of usury, come forth master of Greed
Come forth volucrine God, obsessed with shiny gems
come Forth Yahn Usura, come by your accursed creed

Richest of the merchants, i know whence your will stems
your city of pleasure, the hidden zerzura
to the west of Dukhla, past the sands of Haarams

there is the white city, where a black Asura
guards the precious pearl gates, the avian idol
the black guard lets none pass, none but yours, Yahn Usura

i said “thou slave demon, thy force I shall bridle
Gold shines more than the sun, more valuable than Health
more beautiful than life, and the valley idyll”

the black devil replied, “you have the soul of wealth,
a Jewel of the king, i grant to you entrance”
thus I saw the idol, there before it I knelt

its peacock form unveiled, its true lustrous presence

emerald green, ruby red, Gold, pearl, sapphire blue
the key of its mouth shined, it spoke “I grant entrance”

i took the Golden key, the pearl gate I walked through
a multitude of gems, a multitude of slaves
exotic Jinn, serpents, and there precious birds flew

I reached your great palace, and then jealous in waves
washed over my body, “I must make it all mine
not for anyone else, for this my spirit craves”

as I entered that place, I saw there a great sign
a warning or a praise? “CONTRA NATURUM DEI”
and I passed to your throne, which smelt of richest wine


the Jewels of sorrow, of the work of man’s day
stacked high as a mountain, there do your talons sit
and count and shine your gems, for on Man’s life you prey

you spoke “come to me now, dearest slave I permit
To look upon my face, you are to cut your Gem
with the blade of the days, then that jewel submit

back to me, it was mine, for from me do you stem
and you shall be a shade, shining with avarice
and you will bare my name, the name of Dystheos”

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.16767510]

>>16767505

note Yahn the usurer comes from Dunsany, Usura comes from a Ezra pound Canto, Zerzura is the white city of the birds which is a mythical oasis which there was quite a bit of search for, it was described in the now lost book the Kitab al Kanuz(book of hidden pearls)

The peacock Idol is a reference to Melek taus the peacock idol of the yazidi which they identify with Satan but also the demiurge but also as a good holy force

And eh there’s a lot of other references and allusions in there but you lads get the point.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.16767534]

>>16762590

Less a direct critique and more two recommendations.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/55749/55749-h/55749-h.htm

https://monoskop.org/images/a/a4/Pound_Ezra_ABC_of_Reading.pdf

Poe and Ezra will help ya make your work stronger.

[Anonymous No.16767654]

"Sit down son, I have some tea in the kettle still. Why don't you sit down?" River went off through the dining room and into the kitchen.

But Jody did not sit, he stood with his hands stuffed inside of his pockets, turning slowly around, looking down the hall at the back door where the morning sun was catching in the doily curtains. The living room left would not catch the light until sundown, and would stay greyish blue and cold.

In the kitchen there was the solitary noise of Rivers moving with rapidity. The clatter of porcelain and tin.

"Ah, I wasn't expecting you, that's all." Rivers said.

Porcelain bunnies were arrayed around the dining room, ears perked and them carved in permanent herbivore watch against wolves in the wallpaper and corners. There were regions of woe and rage in Jody suddenly inflamed, or perhaps his flesh had been renewed for their burn. Cold was in his bones that would turn hot and send him atremble. Jody's hairs stood up, and he knew the places in his body unfilled by flesh were black of stygia, and he wondered if something evil could conjure there and put an end to him; abdicate what's good in him, make him like a dog so that he does not need to think.

When Rivers came back, he was not holding tea. "Jody? How are you?"

"Did you suck my brother's dick?" Jody said.

"What?"

All noise was hammered out of the room. Jody had drawn his pistol and was firing, and the sound was like concussions or grand and distant thunder of a storm orchestrated. Two bullets found River's face and the rest of the clip tore into a distant cupboard and through the wall. There was smoke and ringing in the air, and Jody’s hands were curled up in a dandy imitation of horse riding while he made strange long sighs. Blood was running from River’s head, down the floor in a small brook and pooling in the center of the room by some imperceptible inclination. The shape of a pan.

[Anonymous No.16767687]

Winter came early on a dreary October morning. I remember watching snowflakes drift, glinting as they fell. The sun's brilliant impression sat low on the cloudy horizon, and its ocherous rays bled through the cracked overcast. The skyscrapers looked featureless and shadowy in the twilight. Snow dusted the streets and the rooftops below me. Large trucks plowed the fluffy snow, forming banks along the curbs, and the Autocars bobbed in out and lanes between the trucks, leaving tire streaks as they went. A steady stream of cars made the streets swollen, bustling from bumper to bumper.
"Good Morning, Michael," said the voice in my head.
"The time is 5:04 am. It is an overcast day. It is minus 2 degrees with a slight wind chill - be sure to dress warmly. Your coffee is ready for you. Have a good day."
I made my way to the kitchen and poured myself a cup of coffee. After that, I aimlessly paced around my apartment. My apartment, Stratford Manor, was one of the newer ones, part of a revitalization program in the downtown core. Its interior was sleek, polished, purely synthetic. Almost every inch of it was plastic renditions of raw materials: faux wood tables, ivory white countertops, and electronics coated in silver paint. Cleaning staff sanitized the apartment every Sunday, which left the room with an eerie sheen that smelt of alcohol and artificial lemon. The turnover in these places is huge, so they keep them ready for moving. It was not uncommon for somebody to take up a room here for no more than a month before disappearing without a word. My three previous neighbours had done this, and I never had a meaningful conversation with any of them before they vanished. Any evidence they had even lived there was polished away. You never get close to anybody at Stratford; you assume they will be moving on quickly and quietly, hopping into another pretentiously named suite across town. Most everybody at Stratford was single, except for a handful of struggling families.

[Anonymous No.16767693]

>>16767654
Lol dis niggas name is Jody

[Anonymous No.16767801]

At the entrance of a gay bar, two scarecrows argue about the side-effects of chocolate. Upset, hoarse, probably drunk, they seem to be trying hard not to shake each other's shoulders. Next door, a group of smoker chat too loud about the sex life of a colleague ("We wanted her to hook up with him, but she looks busy."). The girl in the red top that they pretend not to be looking at is currently vomitting by a drain pipe, while a friend ties her hair to prevent it from getting dirty. In front of them, two strangers kill time by criticising practical reason: she, a vitalist, inverts values while rolling up a cigarrette; he, more academic, hides under a smile that he's focused mostly on her cleavage. And all along the street ("and I dunno, it might be me, but I don't see the point of Ethics being formal."), the underage magicians who pull three years out of their wallets; the middle-aged illusionists who are trying to appear five years younger; the tired dancers who wait for someone that can escort them home safely ("like, why should I be good if it doesn't benefit anyone?"); the tense-looking bachelors who can only stare at them like mimics; the composers who improvise under the inspiration of The Fuzz; the aphasic peddlers ("roses, brother, lighters, only one euro"); the lovers whose eyes can devour the other; escapists who try to leave an arguing couple to their bussiness ("so what if he was sending me messages? Even if I had fucked him!"); the wasted who've traded vision for this one moment of happiness; the bores who won't sleep on the sidewalk, but likely won't ever be happy ("why should I behave according to some abstract ideal, then? Why is good the most important?"; "you had no right to check my phone!"; "let's leave, man, you can't even breathe in there"); the wandering artists of the garden of delight perform their play of every night, united in their estrangement, relieving themselves in the savage choreography of abandon.

Hell, after a while, means even less than a farce, doesn't it?

[Anonymous No.16768299]

>>16767654
I feel as if I'm getting too little of the narrative and vastly too much fluff which doesn't mean a whole lot to me.

> The living room left would not catch the light until sundown, and would stay greyish blue and cold.
This doesn't add to the story. It's neither poignant nor relevant.

>In the kitchen there was the solitary noise of Rivers moving with rapidity. The clatter of porcelain and tin.
>There were regions of woe and rage in Jody suddenly inflamed, or perhaps his flesh had been renewed for their burn.
>Cold was in his bones that would turn hot and send him atremble.
>Jody's hairs stood up, and he knew the places in his body unfilled by flesh were black of stygia, and he wondered if something evil could conjure there and put an end to him; abdicate what's good in him, make him like a dog so that he does not need to think.
Too convoluted, pretentious or jarring, by which I mean too laborious to read fluently and still make sense.

Your last paragraph is your strongest, but suffers from the same problems as I mentioned. I edited it to make it more akin to something I would like to read (which doesn't mean I think my preferred style is better than yours, I'm just letting you show what I would do with it)

>All noise was hammered out of the room. Jody had drawn his pistol and was firing.
Good.

>The sound was like concussions or grand and distant thunder of a storm orchestrated.
Doesn't make much sense and takes me out of the action. Maybe it would work better if you wrote "the sounds burst forth like concussions".

Two bullets found River's face and the rest of the clip tore into a distant cupboard and through the wall. There was smoke and ringing in the air, and Jody’s hands were curled up.
Good.

>in a dandy imitation of horse riding while he made strange long sighs.
wat

I would write it like this: There was smoke and ringing in the air, and Jody’s hands were curled up. His body emitted strange strange, long sighs.

>Blood was running from River’s head, down the floor in a small brook and pooling in the center of the room by some imperceptible inclination. The shape of a pan.

Why not: Blood was running from River's head, down the floor in a small stream to an otherwise imperceptible inclination. This caused it to pool together in the centre of the room, the puddle taking on the shape of a pan.

I hope I don't sound too cocky or mean, I just think your writing could do with some trimming. The base is definitely good.

[Anonymous No.16768336]

>>16767687
Cont.
"Judith, tell me the news."
"Sure thing, Michael. Unveiling the new Neuralink model at a private conference in November; would you like to hear more?"
"Yes"
"Okay. Investors received invitations to a private conference where the Neuralace Next will make its debut. Speculators believe this new model will be the next frontier of AI-human integration.
"Stop, next story."
"Okay. Homelessness crisis imminent, as thousands of unhoused persons fill the streets. Companies are looking to increase security measures to curb squatting and loitering."
"Stop, no more news, please. Call me a cab."
"Okay, your autocab will be here in 6 minutes."
I made my way to the elevator. Once it arrived, a couple plowed out from between the doors and nearly bulldozed me. I got out of their way, but they didn't acknowledge me. They were talking about the Neuralink Conference.
"It's going to be the next frontier, can you believe it? It's going to change everything!"
"I'm so excited."
Her tone betrayed her.

[Anonymous No.16768377]

>pic related

>>16766413
This probably works. I like it but maybe it wears out its welcome by the end of the second paragraph.

[Anonymous No.16768380]

Chapter 3: In which BAD music is played TOO loud

Aristotle came upon the house, a faceless old wood house on Bool street. The party was in the basement because the host had no intention of letting the party-goers into his own living space. A smell of weed and mildew permeated the air. Beer covered the floor, which pulled downwards, a cross between sticky and slippery, not quite unlike the appeal of semen. The punks were all gone.
Looking at the remains of the party Aristotle began to wonder. There were the reptiles, vampire-girls, parasites on humanity, it seemed. Black shirts, grey jean jackets. They were the sort who arrived at about two in the morning when the beer and the crowd were almost gone.
Were they Ithapunks or Cornell Hippies? It seemed irrelevant, there was a good chance they didn’t know themselves. It wasn’t the beer they came for, it was the energy expended by the crowd. They fed on it, to keep their bodies warm. Amazing.
Once, at the tail-end of an acid trip he had spent a day-long party involving thousands of Cornell frat-boys and half-raped sorority girls, Aristotle had seen them descend. There were at least thirty of them, walking the slope aimlessly.

The music was awful, some sort of neo-hippy psycho-drivel. Aristotle looked for the stereo in vain. The wires running out of the speakers ran through a small hole in the wall into another room.

A loud noise came from the door. Aristotle turned around to see a thin, dark haired girl on the ground.
“SHIT! i slipped.” At that moment, the female of Aristotle Dumptruck’s dreams appeared before him.
“Come on, Sarah, I’ve got to be out of this shithole tonight,” she told the girl on the floor. Sarah got up, shook what crud she could off her grey skirt and they left.
Aristotle rushed to the door only to see her depart in a Champagne colored Triumph Convertible, the kind that makes girl’s pussies wet.

Aristotle came back to his apartment at about 5, having sulked for an hour. Alicia was probably asleep, he thought to himself, I better not bother her. Aristotle lay down on the living room couch and soon fell asleep.
The next morning he awoke with an odd taste in his mouth. He went to the bathroom and tried to brush his teeth. Ariane Lark, Ariane Lark, Ariane Lark. He remembered the name. Ariane Lark. Who is she? I know her name, beautiful Ariane Lark.
Suddenly the bathroom door burst open. Alicia was there.

His head was still unclear, perhaps this gave him courage, further, the rent was two months past due and the apartment was in Alicia’s name.

“Shut up you stupid cow. Leave me alone. I’m leaving you. Now. You’re just a constant torment for me.”
“But I’m the one who’s dying!”
“Oh shut up!” He pushed his way past her and stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door and making a scene.

[Anonymous No.16768384]

>>16768377
I didn't post my picture.

[Anonymous No.16768387]

>>16768380
Chapter 4: In which Sarah Wolf falls in love and Aristotle Dumptruck Goes On a CHASE

Certainly from fire comes life:
A halo of flies surrounded Sarah Wolf’s head as she sat, Madonna-like, on the stairs of her apartment building.
“Sarah Wolf?”
“That’s me,” she replied
“Hi, my name is Aristotle Dumptruck. Your room-mate, Ariane Lark,” he stammered the name, “is she still here?”
“No, she left for Paris early this morning. Left me all alone to deal with the damn house. Fuck, I can’t cook or clean this stupid place either.”
Weird transition here
Aristotle moves in with her, does the cleaning of her apartment, cooks for her. (SIMP)
Meanwhile Sarah dumps the story of Ariane Lark on Aristotle Dumptruck.
Aristotle Dumptruck’s friend Cujo and Sarah Wolf fall in love or something. Sarah has this bad habit of eating drugs (not taking).


Chapter 5: Paris in the Spring

Jake and his world.
Heroin in Paris
BAD NONOOOO
What is going on out there?

Chapter 6: New York City

Things getting strange on this side of the ocean as well. We meet the homosexual actor and the Vygis character (just a side-line).

“these girls are like deer. They are the most stoned animals in the world. They just stand there and graze. There is no sense of self-awareness for them. That is what makes them so cool. Ariane is so much more. She is acid.”

Howard Dumptruck, 54 year old dentist had perfected his trade. He had come to this part of the city when it had been exclusively a working class white neighborhood. Feeling particularly taken by inertia, he had no desire to move as it became hispanicized. For a while, Monika Estavez, his aide, had helped him with the language barrier, but it had been almost three years since she had left.

He found out that it was impossible to understand his patients, so he simply put them under with nitrous oxide and examined their teeth. Sometimes they would need a simple cleaning, sometimes they would need a crown, sometimes they would need a root-canal. He found this rather convenient and he found that his clientele had curiously grown, especially among teenage boys. As time went by, he found himself increasingly sampling the nitrous.

Truly a good quality drug.

[Anonymous No.16768428]

"Living is theft of the indeterminate possibilities. Life is relegation to the finite. What's more is we are not the Socratic broad-nailed featherless biped, we are livestock satisfied with biting at a carrot that doesn't exist. Grasping at what might be sinecure, and holding in contempt the non-negotiators. The life of man is preposterous."

[Anonymous No.16768664]

>>16768299
Thank you for the input! You don't come off as cocky or mean.

For the first paragraph, what do you mean by pretentious? I've been trying to make my writing more poetic recently, and while I understand and can see why someone would find it jarring or convoluted (and so hopefully can correct it), I don't know how I'd fix the pretension.

>in a dandy imitation of horse riding while he made strange long sighs.
I know this one is a little strange. I was trying my best to describe decorticate posturing (pic related). I was originally going to to compare it to a mummy, but I wanted to keep a western vibe so went with the horse riding comparison. In retrospect, it's a bad metaphor. I should have just said something along the lines of what you wrote, or just
>and River's hands were curled up like he were reigning back a horse.

Also fuck, I only now realize that I put Jody instead of River in that sentence.

Either way, thank you very much for the critique!

[Anonymous No.16768756]

Is this choppy?

Elizabeth’s heart plummeted into her stomach. “Stop! What are you doing?” She screamed. The car ascended into the sky and ballooned into lightspeed, melting into the dazzling light of the vortex, and leaving a dimensional trail of silver slithering behind. Elizabeth blacked out.
The car came to a gradual descent as it materialised back into a transparent plastic. Elizabeth struggled to open her eyes. “Where are we?” She slurred. An enormous building absorbed the machine into its shade. Her iris-less eyes widened, and her hands shook across the blackened window. “Get us out of here!” She shouted.

[Anonymous No.16768777]

>>16768756
oh my godd everyone on this godforsaken board makes the same grammar mistakes.

You don't capitalize after quotation marks. You wrote:

>"Get us out of here!" She shouted.

This is incorrect. Maybe google some grammar rules before you share your ~masterpiece~ with the world.

[Anonymous No.16768788]

>>16768777
just asking for advice MFA retard

[Anonymous No.16768808]

>>16768777
Holy digits, anon.

[Anonymous No.16768823]

>>16768756
Read the first page of fear and loathing in las vegas to get an example of extreme high pace/rhythm

[Anonymous No.16768854]

>>16766468
>Hart Crane
Anon you replied to here. Never read Hart Crane

[Anonymous No.16768872]

>>16768854
That's funny, who do you read, then?

[Anonymous No.16768920]

>>16768756
The sentences describing Elizabeth's actions make the rhythm awkward, I think. In particular, I would suggest deleting or rearranging the ones after quotations. For instance, stating that 'she shouted' after a sentence with an exclamation mark is a bit plain, so you could follow it up by describing some of her other gestures.

>The car came to a gradual descent as it materialised back into a transparent plastic. "Where are we?", slurred Elizabeth, struggling to open her eyes. Her iris-less eyes widened as the machine was absorbed into the shade of an enormous building. "Get us out of here!", she shouted, her hands shaking across the blackened window.

[Anonymous No.16768930]

>>16768823
Great recommendation

[Anonymous No.16768967]

I'm going to post something in Spanish, the first paragraph of my novel. I hope this won't be a problem. It is entirely unedited; I haven't even read it twice. Whatever you think of it, I will take into account.

Una luz titilante rompía con las sombras, una brisa esporádica quebraba el sonido, y la paz de la noche quedaba perturbada con la silueta de la chica sentada en el banco.
La oscuridad la rodeaba como una densa masa de aceite, y tan sólo un charco de tibia luz naranja, derramado sobre ella esporádicamente, le permitía tener consciencia de sí misma. El banco de madera, marcado con numerosos nombres y otras obscenidades grabadas a punta de navaja a lo largo de tantos años de cuidadoso abandono, era una especie de bote salvavidas para la muchacha, el único apoyo que la impedía rendirse en el asfalto ante ella, o sobre la acera a sus pies. Completamente ensimismada, el viento parecía buscar hacerla reaccionar, y una vez que se estremecía por aquella brisa otoñal, seguía su camino jocosamente, sólo para volver cada pocos minutos para asegurarse de que seguía respirando. La chica suspiraba entrecortadamente, en una forma de sollozo seco que recordaba a un motor incapaz de funcionar. Se sujetaba las rodillas, firmemente apretadas contra el pecho, escondiendo el rostro tras ellas; un gesto totalmente inútil, pues no había una sola mirada que pudiera posarse sobre ella.
Cristina estaba sumida en un pensamiento obsesivo, machacante y violento, una idea que se repetía en su mente con una insistencia histérica.

¿Me estará buscando alguien?

[Anonymous No.16768969]

My reflection stared back at me from the monitor, gaunt and worried and helpless, out of sync with how I felt inside. Why was this loading screen blank, none of the others had been? And why was the monitor reflective? I had been playing this game for a quite a while, maybe my face had been burned onto it.
At this point I had beaten the game several times but still I found my compulsion to play impossible to ignore. I played ad nauseam and when I actually began to feel physically ill, the compulsion had me under its thumb and I continued. There was something within the game, whether it was the whole Truth or only its shadow, I didn’t know but I clung to it desperately.
The player avatar sat on red rug in the middle of a simple log cabin room, whose only adornment beside the rug was a medieval painting to the characters left, which depicted a danse macabre complete with royalty and clergy and child and laborer. Below the painting there was a workbench littered with clamps, and saws, screwdrivers and hammers, nuts and bolts; here one could upgrade weapons and tools used to fight the games antagonists. Out past the room the player avatar was in, which was located between two other rooms and positioned so you could see straight outside, (if the front door was open (it was)), was the big toe of an old woman’s foot sticking out of a leather sandal.
Her name was Na’ura. From what I had gathered she was some sort of Native American woman whose true origin was unclear. Her function within the game was to allow us to level up and to give the player hints when having trouble navigating the game. She was motherly and a constant, albeit mysterious character, who was our only comfort in a game with no breaks from an atmosphere of madness and death. When one tried to pry into her past through dialogue, the biddy responded by saying that it “No longer mattered what blood was running through the veins of who, only that the job get done.” Presumably she was speaking about the main objective of the game, which was to close the gate to Perdition. A gate to a generic hellscape, located in a 7 year old’s bedroom.

[Anonymous No.16768982]

>>16768969
This is the first paragraph of a short story I wrote. Can someone give a critique? I can post link to the entire story. I will check out your work if you do the same. Thanx.

[Anonymous No.16769022]

>>16768969
Try tightening up your sentences, don't let them run on too much.
>I played ad nauseum and when I actually began to feel physically ill, the compulsion had me under its thumb and I continued
A bit choppy, definitely needs to be re-worked. All in all, good.

[Anonymous No.16769038]

>>16769022
By tighten up, do you mean extract unnecessary words out of it? Also want me to read something you wrote?

[Anonymous No.16769059]

>>16769038
Yeah, that is what I meant. It's entirely up to preference, it's just my two-cents. If you want, you can. I posted my piece here
>>16767687

[Anonymous No.16769096]

>>16769059
I think you're right. Those long sentences have their place and it's not all over the work. Kk, Ill take a look at it.

[Anonymous No.16769133]

>>16768920
Also, I wrote >>16767801 and would appreciate feedback, since it's the first thing I've done after like 2 years and I'm having trouble getting back into the swing of things. I would like it to be the beginning of a novel.

Homodiegetic narrator who barely refers to himself; would read mostly like free indirect speech. The tone is hopefully carnivalesque, darkly comedic, rather than plain edgy.

[Anonymous No.16769154]

>>16769059
"the Autocars bobbed in out and lanes between the trucks, leaving tire streaks as they went. A steady stream of cars made the streets swollen, bustling from bumper to bumper."

I'm not very technical at all. I don't know all that much about grammar, it's something I need to work on. In the sentence before, you mention cars and how a snowplow is moving along the street. You have cars moving in and out of lanes but then you have bumper to bumper traffic in the next sentence. I can't really imagine the scene all that well because the streets seemed to be the same street but they give me an inconsistent picture. Also could they be combined? Also you say autocars? Is that a thing where you are from? Vehicles, automobiles? Could that have worked. I think it would read smoother if a synonym was used here. Your first five sentences were gold dude. Very evocative prose.

[Anonymous No.16769161]

>>16768872
No one. A few Victorian poems and the odd one that sinks in

[Anonymous No.16769197]

>>16768336
Where is the story going? It's interesting. Human-machine integration should be a bigger topic. desu we are probably living in a transhumanist world right now but we are just plebs who are kept in a bubble.

[Anonymous No.16769204]

>>16769154
I see what you mean. There's a lot of technical jargon in my work that I am trying to make self-evident, but am having difficulty doing. For example, Judith is a neuralink A.I. that the protagonist interacts with throughout the story. Autocars are self-driving vehicles that can link together, seamlessly, and have no need for adjusting their speed in any "safe" way. They run on an A.I. grid, as well, which is why they can move so fluidly alongside the self-driving snow plow. It's a sci-fi, and I've never tried writing something like that before. I really appreciate the feedback. I definitely need to work on making things clear when I introduce them. Thanks man.

[Anonymous No.16769237]

>>16769197
The protagonist is a security guard for an automobile factory. He does the background checks, spies on the employees, and makes sure everybody is kept in line. He eventually gets fired, winds up out of his home, wandering the streets of the machine-age.

[Anonymous No.16769241]

>>16768969
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b7cHeRa3hTXAbnxmmdWRIb6Sd6klK4_EEF0OIoLyVdg/edit?usp=sharing

This is a link to the full story. It's 15 pages.

[Anonymous No.16769246]

>>16769237
At least, that's as far as I've really planned ahead. I intend on adding more, but I like to let stories unfold naturally as I go.

[Anonymous No.16769258]

>>16769204
Ah dude that makes sense now. I thought you were Canadian or something. I have a friend who wrote a fantasy novel and he said its harder than writing normal stuff because you have to explain shit in a fluid way. It's a bitch introducing all that shit without interrupting the flow of things. If you have anymore, I'd be down to read.

[Anonymous No.16769263]

>>16769246
Vaguely reminds me of taxi-driver. The wandering around part.

[Anonymous No.16769294]

>>16769258
I am Canadian, brother. Good call.
>>16769263
I'm going more for Down and Out in Paris and London set in the future.

[Anonymous No.16769321]

>>16769258
Maybe one day. I'll post more If I get more work done that I'm proud of, I'll post it to this board. For now, in between working and university, this is all I got done. Thanks for the support. It's good to hear that other writers in a similar genre struggle with exposition. It's the hardest part of writing stories like these.

[Anonymous No.16769324]

>>16769294
That's cool, I am actually reading that right now. I work in kitchen and I'm on that bit where he's working as a plongeur. Shit is spot on haha.

[Anonymous No.16769326]

I took a dirtbag shit in the bowl. Now, that's nasty. I thought of a naked woman as I was turding and felt delighted by such.

Knocking back a Heiney as loose dump-clumps fell from my puckered bottomme, I heard a noise. It was sobbing. It was my whore wife in the next room!

"Shut up, you dreadful whore!" I yelled through the bathroom door.

"But Sandy has died!" she whined back.

Sandy was our dog. I told my stupid wife that Sandy was a stupid name for a dog. That's probably why he died. Anyway, I was rather pleased that I would no longer have to spend my last two cents, metaphorically as it were, on tins of dog chow when I could be spending them on the nectar-of-the-gods that is Heineken. Suddenly there was a pop and a large, hard nug of shit was ejected from my ass, tearing my delicate sphincter as it a-went.

[Anonymous No.16769342]

>>16769324
It's a great work Boris is easily the best part of the book.

[Anonymous No.16769347]

>>16769294
You know what, I can see a bit of young Orwell in that, especially in the description of life in Stratford Manor. The description of the Rue du Coq D'Or, the hotel and so on.

[Anonymous No.16769943]

>>16769133
Stop talking about what you want to write. Just write it.

[Anonymous No.16770076]

focus narrow, pupils wide
what i seek, it cannot hide
fermenting fish, or cultured cheese?
to my mind, it’s all ambergris
though all might prize her buttcheeks wide,
her true treasure’s what’s inside
it makes me groan, it makes me moan
what tickles on my nasal bone
i’d suck the end of rifled chrome
to make her ass my face’s home

[Anonymous No.16770090]

>>16770076
Shorten it up and make it a limerick

[Anonymous No.16770131]

>>16770090
hmm ok here’s a limerick

some coinage had fell on the street
and some had rolled up to my feet
then there he slid
the slippery yid
gathered all, then beat his retreat

[Anonymous No.16770390]

Apologies for this being an image, but I want room to critique in my post so that things not get cluttered.

>>16764605
You’ve gotten good advice from the other two who’ve replied. I definitely agree to latch on to images rather than ideas as lofty as “love.” The thing is way too winding and confusing. Even if the first line, “if love exists within your mind,” might set up a thematic idea (love in the mind vs the heart or wherever), it is awkward, esp the word “within.” What follows is very melodramatic. You write this with way too much “sincerity” when the initial premise is untenable: the speaker cannot know what is within anyone another’s mind. You never really reconcile this fact leaving the entire thing moralizing and a bit Victorian. Play around with images and loosen it up.

>>16768969
The stuff at the beginning about the monitor is bad, but salvageable if you whittle it down and de-emphasize it. There’s too much description of what follows in the game, but I like what you’re up to. There’s a kind of comic undercurrent running underneath the whole thing that may or may not be intentional, but it has to do with the texture of your description. I like it when writing takes on other mediums and attempts to exhaust them, but you need to hone it in more and perhaps embrace some absurdity.

>>16767801
First of all, the last line is bad and should be removed. You’ve given us a panoramic shot which was obviously intentional, but doesn’t quite work. For one thing, the language is a bit turgid, but more importantly, you set up each character (meaning each image) to be equilateral on a horizontal plane. Imagine this as the opening scene of a film where this kind of perspective might work if the balance of images was perfectly timed. Here, however, it feels arduous to read. You need to zoom-in, then pivot or zoom-out, as it were. How you’ve framed this is out of the 19th cent—one can imagine reading it in Dickens or Dostoevsky—and I mean the rolling out of images and not the content. Play around with it and maybe focus on something specific then let it move from there.

[Anonymous No.16770433]

>>16764331
u think its kinda poetic
i say its straight up pathetic
you rhyming suicides
like u think its aestethics

fact is, u no nigga is
grasp this, u should leave the rap biz
"nigga night this"
get hit then u miss
"dont care about shit"
yet smellin like it
get you butt here baby lemme whipe it
fuck this fuck bitch
im out here

[Anonymous No.16770808]

Bump

[Anonymous No.16770823]

What was there to be afraid of, anyhow? It would not take much convincing for me to see that, regardless of the object of my fear, I was simply being irrational. Really, I’m not so much a coward as they would portray me. They’re doing their moral duty by correcting my faulty behaviors, by assuring me with a cleared throat and stern look that I truly most outgrow this immaturity. The more experienced in this department usually had a quote to relate, of course, and enunciated every syllable of it as if before God himself. Blasphemy of blasphemies, unholy of unholies! They positively were god in those moments. Here I stood before them, a prodigal, meandering son who, having sinned this life whole and one over, now came crawling back to their ethical Ark. I could not touch, could not even consider glancing at it for more than a second, before their profound wisdom would ooze from their pores like bee’s honey, their waxy, unfiltered glory to anoint me. “The man who lives in fear has died…no wait let me start over: ‘the man, who having lived in fear, did not live but perished without eternal…life.’” One must forgive their forgetfulness, for how could I reproach them in my lowly state?
You have, besides your hospital-issued GENERAL ESSENTIALS FOR THE UNINSURED, a multitude of passions that you must call your own. This includes your fear, your happiness, your sorrows, and your heartbeats. It is these passions they want, and will take at every opportunity. It cannot be yours: imagine owning such disgusting things. No, no, you will impart your passion to another who, not being yourself, can convert it into a socially useful tool — like shame. Sure, the hospital performs amputations virtually every minute, but the world beyond its walls amputates these extraneous passions. The key to understanding just how they manage to do so lies in consent. You see, they oftentimes invite you to be yourself, to be authentic, but in truth they say as much to harvest your worth. You may pour out every ounce of your being to them in total confidence, yet their blank stare and rehearsed response lets you know that you have been stripped down to your existential nakedness and laid bare before their calculating gaze.

[Anonymous No.16770929]

>>16766483
Ok, thank you. Would you rec more free verse and less restricting meter and rhyming?
>>16767498
Ok, thank you! I guess I agree with the enjambement if it doesn’t allow two ideas to meld.

Just in response to an emotional effect, is unrequited love too broad? If so, then I’ll try and get to more intimate and refined images.
>>16770390
Thank you for the response. Does sincerity hurt poems such as this? I should probably read some modern texts.

In critique to yours:
I enjoyed the three lines very much. It’s succinct, it’s descriptive. The introduction of your opinion is a nice touch. However, comparing the branches in the second line to this foreign thing seems unnecessary.
From working down into the 4th, 5th, and 6th lines, it’s nice how you portray the movement between the places but it doesn’t feel together in relation to the last line. Where you’ve stated “beautiful” before, you now state that something new must happen and it conjures ideas of boredom. While neither are mutually exclusive ideas, it feels weird to have this tapered onto the end without really any additional part throughout beyond, perhaps, the mundanity of said actions and the impact of said mundanity on your life because of the virus

[Anonymous No.16770985]

I found these two paragraphs I didn't know I had written on a doc in my google drive. May have written them mostly drunk, I had to translate them into real English a bit


"It was impenetrably dark. Such was the weight of the inky black drapery- which had descended upon the yard some hours earlier -that it suffocated even the moaning calls of the nightly froggy fuckfest. Having already accomplished their natural purpose and distributed their offspring into a nearby chlorinated pool, the amphibians slept soundly. Occasionally, the gentle swishing of a passing car on the highway broke the stillness. But not for long, as its passengers rushed off to some indefinite, distant destination.
I gazed upward into the sky, where a pocketful of starry sequins occasionally dotted the void (when they weren’t blotted out by rolling curtains of smog). The wisps of smoke I exhaled strove upwards to that vaulted fastness, but invariably dissipated far, far below. A fragile grey caterpillar slowly inched its way down my cigarette. I watched its progress, my every inhale nurturing its growth. Minutes crawled by and it finally reached the fag’s bright orange butt. It could go no further. The cigarette winked out, and I knocked the caterpillar off. It disintegrated against the chill pavement, and I went inside."

[Anonymous No.16771314]

>>16768384
ghosts, grief and skewed memories haunting you always go well. last two lines hit hard. it looks beautiful too. only thing that bothered me was
>broken twisted visage
sounds too poemy to me. anyways heres a ghost poem back

Ghost I Chase You Down!

With me on the subway
When the doors open

Ghost from the past you
Don't know how fast I'll
Catch up so don't run

But when I think I do
I tackle then fall trough
Don't remember you
Weighing nothing at all

So be it, then go
And well, to be honest
I thought you were kind of
Somewhat shallow anyway
So I don't care really

No I really don't
Don't that you've cut your hair
Don't that you also don't
It's not not unfair at all
I meant it's not not not unfair
So shoo, stupid you!

But you choose not to
"Stay for a week maybe?"
Still silent floating by, you know I
Know you can't stay for the week
Or for anytime more than
The time it takes to say
"Hey, this is my stop, bye"

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.16771328]

I’ll assume my last poem was too bad to critique to any decent level. Here’s another.

The Lament of the Broken rope

in a desolate landfill sat

a broken rope and rusted lock
the lock would try to start a chat
“broken rope do not curse the clock

time is the slayer of all things
do not cry because we are dead
no matter locks or ropes or Kings
all things shall rot and become dead”

the Rope replied while still wailing
“it is not for myself I cry
I cry for one who was ailing
from his soul he wanted to die

he came to me in that hour
he was my owner and master
he knew he could use my power
he said “now end this disaster”

the dagger of his soul stabbed him
the taunting of his soul mocked him
his soul’s deep darkness blinded him
his soul’s anguish brought him to me

he gave me his trust and last faith
around a gnarled branch he took me
to rescue him, this was his fate
he twisted me into a noose


around his neck I embraced him
I could now finally free him
but his soul would not release him
it shouted “no more! let him go”

I then replied “you killed the man”
my body then stretched, “leave him go!”
I then replied “you killed the man”
and my master gave me a smile

the soul departed from the earth
and my body let itself rest
my master then fell to the dirt
and with him also did I fall

my lament is for my master
no other shall be my master
my soul grieves me for my master
master save me from my own soul

[Anonymous No.16771332]

>>16770929
I appreciate your feedback. It’s quite helpful.

Sincerity is one way of getting to whatever needs to be gotten to, but in your case, the images are cliched. Stuff like eyes filling up and eloping is well-trodden ground and at this point is literally beyond parody, meaning that the parodies could be parodied. One of the issues with your poem is that it doesn’t express anything new either as sensation or intellectual idea. Ever listen to The Magnetic Fields? Check out their 69 Love Songs album to get a sense of what can be done with a topic such as love, and of course, read more poetry.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.16771341]

>>16770929

Unrequited love is fine but think about how you want that particular love to feel; that sensation; that hunger, coldness, pain, jealousy, bitterness, etc. think about the result you want and then work backwards.

[Anonymous No.16771443]

I posted the lunch break poem above. As an aside, I critique quickly, as thoughts come to me while I read, so forgive me if these posts are rambling.

>>16770985
I won’t say too much, bc I encourage you to critique some others in this thread, but you do the classic /lit/ thing which is balance a bunch of viewpoints on top of one another and never really move in to a subject. It begins in a very Dickensian, 19th cent mode, then moves to an awkward, po-mo section about the amphibians. It’s a bumpy ride from one to the other. A sentence like “Having already accomplished their natural purpose...” purports humor, but is followed by this melancholic image of the cars in the distance.

>>16771314
A bit too twee for me. You need to expand and stretch your images more. Notice that the subway basically doesn’t factor in at all and is just a placeholder for an almost joke. I like the casual, yet direct address of the ghost, but you’re lacking in details. Maybe avoid obvious rhymes, too, unless you’re actually going to be funny instead of cute.

>>16771328
I don’t really know how to approach what you’re doing here mostly bc you’re setting a lofty tone and I’m not sure your writing meets that tone’s standards. I find the first line disconcerting. Why would a landfill be desolate? I picture lots of objects, birds, flies, etc. I’m assuming you mean humans, but we’re dealing with anthropomorphized objects anyway. Maybe I’m being pedantic, but it felt more like you wanted to toss-in that landscape rather than set it up for us. My other qualms will be nitty, again, maybe not useful. I want to excuse a line like “time is the slayer of all things” just because a character is uttering it, but I can’t bc it’s so cliched. And the stance that repeats “stabbed, mocked, blinded, brought” is, again, more attempting to be lofty than actually is.

[Anonymous No.16771549]

>>16770390
(Last anon you replied to)
Thanks for that. I agree with all of your points, actually, especially the last sentence being bad: I had no idea how to salvage it. The paragraph actually started out as a parody of the style of a turn-of-the-century playwright, so I get why it would feel dated (I'll take bad-Dostoevsky tier as a good place to start, though). If I were to write it more naturally, it would be something like the image. It is still a bit pedantic, but the character is supposed to be.

I like the prose in your critiques more than your poem, if you don't mind my saying so.

[Anonymous No.16771567]

Anonymous Sun Nov 8 18:25:19 2020 No.16740161
File: 204 KB, 1031x700, image.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] [report]
16740161
Quoted by: >>16742516
The turd in the toilet took two seconds to tear apart. My fingerprints rilled with shit. It was supposed to be inside, but it was all doo doo. I glare at grandma. 'Why?'

Next thing I know, I'm at Romanelli's Scrap Metal arguing with handless cashier over how much grandma's walker is worth. 'Wha? This is aluminium alloy—no, I don't know with what!'

Back at the house grandma beckons. 'It is in my cunt' she whispers against my ear. So I guide her in the bathroom, undo her pants, and help her sit on the toilet. With a breaststroke motion I part her knees, her skin oldwoman soft. I feel my way into her melanin drained bush, of course she's self lubricating, why not? Middle and ring finger, searching. Nothing. Has she been lying? Is she delusional? Insane?

My name is Alex Trebek, I may have all the Answers, but the real Answers are the Questions.

I was in DC all week. I got to sit next to Pope Francis today flying into JFK. Doing the NYT crossword, he turns to me, 'four letter word for a woman, ending in 'u-n-t'?'

'Aunt'

'Do you have an eraser?'

Now, in my voice: The Answers are the Questions.

And you probably don't believe I'm actually Alex Trebek. Which is just as well.

The plane passes through the morning sea mist, the mist silent, all encasing, heatshimmer off the engines. Pope wrote 'cunt' and one of us is an index of magic, tools, functions, gossip, and a nexus of tickles. And one of us lies about kissing babies while going around kissing babies.

An O-ring, also known as a packing, or a toric joint, is a mechanical gasket in the shape of a torus—it is a loop of elastomer with a round cross-section, designed to be seated in a groove and compressed during assembly between two or more parts, creating a seal at the interface. And a ring of opinions? Well a pinion: gear with a small number of teeth designed to mesh with a larger wheel. Where do you get yours?

You need to know the Answers to Questions you don't know the Answers to.

[Anonymous No.16771599]

Two days following the ordeal, I had a nightmare about the foundation of the Jamestown colony. Those poor fucking bastards, they knew the risks and yet felt in their heart of hearts they would get off scot-free after eating each other. Maybe it was after their appetites lunged them towards their shoes when they realized the severity of the situation, though I personally like to think shoes were on their minds long before the starvation set in. Yes, they came to America so as to play out this scene from hell from the very beginning. I dreamt of the dockworkers loading whole crates of leather shoes the day of embarking, sealed tightly so as to preserve the vintage quality of the soles. The captain of the expedition sent out an envoy with the crates once they sighted shore. His task, this envoy, was to take the shoes and bury them six feet deep, and hide the shovel at the base of a white oak. Only he and the captain knew the full extent of this plot, although some of the women likely caught wind of the arrangement due to some hidden intuition which the men ignored, mostly out of greed. Everyone believed they would arrive to a land filled with riches of all kinds, and they were for the most part correct in this belief, except for the small, easily overlooked detail that there were no implements for extracting the value of this new land. No tools: no shovels for digging, pickaxes for mining, no hoes or tills or plows to grow some exotic crop. This fact was lost in the excited craze for future glory.
Six months passed, and then the captain began to engineer the dark cravings amongst his colony. First went the men’s tough work boots, his rationale being that a populace with idle hands would be more susceptible to such horrors. Moreover, it was altogether preferable to eat through the tougher leathers and save the softer materials for the main course. November came to the colony like a plague, sending a chill throughout every home that brought them nearer, brought them closer to…ideas. After all, the captain reasoned, the more communal things were, the easier things would be in the long run to instill a shared sense of dread.

[Anonymous No.16771603]

>>16771599
One Sunday, the captain himself asked to read from the book of Isaiah, its ninth chapter. He read the words of the scorched lands by the Lord’s own hand, and of the slicing of meat from either arm. He let the words hang on his lips like an invitation, half-asked but wholly intended with a resolution to be invited in return. The Scripture closed shut with a snap, sending a gasp throughout the congregation. He walked down from the pulpit to prepare the Sunday feast.
Supplies had run to scarcity. Though they maintained a semblance of refinement by covering the dishes on the table, set on engraved platters, everyone knew just what was at stake. They sat with heads bowed in contemplative silence, not daring to so much as look into the eyes of their beloved neighbors and see their own reflection. A few coughed, one sneezed — a slight fever was to be expected in the fall, you see — before the Captain entered with a dirtied shirt. He asked his second, the envoy from earlier, to set the game into the middle of the table. Its dome rose from the creaking boards as a pregnant belly, harboring new life in the womb. Restless red eyes scoured the covered plate with a hideous mix of hunger and panic, some even hurtling forth the previous night’s meager meal onto the rotten ground. Undignified, of course, but to be expected given the context. “Let us, oh Lord, let us ask thee for thy blessing,” rang out the Captain in his wilted tenor voice. “Let this bounty nourish our bodies, and provide our bodies to work in conjunction with our minds…” one woman had began to convulse, another weeped profusely into her Sunday dress. The captain continued, “Our minds, being the vessels for your Grace, oh Lord, a Grace that giveth and taketh our…” even the envoy shuddered in his seat. “Our sorrows. Oh Lord, we humbly thank thee. Amen.” By now half of the table guests were reeling in agony: the two guards had passed out from sheer terror, while the troupe’s smith screamed. The Captain stood solemnly, and lifted the cover from the platter. Then I woke up

[Anonymous No.16772080]

>>16759096
I want to get back into writing, but I feel like I write like the fanfics, covid sucks any good online courses for creative writing? I always start and then stop, no motivation. My own fault

[Anonymous No.16772087]

>>16772080
Walking in a constant state of brown, one would think the lack of color, eventually would kill the soul. Though it’s not an ideal situation. I remember the times when I could see the colors. Even if I can’t remember actually seeing them. Perhaps as if my mind were playing a trick on me. Recalling things I never experienced, as a way to give me hope. To force me to keep walking, and to never allow the colorless world to touch me.
In this particular moment, walking with fire in the palm of my hand, I once again see nothing but brownish earth and withered trees. I had expected to be played a fool, but not like this. While I was used to quiet and deadened forests this one spoke of recent decay. Tracks made by animals I I had never even seen before were littered on the ground. Dead leaves looked as if they had been bundled into a nest only to slowly drift away on the gentle wind. The wind itself reeked of burnt and decaying flesh. Something I wished to never smell again. With the wind comes a white fog that I have no idea where it came from. Everything around me is dead and colorless. No life was meant to thrive here and the only living thing I can hear, is my own heartbeat. The only reason I am even here myself is because of misguided trust in a stranger.
It was while I was walking along the coast of the Black Sea, when I came across an old man. He was youthful in disposition but his body spoke of long travels and weary bones. I asked him for directions to the next settlement. Instead he gave me directions to a place where trees and animals still lived and everything was green instead of brown. I told him of the walls and how they had the same things. He gave me a scathing look before telling me the two were different. One was natural the other artificial. Never one afraid to learn new things I quickly asked him what that meant. I received a look of pity at that point, my poor education clearly upsetting the man.
“It simply means one was made by man, and one was made by god” the old man answered, slowly, as if speaking to a child. “How do you know which was made by which?” I pressed on at this point wishing for an educational debate more than anything. “The fathers and mothers made the forests which brought the animals to the walls, but the forest I am speaking of, was made by the hand of god himself and needed no tricks to bring the animals!” Retorted the old man as if slamming a book on the conversation. I thought over what he had said before replying “Couldn’t you say both were made by God? Since God made man, and man in return, made the forests at the walls?” The old man began to laugh and looked at me with mirth in his eyes.

[Anonymous No.16772093]

>>16772087
“You’re not as stupid as I thought you were, follow the directions I have given you and perhaps you could learn some more.” With that he walked past me towards the way I had just came from. “Old man there’s no village that way for acres!” I yelled after him, but he simply waved me off as if to say it no longer mattered, he was in god’s hands.
Right now I did not feel in God’s hands at all. I had followed the old codger’s directions to the letter, repeating them over and over again in my head. Still, I found myself here, in this twisted world that was so much like the one I saw every day. Not wanting to take a step further, I stop and repeat the directions once more and retrace my steps that led me here. I kept walking along the coast of the black sea until I reached the settlement. Instead of east towards the village, I continued north along the coast. Once it had gotten dark I drank some spirits and started a small flame in my hand to light the way. I finally reached a dip in the path that lead towards the ash gray beaches of the black sea. Having reached my destination I was then meant to look for a “hole in the ground”. I had heard and seen much stranger than any hole in the ground, so I thought nothing of it when the old man spoke of it. I had walked the beach until almost sunrise and at that point was about to turn back. It was in that moment that the wind from the sea blew out my fire and left me in shaded darkness. A flash of light made me drift my eyes east again towards the Cliffside. There I saw the supposed “hole in the ground". Just like the old man said I would find. The light having disappeared as soon as it appeared reminded me to once again start a flame. This time only sipping a bit of spirit for sake of wanting to keep my head clear. I had entered the cave and followed the twisting path. Each time I came across multiple paths I would see that light for the briefest of seconds. It was then I knew I was being lead. I still do not understand for what purpose, but I am here. I am still here in this forestry cave that is deader than anything out in the open lands.

[Anonymous No.16772223]

>>16772080
Read stuff you want to write like and then try to write like that. You will be bad at first probably because almost everyone is. Just keep going. I don't think prose has any especially important books to read except maybe The Elements of Style, but even then that's not necessary. Poetry has one book I always highly recommend.

[Anonymous No.16772245]

>>16771328
I like it, but grammer needs to be addressed and I think it would be more effective to keep the rope being a rope a secret until the end. You could say they embraced their master about the neck, etc. and it would sound like a person, only for the ending to reveal it was a suicide and the rope was a rope not a person, if you get what I mean.

[Anonymous No.16772253]

>>16771314
Thanks friend, I can see what you're saying. I like yours, but the second-to-last stanza, especially the "don't" lines don't quite work for me. The phrasing seems off.

[Anonymous No.16772287]

>>16772245
I'll try to give my 2 cents on any poems with meter and/or rhyme, as that's what I like and have studied the most.
Mine btw

In a sickly, secluded vale, leaned alone a gnarly Snag,
By Mosses cloaked, and Ivy choked, and grey-bearded Lichen clad.
This frail corpse's zeniths, to their future rest, they Earth-ward sag.
Few bare branches left, of bark bereft, and roots by rot gone bad.

On a darkened cloud-dimmed day, the entire valley shaded,
With a raging swill, ready to spill, and Lightning rearing low,
With no rumble, nay a sign, as with fury against one hated,
There swiftly cracks a stark bolt that smacks, the moldy, gangly hollow.

And on that day torrential downpour, halted fast the fires feast,
Not weeping, the Rain whipped the slain; the scorched husk, broke in sunder,
But still stood the horrid stump, charred black, and crooked; sharp, unceased,
The Stormclouds howled and swirlingly prowled. And growled, disapproving, the Thunder.

[Anonymous No.16772338]

>>16772287
Cloudy fields, and starry skies.
Where good tomorrows never die.
We wanted, and we wished.
But they came and they took.
We forgave, and we forgot.
But they destroyed, and they killed.
They left a chill in the air, and stained blood on the ground.
They left without a trace, they left without a sound.
And nevermore shall we lay,
In this frozen field, with shadow skies.
Where good tomorrows always die.

any good? I wrote this in high school, I feel a major issue of main is I try to rhyme to much

[Anonymous No.16772386]

>>16772338
The style isn't bad, but Im confused by the imagery in the beginning. A cloudy field would mean you couldn't see the starry skies, no? And it doesn't rhyme perfectly. skies, die. but that doesnt have to be a big issue if you dont care. Then the lines in the middle dont rhyme at all but they are effective at inciting emotion, in me at least, but they could probably be better with meter or something. Then "they" whoever, left a chill and blood, but without a trace? Unless this is about something riddle-like and deep, I think it's contradictory, but maybe I missed the message or you have some specific thing you're writing about but haven't translated into your writing for readers to pick up on. The reversal in the end is nice. I like the good tomorrows never/alwasy die line

[Anonymous No.16772394]

It's rumbling again. Same kind of primeval vibration that bubbles in the gut about twenty hundreths of a minute before I need to abruptly leave. I hope He's alright. I would hate for Him to feel the same way I do every other month in the middle of the night, hunched over like the Neanderthal "man" I've hoped to avoid. Though I fear it's too late. His tears have already escaped, throwing their petit little bodies against my window and howling to be heard, to be pitied, to be loved. I think about Him. Then I don't.

[Anonymous No.16772411]

I’m reposting this with minor changes, about to give some feedback too, I’d like to submit this for publication so I’d appreciate crits.

My head wags over colored steam
that strays from a pale pond; it flows up my nostrils
and cushions my cold brain.

Then it morphs into an old picture,
a group of strangers breathing basil in a room,
their faces snug in new laughter.

And for a minute I see my own face streaming
from their warm lips, swaying through the room
light as a handkerchief.

But I remember where I really am,
earthbound like a stump while death
disturbs the air and authors isolation.

[Anonymous No.16772413]

>>16772386
thank you, this was 2011 I wrote this and just some random poem I wrote on my phone before I had a smartphone. So I truly had no story in mind that was personal but it defiantly was trying to convey a happy nice theme transforming into a darker one, I believe I had a war in mind with the stained blood line.

>The style isn't bad, but Im confused by the imagery in the beginning. A cloudy field would mean you couldn't see the starry skies, no?
I noticed it to after I posted it, I won't lie it's a bad line that makes no sense, but after thinking on it I'd like to think I was trying to say it was a foggy field

[Anonymous No.16772419]

>>16772411
I like it, I don't want to always dissect things, but I had the idea of someone getting high and then coming down

[Anonymous No.16772427]

>>16772394
also, tangentially related question: How do I stop feeling like throwing up whenever I read something I've posted?

[Anonymous No.16772438]

>>16772413
You're welcome. I thought it was a foggy field at first too, but I wanted to take your words for what they said, not what I thought made sense. What do you think of my poem btw? >>16772287
I'm looking for any feedback at all.

[Anonymous No.16772443]

>>16772427
Read some fanfiction, I'm not trying to be mean because many people need to start somewhere, but I've learned that if you are competent there is at least someone out there worse than you and you can kind sigh a bit and take comfort in that you can grow to be better.
This is especially if you have a fandom you like and personally for me an author who sticks close to canon, but clearly is a newbie. To watch them grow as a writer with each story they confidently post no matter how short or maybe not as smooth.

[Anonymous No.16772444]

>>16772394
>>16772427
Not bad, just don't have any context so can't say anything about that. Grammar and style seems fine.

[Anonymous No.16772460]

>>16772287
This isn’t bad, some of the rhymes feel forced and the imagery unmoving. But otherwise the atmosphere is nice and the diction generally apt. I encourage you to reach higher though, as it seems you have a good idea of your language (albeit it feels anachronistic at times, such as in the seventh line) but you need to try to think more surprisingly.
>>16770390
This is very “New York School”, Frank O’Hara, etc. The images are pretty and handled smoothly but the work just lacks a poignancy or real substance that pulls. And I don’t mean it needs to be profound, I know you weren’t going for that, it’s meant to be casual I think. But even then there’s room to move the reader at least gently. I feel like you’re too involved in your aesthetics where you should be thinking of what exactly you’re saying and why.
>>16771314
This has a certain vitality to it that’s interesting in spite of how lazy it feels at times. You have a vibrant spirit and that’s great, but you seem caught up in being quirky instead of crafting artfully as you deserve. It’ll be nice to see your style refined.

>>16772411 Is my piece.

[Anonymous No.16772474]

>>16772287
I re-read it twice, I feel out of reach to give much critique. It was complex, yet simple. Literally took me back to school when we read poetry and have to explain what the poem was about.

Like you I don't want to assume the message, but the tree fell over and I'm confused how to feel about it. Was it meant to be uplifting about an old tree standing against the storm
>Not weeping, the Rain whipped the slain; the scorched husk, broke in sunder
>But still stood the horrid stump, charred black, and crooked; sharp, unceased,
it did fall apart, but still remains as a stump and can regrow?
I really did like it though and got the fuzzy vibrations when reading,
>By Mosses cloaked, and Ivy choked, and grey-bearded Lichen clad.
I like this line the most

[Anonymous No.16772511]

>>16772474
I didn't have a clear message I wanted to get across when I started, but by the end I felt that it was proper. The tree, although its surroundings and itself is ugly and decrepit, it still stands, even somewhat after the storm. I don't think it needs a clear point to be enjoyed though. Take Donne's A Burnt Ship for example.

[Anonymous No.16772531]

>>16772474
>>16772511
And thank you. I get that same feeling while reading a great poem for the first while too, and I'm happy I could make someone feel that with my work. Personally, I feel it is humorous that the snag still stands defiantly after the might of the storm.

[Anonymous No.16772549]

>>16772460
Which rhymes feel forced to you?

[Anonymous No.16772584]

>>16772549
All of the ending rhymes in the first stanza as well as “swill” “spill”. But “cracks” “smacks” work better.

[Anonymous No.16772598]

>>16772087
>>16772549
>>16772584
How this? it's not a poem but you anons seem like the best to tell me if I'm on the right track at least

[Anonymous No.16772613]

>>16772584
I actually feel like cracks/smacks are the weaker rhyme, and the others stronger. Maybe that's the meter ingrained in my head or just disagreement, but thanks for the feedback.

[Anonymous No.16772616]

>>16772598
I don't know how to critique prose properly. What the writing is about is at least a little interesting, and the ending little debate thing I can see being slightly humorous.

[Anonymous No.16772640]

I have a few books books, which have the samples of them up on here. I think Amazon lets you view the first few chapters of each one. Very interested to hear what you guys have to say. I've received some feedback here before, and I'm trying to implement all the suggestions I've been receiving for my future books.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08KQCTHTD

[Anonymous No.16772671]

>>16772640
>those reviews
anons are love

[Anonymous No.16772728]

>>16772640
I have too much work at the moment to actually read this right now but I just wanted to say those covers have soul and are infinitely better than the shit the majority amazon self-pubs have.

[Anonymous No.16772738]

>>16772728
Thanks.

[Anonymous No.16772871]

>>16772640
Fuck this this reads like it was legit written by a madman. I suppose it’s fairly well written. Could use some editing desu
Not buying your shit but I’ll read the rest of your sample chapters

[Anonymous No.16773133]

>>16769161
surely you see the irony of not having read anyone beyond the victorians, only to be labelled derivative of a poet who immediately followed them

[Anonymous No.16773145]

>>16763149
>betwixt
fedoras are floating around my head as i recoil from this blow

[Anonymous No.16773148]

>>16763631
turn off the parens and embedded clauses, kolstiyite

[Anonymous No.16773149]

>>16770433
chuckled

[Anonymous No.16773172]

>>16767505
no offense, but your numerologies will be devoid of meaning to all but you and a handful of acolytes. I am always a little vexed when someone explains to me that Marianne Moore shapes her stanzas like *that* because she is counting syllables per line, as if this were an explanation and not merely a displacing of the explanation. Perhaps I have been filtered by both her and you? Anyway, I was not compelled to read this poem. The language is slightly dated. The names are meaningless and opaque to me, an uninitiated dilettante. The prosody was neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

[Anonymous No.16773211]

The restart of an idea I tried working on a long time ago. I've only really revised the first and second paragraphs here - I just need to know whether this is the right direction and whether it's interesting. I'm a little concerned about a little too much info dump instead of starting off my short story with a little mini-story, so do give your thoughts.

Cheers, I've already been critiquing earlier this thread

[Anonymous No.16773241]

>>16762525
The "then" seems repetitive and I would find a way to articulate it better. Also you're giving the reader a lot of information in it, they're not going to remember all of it.

[Anonymous No.16773246]

I want to thank you, Alistair. Even though you're dead, even though you departed into the next life, you will always have my thanks for setting me free. You went through life invisible to everyone but me. Though you were alone all of your life, you had so much wisdom and experience beyond the average person. Your thoughts were truly your own and you lived by your ideals without compromise, even in your deepest pain which was often. Never have mercy for evil on any front; Never be tempted. Embrace your struggles and find the strength in it to persevere. Be greater then what you suffer. It's truly awe inspiring and thank serendipity for our chance meeting in the library. I still remember the way you looked at me, as though you were shot with a crystalline bullet of hope itself. With your perception, you understood me before I could utter a word. And with your will, you forged me into the man I am today.

The man with nothing to lose and everything to sacrifice for the sake of my ideals, for the sake of our friendship. What use to be our friendship before you were taken away for refusing to compromise, to be tempted down a never ending tunnel of despair. And because of your indominable will, you had to be killed and strung up in the town square, naked, and with your cut off penis in your mouth. You suffered so much at their hands and even in your death, you're still suffering their indignity and monstrous sadism. And for what? For refusing to conform? For refusing to smile in the decaying and degenerate city around you like everything was the opposite?

Your injustice has set an inferno ablaze inside me that hadn't been quelled during the long nights and hadn't been quelled when some towns folk in their decency, had the mercy to cut you down from your post and gave you a proper burial where no animal or person could get at you. The fire rose in intensity with every waking moment of every damn day. How could I live the rest of my life with this searing anger eating away at me, telling me to right the wrong that had befallen you. I can't. I won't. I must sate this inferno with the only thing that could quell it.

Their blood, all over me. Their blood, bathing me. Their blood, as I drink it like a much parched man in the oasis.

And so the day has finally come, after cunning planning, after exploiting the good will of the townsfolk who buried you, and after I secured the weapons to draw their anguished screams, the day has finally dawned. On this momentous day, I am your eternal rage erupting into what they call their homes. On this momentous day, I am your eternal rage depriving them of their bloodlines as they awaken in fright. On this momentous day, I am your eternal rage, cutting and tearing and biting my fury into them as though I were a rabid monster.

[Anonymous No.16773248]

>>16773246
On this momentous day, I am the terror in their still beating hearts as they watch me cut off their limbs and sew them in their most private places.

I want to thank you, Alistair, for giving me the will to do what needs to be done without compromise or hesitation; For starting the inferno inside me. For freeing me from their slavery of the mind. I can only hope that you and I will reunite wherever you are and have the time for one last talk, as endearing friends. Thank you, for everything.

This is just something I thought up of on the spot. Would appreciate feedback

[Anonymous No.16773301]

>>16773248
Ignoring some grammar I'm sure you know how to fix, I think the prose itself is "pretty good". The flow is decent, you move from sentence to sentence naturally but not quite beautifully... and how to achieve beauty, I can't really say.
That being said, the topic is edgy and cliched. Bored me but at least didn't make me cringe as much as I expected it to. Probably since the prose itself is decent.

[Anonymous No.16773421]

It's nice to see what a success this thread has been. I suggest next time OP adds some formatting rules to make entries more clear (such as the potential adding of a clear title or header to distinguish entries, limiting works to one post, etc.).

Good job all around, chaps.

[Anonymous No.16773554]

>>16767801

I am >>16768920

Cut superfluous detail. It reads like a list, which isn't a pleasant experience. Paragraphs are needed. Frankly, it is dull and too vague: use concrete imagery and interconnect their actions with each other to create some relevance to the plot.

First of all, tell me what you want to achieve with this scene, and then cut everything that doesn't contribute to that goal you have in mind.

[Anonymous No.16773888]

>>16773554
I rewrote that post in >>16771549 using a different form of narration, if you're interested in reading it.

I understand why it seems dull, but what do you mean exactly by vague? I'm trying to set a decadent tone: the plot is two friends getting shit-faced on their night out and going through increasingly surreal episodes.

[Anonymous No.16773917]

A young boy stands upon the edge of a misty pond on a cloudy morning. Nary a sound, nary another to bother the silence. The boy didn't know how he got here, he didn't pay any mind to the thought. He
Only wondered what the time was and if he was late for something. He kept feeling a nagging of importance but couldnt for the life of him remember anything. Sun started poke through the trees and clouds from up above and behind him, to fall all around him and cloak him in warmth. The cold seem'd to disapate for a brief moment. He turned to face the sun but caught a glint of white out of the corner of his eye. He paused his rotation to see a young child of what looked to be a girl on the edge of the pond. The girl appered to be younger than ten, had long sandy brown hair going down to her waist, and no shoes. Only the white sun dress clothed the girl. He was unable to make out any discernible featers before the child had ran off into the surrounding trees.

The boy still feeling the warmth of the sun beat down upon his cheekes turned to bask in the warmth before an all to familiar sound broke calm. "ALAN!" said a voice in the dark. The dream faded to grey and the boys eyes opened. His alarm blaring in his ear. "Damn thing" Alan exhailed. As he went to turn of the annoying blaring of unpleasant beeping that just seemed to hammer the nail of the foreboding day ahead, the time on his alarm said 7:14am. "That can't be right" he though. Alan had never slept throught an alarm before. He didn't see how anyone could. "ALAN! GET UP! You're late for breakfast! And probably late for school too! Proclaimed Alans mother.

First part of a really bad week for Alan.

[Anonymous No.16775470]

>>16759096
Bump

[Anonymous No.16775524]

>>16772640
This is honestly really good

[Anonymous No.16775529]

>>16773148
im dumb anon what does this even mean

[Anonymous No.16775540]

>>16773917
>A young boy stands upon the edge of a misty pond on a cloudy morning.
"misty pond" creates an image in my mind and "cloudy morning" adds nothing to it – the second half of the first sentence and already a drop of quality. Be careful.

[Anonymous No.16775971]

I like what I wrote here:
Like a fireworks show gone wrong, people started to spew their innards at random. Cars crashed into one another, bloating the roads and forcing people to make their way through sidewalks filled with the internal soup of wailing victims. I felt as sick and sticky as the ground beneath me, covered in blood and the other matter ejected by the contaminated cafe goer. I had ran through stampedes of panicked crowds back to my apartment. It must have been a mixture of adrenaline and trauma because I could no longer taste the saliva or blood on my tongue. Cries of terror, gurgling groans, and vomit became the new city.

[Anonymous No.16776092]

>>16775971
no

[Anonymous No.16776188]

The moans of the hardwood which cover the floor of the house will at times give me the illusion that I am not alone. I feel a heavy breeze outside on the porch, the aging wood swelling in the rapidly dropping air pressure, finally given room to breathe, as if the vacuum created by the outward winds invites the dead to dance. They all left with the storms, can’t recall a dry season in the past 4 summers. Hard to grow anything at all left in the newly formed marsh, save for cattails and pussy willows, along with a distaste for wet shoes. None of which will do one any real good.

Will, and Jepet, and John, and all the others packed up and left. No good here, can’t grow tomatoes underwater, and if you could, the lack of consistency would kill the drowned berry fields long before the gators got to ‘em. Two days of monsoon, three days of sun, three days of monsoon, one day of sun, turning riverbeds to cracked muddy fields, to spotted ponds, back into a miniature Mississippi. Almost fast enough for me to sit on the porch and look out on the carnage, watching the high speed loop of growth and decay. Roadside farm stands to an enclosed shack, to a small store, to a multi-truck operation, a final peak of capitalistic ecstasy before the proprietors saw the dark clouds rolling in and got spooked, skipped down, leaving whatever they built to die. I miss John. Breeze is picking up again, rains from the west coming in. I grab my empty dinner plate from the floor of the deck and head inside, kicking what’s leftover onto the dirt for the dogs to pick at. Even they are getting thin.

I come inside and place my plate on the kitchen table, the first raindrops of the storm begin hitting the window above the sink. Slow enough to count at first, then picking up and accelerating into infinity. I remember what John said to me the last night before he left without a word, when we were sitting on my back porch, drinking and watching the birds play. “Rains’ll fill up the Lord’s cup, farmers round here just need to take a sip”. I didn’t know what he meant. I feel stupid for not asking. The next morning, he was gone. For sale signage crudely plastered on his front lawn. Pig prints still fresh in the mud. Thunder rattles the glass of the windows. I hear the songs of the dead, my father and mother’s waterlogged graves by the shed. I am surrounded by empty swamp. There isn’t a human alive in miles.

[Anonymous No.16776487]

buuuump

[Anonymous No.16777636]

Kafka: his life
was a nightmare
mine is a dare
to step out,
with no wisdom
about belonging
no grapevine or
skeletons in a
closet or a
Great God telling
me to close
my mind.
Everyone is becoming
so skillful
so sociable
and money making

Why does God
have to be
so god-damned
moral

No I will not be nightmares
into a so called “reality”

Where god’s ethic
doesn’t tolerate the eccentric

our aesthetics damn you
but never forever
or in your eternity
only in the humanity of abstraction

[Anonymous No.16777776]

>>16768387
Why so many short chapters? Do you have something you are trying to say or is this meaningless. Is this prose or poetry?

[Anonymous No.16777970]

>>16759096

Fuck Jannies! Post 'sneed';
Feast and feed upon the seed!
Past owner named Chuck,
A place where you can
Get a good hard suck and fuck.

[Anonymous No.16778018]

The reason for all my confidence,and lack of, anxiety,all my weaknesses and strengths. A gift which seems to be rare, never asked for but I got. I am thankful for my self awareness.

[Anonymous No.16778046]

>>16777636
did u just read coney island of the mind

[Anonymous No.16778160]

>>16772640
How do I get to read them without paying?

[Anonymous No.16778792]

>>16778046
this is not nearly as concrete as any Ferlinghetti.

[Anonymous No.16778810]

>>16777970
shut the fuck up forever

[Anonymous No.16779086]

[Anonymous No.16780452]

Out beyond the edge of reason
There lies a break from what we see
And the lure of logic's treason;
The divide is called eternity.
Creeping doubt bemuses the mind
Of both believer and of skeptic,
Neither sure of what they find
Wandering the dialectic.
Reality's discrepancy
Is a recent fascination;
Those before kept their deities
Close, they lived in dedication
Through story, song and sacrifice;
The animals, their pantheon --
The rolling land, their paradise.
Each day, the golden rays of dawn
Illuminate salvation to
People whose man-made gods are gone.

[Anonymous No.16780534]

I've never posted my writing before, but it's something I've been wanting to do for a while. This was something I wrote on a whim around the random topic of learning languages. It's short, however, I think it's enough to get some feedback on bits that others find better potential for.

“That’s it, I’ve had enough” – he had cried the previous night. However, here he was, brushing along his textbook’s fourth chapter expecting to develop an understanding of a language that sounded as strong as his temper towards studying. Each morning would be the same; his timetable dictated an hour-long German lesson upon his three (and two-thirds) legged chair face first into the day’s vocabulary. Pronouncing vowels and umlauts in a fashion akin to stuttered slurring, he thought back to the coffee that had promised him sufficient energy to pull through. Regardless, spelling ‘kaffee’ with one ‘e’ and the misplacement of an umlaut was the last straw. “That is it, I’ve had enough” thundered the man in an unconscious attempt to break his routine – even if it was just one additional word.

[Anonymous No.16780598]

>>16780534
I think it is quite decent as prose. As for topic, I thought it relatively interesting until you went straight to the "i'm tired of my daily routine" cliche.

[Anonymous No.16780626]

>>16780598
It is a cliche. I felt like it went well with language learning from my own experience. Still, if I ever expand on it I'll keep that in mind and maybe have another pressure in its place or direct it away from being tired towards determination.

[Anonymous No.16781105]

two verses to say everything –
not a lot

[Anonymous No.16781119]

>>16768664
My pleasure, man. Thanks for being so approachable.

>What do you mean by pretentious?
Looking back, I'm not sure if pretentious is the right word. I think what I was trying to say is that you should be aware of not trying to be too decorative or flowery with your decriptions and descriptions of atmosphere because it can smother the narrative. To me this often has an off-putting effect, since I feel the writer is more ocncerned with coming across as a literary hot shot rather than wanting to convey a story or message. I'm speaking in general here, by the way, not about you.

>and River's hands were curled up like he were reigning back a horse.
That is much, much better. It reads more fluently, and, as you said, stays within the theme it's set.

As I said in my original response, there's definitely a solid and enjoyable base to your writing and I liked reading it. I feel arrogant saying "you will get better" because I'm nowhere near being a good writer, but I'm sure you will if you keep practising.

[Anonymous No.16781583]

>>16776188
I really enjoyed reading this. The second and third paragraphs, especially, are great. In just this small piece of writing, you sketch a clear image of a place, its history and circumstances, while also managing to evoke the desolate, barren, hopeless atmosphere that permeates it, as well as perfectly capturing the voice of the protagonist who's had to deal with the emotional effects of the decay surrounding him. Really good. Do you have any more? Have you written any short stories?

The only thing that confused me a little was
>as if the vacuum created by the outward winds invites the dead to dance.
Then again, my lack of comprehension might be the reason for that.

In any case, keep it up.

[Anonymous No.16781703]

>>16762374
>The art of kingship is difficult to master. Few are given the chance and fewer still achieve mastery. However, in the late 6th Century, fate decided that Osric, recently crowned as King of the North Gyrwas, would be given a chance, which he seized with zeal. Since his coronation just a fortnight earlier, he spent most of his waking hours pondering how he should rule. His father, the late King Ælfweard, died unexpectedly, leaving Osric without the departing words of wisdom that he felt were so needed in these first few weeks as king. Moreover, Osric’s Kingdom was a small one— more a Chiefdom— also isolated in the bleak marshes of Fenland, with few educators available during his days as Prince. This led Osric to solicit the help of a locally renowned scholar (of sorts), Alcuin. But Alcuin, despite being a subject of North Gyras, was independent by nature— a wandering soul— and difficult to contact— and even more difficult to convince (for he was much sought after by the Kings and Chiefs of Fenland for his knowledge). In the meantime, Osric enlisted the help of Winfred, a loyal member of his late father’s court and also Osric’s personal guardian during his youth. But Osric was dismissive of Winfred’s advice— it just couldn’t match the superior instruction of the wise Alcuin.

I edited this. Too much passive voice and too many words.

I wrote an essay on aesthetic value here if anyone with an interest in philosophy wants to take a look.
http://www.psychedral.com/2020/11/aesthetic-value-as-divine-revelation/

[Anonymous No.16781916]

>Specificity has always been my enemy. I could never remember the salient details such that I could pick the right kind of pasta or soap from the shop. I got lost in a dictionary once and only got out when my father beat me. He beat me regularly, did my father. I do not believe it had any lasting effect on me, however, dear reader, and that is how I have come to you. As I am and to tell you my story. All aboard, the narrator cries - you jump onto the last carriage. There is no alighting now, until we reach our final destination - Act III. Let us depart.
Just some thoughts I have been playing with.

[Anonymous No.16781953]

I reached a parting in the cornfield,
I could turn hither or tither
I stood long thinking which way
I ought to go, and I looked
down both rows til they were lost in foliage;

One was very promising
Full of sweet promise of the new season
The other not just yet bloomed
The was evidence that a maiden fair
Had trodden the hither row before me
Should I follow her, or forge my own way?
I did not know then and,
I still do not know now.
For whichever through which I traipsed
I am certain it was the wrong one.

[Anonymous No.16782064]

>>16778810
post your poetry then you pretentious faggot.

[Anonymous No.16782117]

An excerpt of something im writing. Please go easy this is my first work that I've actually spent some time on.

I gathered myself, comely this time, and readied to give my response. "At the heights of my spite, ladies and gentlemen, I am still indifferent. I blanket myself with the consolations of the crowd, that is -- I become you." They would now look at me, bemused, that rather I throw myself into the gunk, the most extreme opposite has happened before their eyes. "When I am outside the partitions of my home; to leave for the university, for example, or to secure a seat at the town hall, I am reminded altogether that this quandary is not an internal affair. It is of this outside longing, perhaps of congruity, to be part of the masses, maybe it is that insistent neuroses: to have the slightest symptom of being human. The troubles of gravity, ladies and gentlemen, is that, one can never escape the attractions in his presence. Of the most negative contrivances, however, I feel like I have been appointed the man of faith. To this honor, what could one do except to grind his machine, and pour a cup of coffee by the end of the day."

[Anonymous No.16782167]

>>16781953
four sentences starting with "I" in a row, you can't do than in poetry my man
its thither not tither
"i ought to go, and i looked" is the most boring line in history
clearly performative use of a semi-colon
promising then promise in the very next line
hither again really?
"should i follow her, or forge my own way?"
seriously?
more concrete imagery, less vague bullshit
>>16782117
you're trying too hard, your clear obsession with flowery language is interfering with your ability to tell a story

[Anonymous No.16782230]

>>16782167
>you're trying too hard, your clear obsession with flowery language is interfering with your ability to tell a story

This is a recurring theme among (beginning) writers. People need to realise you need a strong narrative before you can begin to decorate your story with fancy words.

Think of writing as building a car. Make sure you have a working engine before you start designing your faggy little chrome wing mirrors.

[Anonymous No.16782301]

>>16782167
>>16782230
I admit i am quite still a beginner, and my only real experience has been imitating the style of my favorite writers. Where do you suggest I start off?

[Anonymous No.16782381]

Excuse my edge prose, just trying something new.

A damp, dark room that I call home is were i experience existence. Consciousness finds me here and I endure it. It causes me agony. I love it. My winged chair is my throne, upon which I rest gloriously and gracefully.
My body has lost all shape, as I become one with the moldy fabric. A fly courts the feast, that is my unwashed body, coming closer and closer. I pay it no mind, if it pleases me I shall eat it. I am its God and mercifully spare its life. A sudden affection rushes over me, as I swat the fly with my bare hands. I am its God.

Existing is tiring, hence i am in need of sustenance and shove a moldy piece of dough into my gaping hole. I feel great satisfaction rushing through my nerves and a slight tingle, where my penis once was.
Alas, the feeling passes and to escape an unevitable moment of consciousness I turn on the TV. It's light washes over me like a wave of sewage, clogging my every orifice, filling my lungs with rotten liquids. The sounds it emits, a glorious cacophony fills my head, fills every little crevice the folds in my brain kinfly offer. My meninx vibrates with joy and I hear it sing a beauiful hymn. As I become one with televison, I am no longer human. I have transcended humanity, my mind connected to an intricate network of filth. I am the roach under my carpet, I am the fungus growing in the walls, I am the foul air around me. I am God.

[Anonymous No.16782586]

>>16782301
Decide on what the main ingredient is. Then add flavour.

I know that sounds vague and overly simplified, but it's the truth. Think about what it is you want to convey. What is the reason you're writing what you write? Do you want to craft a compelling story for your readers? Do you want to translate the beauty or tragedy of something into words? What is it that makes you deem it necessary to write down something?

Figure that out. That's your main ingredient. Then add anything that you think will enhance your main ingredient, but only after you are certain your main ingredient has been cooked to perfection.

I should stop reading so many fucking recipes.

[Anonymous No.16784190]

Bump

[Anonymous No.16784784]

>>16778160
Kindle Unlimited. Unless anyone has a torrent.

[Anonymous No.16785415]

>>16782381
fungi

[Anonymous No.16785453]

>>16782381
Frst sentence threw me off but not in a good way. There is something about the rhythm that doen't click.
>hence i am in need of sustenance and shove a moldy piece of dough into my gaping hole.
The "gaping hole part contrasts with the style throughout the sentence. Something more verbose might work here better.
Other than this I liked it. It's somewhat reminiscent of Kafka's style with how abhorrent it is.

[Anonymous No.16785471]

>>16759177
It’s shit. Where the hell is the metric?>>16759461
Same
I don’t even need to go through the rest of the answer to knows there’s not a single one here with proper metric
As expected from useless fictionhead retards who think they’re intellectually able to absorb metaphysical and epistemological philosophy. It’s no wonder nobody ever talks about logic here, a central tool in metaphysics, since anything that can’t be twisted into a meaningless retarded string of babbling words will not get the attention of losers here
Die in a hole, /lit/ards