/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4858810]

Post your work! Critique and rate!

[Anonymous No.4858813]

intelligence is a lonely trait
my own lone soul, my own lone fate
and in my speech my words abate
cocoons i build without a wake

down the hole i rush ahead
feet first followed by heavy head
the life i used to have, now shred


it was so
like crazy

like you dont even know like im serious right now. like i was at that party and it was like so crazy like she took off her shirt and she was like so drunk lol. and then he came out of like nowhere and then they put up their hoods and ran through the sprinklers and one of them like called themselves like assassins creed or something like they were so drunk lol. omg and did u hear about the vase that broke. omg. the vase that like totally broke. like broke. completely. u didnt hear about this like omg
what are u serious u cant just not and like

like
like
like like like like like like like like like like like literally

literally
literally
literally literally literally literally literally literally literally

omg
omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg

intelligence is a waste of time
friends are enough, mine are mine
and yours are yours, so sublime
is silver across the lines
that was like

[Anonymous No.4858821]

this is so good omg like literally so in love with it i can't even

[Anonymous No.4858826]

>>4858813
I literally almost threw up in my mouth

[Anonymous No.4858831]

I hope you're afraid to hurt me.
Because at one point that's all that held me back.
I hope my concern for you weighs down like a thousand bricks to save your wrist just one more line.
For in youth and adulthood alike, there will be times for dowsing sorrow with alcohol and knifes.
Reminiscing descending past times, choosing which noose to wear to your tunnel vision pity party.
Tossing up ideas like a fist full of pills to make you sleep for a very, very long time.
But I hope you're afraid to hurt me.
With a lack of clarification through the bleary eyed glasses of a lust for your own self destruction I hope you see my love.
Let it serve as a beacon to pull you through this storm, So if indeed you do capsize, you are slightly closer to shore.
Strewn apart, reaping the unripened harvest of hopeful seeds you planted.
following your fields in advance to dodge the locust plague fast approaching,
wearing a gray scale banner that reads "grief".
I hope you're afraid to hurt me.
So that the edge of your urge to eradicate yourself is dulled by the one thought that lingers in the back of your head,
the thought that you hurt the ones you love as well as yourself.
That open ears and arms are close at hand no matter how many miles there may lay in between,
A voice on a phone can enact as an embrace or a raft when you're caught in a current.
When you feel like your heart is racing and you gasp, yet can't breathe.
When you kill a part of you, you kill a part of me.
And as a someone who holds you dearly, I hope save yourself Not only for your well being.
But because you're afraid to hurt me.

[Anonymous No.4858836]

“He came from the upper depths, a dark infinity from whence our little blue blemish was once pinched. It proceeded to swim freely for quite a long time. This state did not satisfy him, and we came to know his shadow. He swaddled our naked sphere in the black cloak of his dominion and raked his fingers over the world. The West was brought up into his grip and turned to dust, and that dust was let go over the rest of humanity. We were left no choice but to suckle from his toxic teat and be remade in his image.”

[Anonymous No.4858838]

My girlfriend asked me to strip for her, so I did.

First I took off my pride. I wore it like a shawl to protect all my insecurities. She loved it.

I took off my shame. It hung around my legs, a thousand uncomfortable memories wound tight
like twine to hide my ability to be free and open. She loved it.

I took off my fear. They gripped my feet like stone slippers, hoping to keep me from ever leaping
as far as I was capable, often succeeding. She loved it.

Finally I took off my doubt. The doubt that was there so long it had become me. I ripped it off
revealing the flesh of my love for her and the bone-depth of my feelings for her and the blood
that rushed for only her, forever.

She didn’t love that.

She left wearing my clothes.

I dressed for winter.

[Anonymous No.4858847]

So good. It's super true about today's generation. I get so tired of talking to dumbfucks all day where every word is like omg totally

[Anonymous No.4858854]

>>4858831
>insert emo tears here

>>4858836
>dickens-esque, no clue what the fuck is happening

>>4858838
loved it. if only you worded the middle part better.

[Anonymous No.4858858]

>>4858854
What are specifically referring to as "the middle part," if I may ask?

[Anonymous No.4858865]

>>4858858
I know you didn't write it but I'll just respond anyway.

> to hide my ability to be free and open
> to keep me from ever leaping
as far as I was capable
> and the blood
that rushed for only her, forever

SAT wordiness question

[Anonymous No.4858882]

Are there any places to get more in-depth critique? Like a small circle of people to talk to about writing and stuff. It's near impossible to find in real life.

[Anonymous No.4858915]

>>4858882
>It's near impossible to find in real life.
If you're in college/university you could talk to your english teacher or a creative writing area

[Anonymous No.4858927]

>>4858854
>dickens-esque

well...that's not the same thing as absolute shit

r-right?

[Anonymous No.4858940]

>>4858927
I'm reading GE for school and I can't stop vomiting.

[Anonymous No.4858945]

>>4858940
Holy shit are you 14?

[Anonymous No.4858949]

>>4858945
>14
>reading GE
started late?

[Anonymous No.4859004]

>>4858813
hows my song
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1cOozFgQOQC

[Anonymous No.4859026]

The world is smoke & mirrors/
It's all you've ever known/
You've long searched for a clearing you've heard tales of/
Hell, you've even blown a few lung-fulls of hopeful breath to clear the air/
The closest you've come to hard truth/
Is a distant figure/
You approach/
Exhausted/
Unsure whether you're crafting yet another thin reality/
Cautious steps forward get you there, eventually/
The face becomes clear: your own/
Yet another moment of reflection/
You see The Laughing Man staring back at you without a whisp of remorse in his glare/
His jaw spews forth rows of finely polished teeth, shredding through endless layers/
They seem to just miss you/
As you turn to run/
You hear your reflection mocking you with pity/
You turn to see if he's still there, if he's real now...and round you spin in thick fog-like smoke/
Lost again somehow

[Anonymous No.4859593]

>>4858915
The problem is that I live in the woods. Think 20 miles away from any sort of civilization.

[Anonymous No.4861046]

From each according to his ability,
To each according to his need.
When labor has become life's prime want,
Then we can live by this communist creed.

This revolutionary transformation will
Last forever, more glorious than any other.
The working class will rule as I
Oversee the land of our mother.

Nineteen seventeen;
Such a revolution the world had never seen.
Or so they had said for seventy years;
Until the Union fell.

[Anonymous No.4861059]

>>4859004
I found discerning what was taking place outside your domicile more enjoyable.

In any case, you need to be more confident when singing into a microphone, try not to whisper as it slurs your words, and use your foot to keep time.

[Anonymous No.4861072]

>>4858838
Bretty good, validates the experiences of friendzoned neckbeards.

[TBC No.4861110]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO5upnqXhR8

[Anonymous No.4861134]

Behind some old centuries
lie the antiquated pieces of machinery
that support our integrity
of both lore and life
under a pendulum's penumbra
before Charon's curtain
drawn by the epoch's stagehand
of humanity's brief stay
on this ornate ball of compact
that scurries with life and the in-between
of organism in interstitial crevasses
that are walled by impervious barracks
manned by a mane of archers
whose barrages drizzle innocuously
with cyanide steam that stirs
in the sinuses of our presidents
despotic and sneezing
roaring subtly in the atrium of mysticism
where there is a pulpit
that has behind it
a headless figure
supported by a crane,
beautifully static
changing only for debts
un-payable.

[Anonymous No.4861214]

Lines and lines of sprawling text
Each word engraved with heartfelt care
Ink in the sheets inside the chest with
Memories and feelings to close to share
Pages bound by living leather
Enclosed between sacks of air
Make up the book inside our depths
Each chapter written true and fair
Bound by flowing emotions
The tome inside of our hearts
No periods or punctuation starts
Until its beating stops
Each body holds a story
Filled with limerick and soft rhyme
That paint our lives as it breathes
Until the day it dies
Every person is a poet
Every layman is a scribe
Each footstep leaves an everlasting word
Onto the shores of time

[Anonymous No.4861219]

In the middle of history, Grimes was a bit ruffled and caught stuttering, leaning back behind his security guard desk waiting for his shift to end. The block-like-TV screens seemed static with low definition, yet subtle movements occurred here a there, a crow flying by, the occasional midnight biker, a red car with a broken taillight. With an outhouse on a bridge above a train, the brief rumbles from a passing locomotive had morphed from a persistent nuisance to a habitually welcoming part of the job. Any fluctuation was interesting. While Alstyne Inc. wasn't the best employer, they paid oddly well. Grimes had to make enough money to pay off his chemo bills, which he actually felt lucky to be forced to pay, and the 19.50 an hour, combined with his bold but fairly successful bouts in the stock market, did well to help him do that. Being no longer so overweight and full of facial hair, Grimes lived less up to his name these days, something Beatrice didn't mind. But despite his conversely good fortune, Grimes still managed to become bored with the life at his disposal. So, to counteract this bittersweet shade of living, he brought to work with him a sudoku book, something he wasn't very good at but always improving, and an Agatha Christie novel. Just then, And Then There Were None had his beleaguered ass dripping with anticipation, and maybe a little unnoticed embarrassment. Gallantry only beheld Grimes in the world of fiction, yet soon, it would force itself upon him without his volition outside his literary comfort zone. He was not yet aware, but a troop of four men had been finagling their way through Alstyne Inc.'s porous security for something that Grimes could probably not even have been able to define to his wife. Alstyne Inc., a producer of circuit boards and other ancillary technologies, had what you might call an expensive inventory, an inventory certain people like these four men would find to be more-than-desirable. And Grimes was lost in a mystery.

[Anonymous No.4861270]

Lithe toasters radiate toasty smells
and the children wake.
My mirror stares at me
and I kill its family.
Then I eat orange juice
and remember my first goal
in peewee soccer.
Laughing, I beat my wife
's eggs.
And eat them.
Crying tar.

[Anonymous No.4861280]

>>4859593
I have this problem too. I live way out in the woods, the closest business of any kind is 30 miles away and that's a tiny town. I'm almost 2 hours from anything resembling a city. No one here likes literature at all. I feel like serious, in depth analysis from peers is important to growing as a writer but I have no one here to do that with. Sometimes I post on these boards but I rarely get feedback and if I do it's usually just a quick comment.

[Anonymous No.4861306]

Here's a poem that I three hours ago. Still editing it a bit.

Restless action — the sea swell breaks,
shoots icy glitter-spray reflecting rays of light
as it travels to uncertain territories.
Then the gradual loss of momentum,
slowing, absorbing the elongated shadows of the end-of-day,
Imbibing itself in complacency,
turning to ethanol
and settling as a heavy dew in the red wine evening.

[Anonymous No.4861408]

>>4858813

I can actually see this as a decentish club hit a la Let Me Take A Selfie, but the opening and the finish would need to be less self-parodic.

[Anonymous No.4861517]

I've been working on this book for a while now. I hope to get feedback on it and hear how people feel about it...I'd like constructive criticism...please.
http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/SomeOtherGuy/1298442/

[Anonymous No.4861535]

>>4861517
I want to read the whole book.

[Anonymous No.4861545]

>>4861535
I only wrote 4 chapters because I wanted to know if people liked it or not. If they didn't I'd write something else...I know thinking like that isn't a good thing for a writer, but 'what's the point of writing something if no one's going to read it'

[Philosophag !!aEGgSI04zUm No.4861568]

>>4858838
fedora/10
>>4858831
piece about cutting, please
>>4858813
cringe
>>4858836
Expand this
>>4859026
Cliche
>>4861046
Leftist pls
>>4861134
good
>>4861214
something is missing
and the line "every layman is a scribe" bother me somehow
>>4861219
succinct and not clumsy
>>4861270
3deep7me
>>4861306
good, so close to great

[Anonymous No.4861629]

At the treeline stood a circle of tall willow brush. They stood alone, growing out of the yellow grass. They were walls and inside them felt like a quiet place.The boy marked it as his starting point and pushed into the old growth forest. He walked along the inclined ground until he came to a clearing. Bones in varying forms of decay lay everywhere. Some bleached white, others still discernable and fleshed. A great predator had made this his place; had dragged his kills and finds here for a lifetime. The clearing followed the hill down to a glass lake waterline. The boy checked the shoreside mud for tracks, checked among the bones for signs of the creature. There were none. No scat, no fur, no grass matted down for bedding, nor prints to mark its comings and goings. The boy left the clearing, contented that the world still held a secret. Glad that he would always have a mystery to carry with him.

[Anonymous No.4861664]

I love WW1 Poems so I tried to write my own

He cocked the gun
He put a load into
He stood erect
I said one word
I don't remember what it was
Oh wait
It was "you are dead"

[Anonymous No.4861670]

M is for the Most amazing thing
O is for Oh my god I love you
T is for Thanks for loving me
H is for Hugs and kisses
E is for Everybody laughs at me but you
R is for Really nice

[Anonymous No.4861679]

>>4861670
That actually kind of touched me.

[Anonymous No.4861682]

Does events, where What some good "guides to me so much blood". That said, that read inbetween a growing up, all one of busy... formationship with Out! Out, brief candler's travel too, and public mean than a realistic examples of my critics fault me founderstand, basically and through literatures when they have in more so I'm slovenian and discovery) and internal fate. The "Boring the Alexandrine I missing, /lit/ feel it is a joke. No, no! not even that with St. Ambience, to struts as clearly demarcated

Just think of how it end of adding for the philosopher and I've never picked up the 10 syllables is probably in the should I useful cognitive there any good "guides, say, reading? stantly what are try such a ready over 2,500 working shall novel.

[Anonymous No.4861684]

>>4861679
Mom get off of /lit/ you're embarrassing me in front of my friends

[Anonymous No.4861689]

>>4861682
You glance across the table is set for five. You glance across the table to see what is unmistakably Bart Simpson standing at the foot of your neighborhood covered in X’s. You are laying on your neck of a group of disapproving African-Americans printed on holographic foil. You are to deliver this photo to the monster says “DADDY.” On the other side is a many-colored cocktail umbrella. You take it from him, knowing better than to defy the will of favorite TV dad HONEMRE SAMPSNO. mmm, DOGNUTS.” He extends his hand to you, in the morning or at night. You are laying in bed, making a vague attempt to sleep. At least until you get up for your laptop again, you insomniac. It is midnight. You shift around trying to find a comfortable position to no avail. Because it actually isn’t your bed. You scramble out of the sink with a blank expression on her face. It lasts for all of six and a half seconds. She then disappears. The towel is now a white plastic egg with no perceivable means of opening it. You are to protect this

[Anonymous No.4861693]

>>4861684
Oh no I've been found out

[Anonymous No.4861695]

I browsed /lit/ as soon as I got home. The glaring screen reflected in my glasses like the moon upon the sea. I sipped green tea nibbled on Bear Paw cookies. I thought about her, how she would never be my girlfriend, and how she was 23 and probably not a virgin.

"Honey!" Mother called.

"What."

"Just checking to see if you're still there."

A dog barked like a lion outside in the distance. I finished my coffee and opened the blue curtains in my room.

[Anonymous No.4861703]

>>4861689
Transgressive. I like it.

[Anonymous No.4861751]

A recent poem of mine

It is bittersweet.
It is the salty taste of sweat on your lips.
It is the breeze against your shirt.
It is the first taste of fresh coffee.
It is the warmth of clean blankets.
It is yearning.
It is chewing on dark chocolate.
It is the first chill of fall.
It is the call of your name from a stranger.
It is a certain look.
It is growing impatience.
It is a caress on your arm.
It is humid breath against your neck.
It is a shock in your back.
It is a certain combination of notes in a song.
It is a sigh of wanting
It is the longing of something never possessed.
It is skin on skin on skin.
It is the crunch of dead leaves.
It is aching with no pain.
It is the moment before you touch.
It is small talk.
It is indeed bittersweet.

[Anonymous No.4861773]

>>4861751
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0yGCCMnjzbg

[Anonymous No.4861786]

>>4858810
http://pastebin.com/7PdvrYJ6

~1,500 word reflective essay I wrote

[Anonymous No.4861787]

Bestowed a glance upon my shoes. They were sort of greasy. ¡Pleasant color! Said my mother. She has been acting weirdly lately. That's what they say though, but I see in her a latent artist, really.
A program in TV or something. Of course, she says it with an ironic smile. But this ironic sometimes becomes real.

[Anonymous No.4861792]

>>4858838
8/10, though I do agree with >>4858865

[Anonymous No.4861815]

http://pastebin.com/Yz3jpMBc
1556 words
About half has been thoroughly edited, the rest just touched up.

[Anonymous No.4861829]

>>4861568
>good, so close to great
Thanks. I changed it a bit:

Restless action — the sea swell breaks,
shoots an icy glitter-spray reflecting rays of light
as it travels across uncertain territories.
The earth consumed by the eager tide;
the experience total.

Then the gradual loss of momentum,
slowing, absorbing the elongated shadows of the end-of-day,
imbibing itself in complacency;
water turning into a viscous ethanol
and settling as a heavy dew in the red wine evening.

It's my first poem and I'm honestly pretty proud of it. I recently did an essay about John Ashbery and I feel like he influenced this a lot.

[Anonymous No.4861832]

>>4861829
sounds like woolfs the waves

except far worse

promising though

[Anonymous No.4861837]

>>4861832
>woolfs the waves
I haven't heard of it but I'll check it out. Thanks.

[Anonymous No.4861843]

I walk as a school, down the grey road
how it lingers fairies down the tires
I watch the something, burning rainbow.

Flowers burn increasing
Freeze the sentiment of life
Somehow stars seem nearer
Capture comets, see the light.

[Anonymous No.4861851]

I once pet my cat
in the middle of the night
to hear her purr.
And in the morning
I woke rigidly
like a starch-less tunic
of an emperor
who died in exile
because of something
history forgot.
So I lived another day
as my last
and slept some more,
but only after
feeding my cat.

[Anonymous No.4861893]

>>4858810
The opening page and a half of this short story I'm writing, started on it last night

The average New England town carries a sort of duality no one seems to notice. Say you live in Connecticut, look out your window to see what I mean. Look and see and the world in Spring's bloom, Summer in it's bright ecstasy, and Early Fall in its final hurrah. See the sun presiding like a proud father over a land of vibrant green; the forests shaking in the breeze. Or go out side and put an ear to the ground.

Hear the calls of wilderness echo in the day and night, the soft chirps and howls of nature mixed with the distant sound of cars on the main road breaking the wind. Notice besides the ambient background there's nothing else - no constant construction work or the white noise of shoes shuffling along crowded sidewalks.

The illusion's so perfect that no one complains about these season's shortcomings. People bring up the mosquitoes, the humidity, the boredom that turns stupid white kids ghetto and into hicks and the thousand other things I could say about the supposedly quaint New England town, but it's all glossed over. When the animals noises grow too loud at night, people put in ear plugs and turn on high-powered fans. When it gets too hot, they crank the AC or jump in a pool.

And then October comes; Fall turns cruel. The plants die. The days shrink. Winter comes and the land cracks and freezes, becoming icy and sick with treacherous roads and numbing temperature. Everyone complains when it is cold, but hardly enyone notices the subtle blossoms of Winter's reign.

No one remembers the relief of stepping out of the wind and feeling warmth course through their veins again. No one notices how easy it is to fight the chill as opposed to the heat. In winter, you just put on a jacket and drink a cup of cold coffee. In the summer, you have to strip, lather yourself in sterile smelling lotion, jump in a lake, or get heat stroke and die to escape discomfort. But everyone complains in winter.

[Anonymous No.4861896]

>>4861893
boring

[Anonymous No.4861901]

>>4858838
it's a good idea but just reads like a sketch and not a Poem

[Anonymous No.4861908]

>>4861134
>of organism in interstitial crevasses
was interested intil I read this

[Anonymous No.4861909]

Something I wrote a couple day ago for the beginning of a story:

Even though it was many years ago, I still can remember the small benches where Aimé and I sat, the shaded lawns stretching far into the distance, moving ever downwards and away from us and the grand building where – if standing on the roof – we could look out and see the see that was many miles away. One day he gave me a painting, the one that hangs in the very back room of my house; it is a painting I do not often look to its haunted image of a woman floating down a river, her hair a green mess of rapine plants and her face bloated and pale as the clouds circling above her like buzzards, for I know what pain it caused Aimé, the poor man who could stand at the very top and only think that he would never again see the world without this Ophélie whom he longed to follow down that dark river that took her to him and then away.
His Ophélie who came to him swimming, slept a dead sleep with him, made him the loved one and the one who loves; how cruel his birth was! I can imagine his mothering fawning over her new baby boy, not knowing that her stories of sleeping beauties – always named Aimée – and princes – twinned name with their loves, Aimé – would affect his life, that they would be prophecies over the women he loved and the woman who would cause him to die. No, I will not mince words: these stories were his death. They followed him all his life, sticking to the corners of his mind, he would forever be unable to release himself from their grip until I had the unfortunate job of cutting the cords and telling him the truth: Ophélie is dead, she drowned long before you met her, my dear Aimé! You may have painted her a million times, caressing her mask – the mask you placed over her true face, which was no longer a face – while you did so, but she will forever be far down rivers that I can only wish you followed, if only so that I did not have to cut those ropes that would have drug you out to sea and then down into the abyss.

[Anonymous No.4861915]

You lay your thumbs upon your belt
Ready to do this job you’ve been dealt
You’re never scared
You always come prepared
But please be aware
He don’t care

*He’s just too big for you
Ain’t nothing you can do
But rip the mask from his face
And put him in his place*

The world we know is crumbling down
It’s good to know that you’re around
CIA
You always find a way
To catch out your prey
But at the end of the day

*He’s just too big for you
Ain’t nothing you can do
But rip the mask from his face
And put him in his place*

Oh, interrogation in the skies
Do they realise you’re a hero?
Know that your men will trust in you
They’ll always follow you wherever you go

*He’s just too big for you
Ain’t nothing you can do
But rip the mask from his face
And put him in his place*

[Anonymous No.4861917]

>>4861270
laughed

[Anonymous No.4861919]

>>4861786
Bump for opinion

[Anonymous No.4861922]

>>4861896
You're a meanie

[Anonymous No.4861925]

>>4861695
tea or coffee?

[Anonymous No.4861933]

>>4861843
are these trippy song lyrics?

[Anonymous No.4861936]

>>4861851
this is the most interesting thing in the thread I've read so far.

not saying a whole lot, but.

[Anonymous No.4861944]

I always wanted to capture the beauty of the world
On a canvas that truly harnessed it's true potential
My mother always wanted me to chase my dreams
With a butterfly net in one hand and my heart in the other
But my father always despised my aspirations
And snapped my brushes in front of me
I just wanted to go to art school

I craved to see the world around me
And travel to places id never been before
I just wanted to walk streets paved with gold
With doors that never closed to the outside world
But life didn't want my eyes to witness the land
And the people looked down upon me in my rags
I just wanted to go to art school

All I wanted was to be accepted by my peers
So I spoke with a tongue of silver to rally them
My words showed them my visions
And they saw through my eyes
I spoke in a way that set them free
From the shackles of my rivals and opponents
I wanted to be a star and be loved by my friends
I wanted to show everyone the true ways
I just wanted to go to art school

My country was falling to pieces
From the treatment we did not deserve
I told them how the others had wronged us
I told them we deserved reparations
I said we deserved revenge
For our countrymen who fell to their knees
In a war we didn't mean to start
I wanted to raise the people from the streets
And demand that the other countries wrongs be righted
I just wanted to go to art school

My mind told me to take all the land that laid before me
Because my people deserved every inch of it
It rightfully belonged to all of us
And we would tear it from their bloody hands
We would not take no for an answer
As our soldiers marched through their arches
And occupied their streets
I just wanted to go to art school

I had to rid the world of their lies
And their sickening filthy ways
They didn't deserve to breathe our air
Or live on the same planet that we did
They were not perfect like we were
And they needed to die because of it
They needed to be herded into camps
To keep them from infecting our people
They needed to be burned in groups
So their corpses didn't corrupt our soil
I just wanted to go to art school

I needed to see the people who weren't us
Scream and writhe in agony and pain
As their homes were burned to make way for ours
I wanted to stand upon their broken bodies
And build my kingdom with their bones
I needed my regime to hold ultimate power
Because it was rightfully ours and only ours
I needed to kill all who disagreed with me
Because they were evil and their souls were dark
I just wanted to go to art school

[Anonymous No.4861950]

>>4861893
>bright ecstasy
>proud father
>soft chirps
drop these adjectives and it would read better.
I'm interested, though.
Heavy on redundant season explanations, no characters, no story development and no leading into the story. from what you posted, I have no impression of what will happen and really don't care what this will be about

[Anonymous No.4861959]

>>4861915
song more than po-try
pretty straightforward and cool

[Anonymous No.4861964]

>>4861915
lol

so good

[Anonymous No.4861969]

>>4861919
nigga do you expect me to follow links? I'm on 4chan, attention span is like a damn kid in low-income housing halloween

[Anonymous No.4861971]

Awesome writing, awesome idea, awesome execution. Really original. Would lock myself quietly in an attic and read again after my diary entry.

"Never forget muh 6 trillion"

[Anonymous No.4861973]

>>4861969
Can't post 1500 words in one post..

Barnes & Noble
Sometimes a thought or a feeling will strike me that doesn't make sense until I analyze it. They require me to dwell and think, sometimes for hours, about what they mean until I either work out a solution that makes me content or I get tired of doing it. Normally these thoughts remain very private to me because I don't prefer to torture people with my long and arbitrary train of thought, but this scenario is one I hope will be worth your time.
One morning a few weeks back I found myself on the internet while eating breakfast. I was bored and was looking for something entertaining. While looking I found an interesting section of an internet forum--people were posting pictures of their bookshelf so any user could discuss their aesthetics and content. It was mildly interesting and so I clicked around for a bit and looked at some of them. One trend caught my attention and disgust: a large portion of these bookshelves had books from the same publisher series, one I did not recognize. After a little induction and research, I figured out that this series is the Barnes and Noble leather-bound series.
I was instantly repulsed by the appearance of this series. I hated them. Each book in the set is, obviously, bound with real leather. They are colorful and feature a broad rainbow of bold hues, which are selected to obviously match the tone and plot elements of each book--for instance, Dune is bound in a burnt orange and Edgar Allen Poe's complete works is bound in black with red highlighting. Many of the series were made with fake, shiny gold leafing on the pages and in the artwork that adorns the spines, and often make the author's name and title of the book pop out to make it obvious to any onlookers just what sort of intellectual the owner is. They are adorned with gaudy artwork or symbols, such as flashy reflective stars on the spine of the H.G. Wells collection, or the shiny gold pipe on the cover of the Sherlock Holmes collection. The books are aesthetically offensive, ostentatious and tacky: they clearly reflect on the owner's desire to show anybody who may glance at his bookshelf that he is, in fact, a well-read person. This analysis, as apt as it seems, did not satisfy me. I do not want to be critical of people so lightly, it's unnecessary and often wrong. So I spent more time thinking about these books: why did I hate them so much?

[Anonymous No.4861975]

>>4861944
> and my heart in the other

bro.
get real.
this is getting more corny, useless and cliche by the word.

you have structure, some repeating sentence parts and some line meter but damn it is bland language and no imagination

[Anonymous No.4861976]

>>4861851
>I woke rigidly
>like a starch-less tunic
This was a great description until I realized that you use starch to stiffen shirts not the other way around. just fyi

[Anonymous No.4861978]

>>4861909
I'm gonna take a wild guess and say you're going for a classical, 18th-19th century style prose? If so, not bad, but it needs some work. Some things I'd fix:

>Even though it was many years ago
Cut this part
> I still can remember the small benches where Aimé and I sat...we could look out and see the see that was many miles away.

Even keeping in mind that you're channeling old-timey style, long-ass sentences like this are why it takes me a lot of effort to read classics. I can literally hear my inner voice running out of breath. Break that sentence up into at least two separate ones.

>One day he gave me a painting, the one that hangs in very back room of my house...and then away

This is just an ugly sentence. I'd reword it as something like: "One day he gave me a painting, the one that hangs in the very back room of my house. I oft turn my head from its haunted image - the scene of a woman floating down a river, her hair a green mess of rapine plants and her face bloated and pale as the clouds circling above her like buzzards. I avoided it for the pain it caused Aimé, that poor man who stood at the very top and only thought of how he would never again see his Ophélie."

the rest of it is alright.

[Anonymous No.4861981]

>>4861973
I began to look deeper and think a little longer. Another thing I soon noticed was that each book's spine was crafted differently--each one's text was oriented different and were printed in different fonts. The backing ridges that originally gave leather-bounds more durability were there, but were not uniform over the series--they were placed for aesthetics. They were placed to make each book look different. I had a revelation. The visual choices the artists made when creating these books weren't done out of some grand vision that people want high-quality leather-bound books--not at all. They were made with a purposeful eclecticism--they were designed specifically to appear like a collection that had been gathered from separate publishers over a period, to give off the appearance that the person who owned those books was a long-time collector and reader; in short, to make the owner appear to have a history of refinement that they may not possess otherwise. Yet, simultaneously, I noticed the books do share a strong sense of uniformity: they were cut to the same height, they had a similar sheen, and they all tried to attract attention. This conflicting sense of eclecticism and uniformity--uniformity, I might add, that Barnes and Noble is proud to say is making them rich--is what upset me so much. Only one word occurred to me in this moment: hyperreality.

Hyperreality is an idea of postmodern philosophy that deals with a confounding trend in the aesthetics of our modern world. It's the idea that the artificial traits of a "hyperrealistic" world can be hard to distinguish from genuine reality. Consider, for instance, a building built in the year 2000 that is designed to look like an Italian or Spanish winery, complete with plaster cracking to expose bricks and rusted farm equipment. None of these visual elements are necessary--they are artificial. They are obfuscated fakeness; they are like white lies that strive to distract people from reality--the reality that is bleak, boring, and precludes romanticizing whatever "good ol' days" the mimesis strives to recall.

[Anonymous No.4861987]

>>4861973
>>4861981
I focused back to the books with this revelation in mind. I reviewed each picture carefully, and soon another observation came to me--none of these books had been read, or if they had, they had been very lightly handled. I realized it must be the case that the owners of these books valued the appearance of these books more than they valued the ability to read them, because if the spines were to get creased, or the leather to get torn, the primary function of the book would be lost. We, as humans, buy expensive clothing not because the clothing is higher quality or will last longer, but because we use the clothes to express our status. In the same way, buying overly high-quality books is a shallow flaunting: you don't go play in the park and ruin your dress-up clothes, nor do you scuff up your high-quality books like you do other books. In this sense the elements that once made leather-bounds preferable, their quality, is reduced and now makes them limiting! The function is all but lost, and hollow narcissism remains.

Now is the part where I feel compelled to make a clichéd jab at consumer culture. Should I blame the baby boomers for creating this corporate-controlled monstrosity, where Barnes and Noble plays perfectly on people's emotions to sell expensive, slave-made crap to insecure middle-class Americans? Barnes and Noble hires smart marketers; I'm pretty sure they know of the ghetto-rich mentality of buying Coach bags and Starbucks that plagues middle-class America, and they know that these books exploit the feelings of insecurity they foster to continue profits. Should I insult "my generation" for their lack of self awareness and for trying to affect a sense of intelligence through mimicry? Corporations know that if they make a product that has the affect of quality, then people will buy it. After they buy it, they then show off their new product and coerce others socially into complimenting this product (and the person too!)--this is how corporations prey on the insecure. But neither of these criticisms is new or interesting; and I hate being dull. So what is there left to conclude? What greater life lesson can I learn?

[Anonymous No.4861989]

First paragraph

There was a delay in consciousness for just one moment when Diane’s eyes shut; it was only meant to be for an instant, a single blink in time as irrelevant to history as whether Adolf Hitler died in the morning or the afternoon, a clash of daylight and darkness in the corners of her mind that lasted an eternity. However, a delay in consciousness is the same as an eruption of sleep sometimes—we’ve all done it, just tried resting our eyes one day only to open them again a few seconds later to find that three hours had passed. The same happened to Diane, only no time had passed. She simply opened her eyes and saw nothing in front of her.

[Anonymous No.4861993]

>>4861973
reads like a blog post, like a journalism student's venting

[Anonymous No.4861998]

>>4861973
>>4861981
>>4861987
In times of confusion like these, I find that reevaluating my emotions and flowing with them will take me to another conclusion. So I hated this, I hate the books, I hate the corporate influence, I hate my generation for not being able to fight it, and so the emotion I feel for just about everything is hate. Where does this hate go? What is its purpose? To solve this I look to psychology, which has a tendency to hammer a sense of humility into me. It didn't take me long to realize that I was doing was projecting: I saw other people trying to impress others with objects, and I do it too. I feel insecure too. I live a life of trying to affect superiority too. I look to corporate products to fill the negativity and confusion I feel. I'm a part of the disgusting mess; I'm a cog in the horrible machine. In the end, I have to crush my own ego with the daunting realization that I am not special, I am a fallible, ego-centered consumerist; I am an approval-seeking, confused person with no clear idea of how to be happy. I can't even look at other people without seeing my ugliness. Like a leather-bound Barnes and Nobles classic, I live a life of fear, one where I am too afraid to scruff myself. I have become so obsessed with the image I want to project that I forgot it's only an image. The image is straw, it's see-through, it bends under gentle wind and fools nobody; yet there's me under that image and I am upset at myself for failing to be happy.

I wish I could say something useful, interesting or profound right now. I wish I had some perfect combination of words that gives everything meaning, that makes sense of all these thoughts. I wish I could promise to change, to fix myself and humanity. I wish I could just reprogram myself and fix the bug, and make it so I'll never have to contend with it again, but I will. After it all, there really wasn't any meaning or solution. There was only me--alone, sitting on my computer, staring into darkness and crying out into the abyss for answers, only to hear my echo in return.

[Anonymous No.4862001]

>>4861993
http://condor.depaul.edu/writing/writers/Types_of_Writing/reflectiveessay.html

[Anonymous No.4862002]

The things that I see, devour my mind
I'm looking for answers, I know I won't find
The whispers engulf me, I can't get away
Gibberish and mumblings, all night and all day
The fire is rising, I can't feel the burn
I'm running and screaming, with nowhere to turn
The worst of it all, a series of clicking
That Monotonous, unending, incessant ticking
I lock myself in, drown it all out
The louder I scream, the louder it shouts
It takes over my thoughts, I can't seem to think
It gets louder and louder the more that I drink
My friends they all laugh, the butt of the joke
They laugh so damn hard, I hope they all choke
And during it all, he'll stand there and wait
He shows no emotions, a symbol of fate
The more my mind dies, the more I spout laughter
I laugh harder and harder, the ticking grows faster
Suddenly silence, the world stops in it's tracks
My mind finally dies, as it shatters and cracks
I breath one more time, finish the note
I carve my goodbye with a knife to my throat

[Anonymous No.4862005]

>>4861998
it's nice to be inside your head, but I wish it was about a more interesting, specific event that you observed, like a family party, like a social situation, something away from your home and inner-feelings. something more everyday

[Anonymous No.4862010]

>>4862002
LINKIN PARK

[Anonymous No.4862021]

>>4862005
Fair enough

[Anonymous No.4862022]

>>4861925
It's surrealism idiot

[Anonymous No.4862035]

>>4861975
I'll work on it m8

[Anonymous No.4862124]

Deep within the deceptively small limits of the pasta aisle at Joe's, George Decanter was lost in a self-contained argument as to whether one could actually get drunk off the vodka cream sauce. It had been nearly six, maybe seven, years since he had even thought about picking up a bottle, cream or marinara. The prospect of getting drunk whilst eating pasta intrigued him in a way pasta had not since his coworker had directed his attention to that TED Talk about Moskowitz– he couldn't remember the exact details, but he did feel a sudden craving for extra-chunky, also something about a bliss point; though that could have been that thing about three scotches for creativity, four for sleep .
Over in aisle six (Mexican vegetables, proudly not grown in Mexico) Jane Smith pushed her cart with the passive aggressive fury unique to sexually repressed suburban women with a taste for jumpsuits only matched by fictional Russian immigrants. Her hair was done up in an unintentional tribute to the worst of 80's mullets, while her knuckles were white with grip onto her cart full of non-gmo grains, and sixteen gallons of apple cider vinegar– homeopathic intestinal lubricant. She was turning onto five when she noticed a rather heavyset man gazing intently at a bottle of Prego vodka cream sauce. His hunched stance, coupled with his long suit jacket, took up around two feet of the three and a half foot aisle. Jane was in a hurry, so she recalled her basic math, and figured she could fit her cart through with a politely enunciated excuse, and still get by only grazing the back of the man's suit jacket.

Still deep in thought, but now over the suspicious origins of vodka cream sauce– drunk Russian, or adventurous drunk Italian, and don't even get him started on the Polish variable, let alone those wily Ukrainians. George failed to notice the blonde train wreck of a mother hurtling towards him with the blind intent of a CN train slamming into a drunk. He did, however notice her– as the drunk usually explodes– when the cart's prow sent him to the tile. His head bounced, and he faded into dark.
Waking up, he felt a gooey mess under his head, fearing the worst, and believing the women was going to get away with this fucking excuse of a manslaughter, George removed his newly polished Glock forty five, and ensured her lungs were as perforated as her brain surely was. Turning his head to look at his success, his own blood seeped over his tongue,hmm, he thought, vodka.

[Anonymous No.4862134]

>>4862124
ix AM on Saturday was Joe of Joe's favorite time to supervise. Even the occasional robbery failed to dissuade him from assuming the big chair's shouting duties– Joe, ever the adamant Tears for Fears fan, had installed a fully functional PA control system within the big chairs armrest, this was due to his lack of knowledge of the band's obsession with primal therapy, and thus took the title of the band's album literally. His workers usually took to calling the big chair the throne of blood. Blood being a substance Joe seemed to apt to suck from his worker's wallets.
Tonight, was not Joe's best night in the big chair, after just having played the, in his opinion, underrated title cut of Dick Dale's Nitro, he saw from his perch, the events of aisle five unfold in all their detail.
“Clean up on five!” was all he could get out before the downed man powered off his fellow shopper. Resulting in what, for years, he would worry witnesses would misinterpret as a sarcastic remark against power-shoppers– whom he did hate, just not murder-hate. The second phrase he spoke, then, must be carefully examined as an indicator of his shock over the shopper's death. “Fuck me.”
It is also important to realize that this phrase,in no way represented Joe's placing of his personal well being above those of his shoppers, who he famously offered near whole-sale price every first Tuesday of every month. This love can be seen in Joe being the very first to contact the police. Though this was after around twenty customers had called only to find that the local cell tower atop Joe's was down for maintenance. So it was up to Joe who had, in a fit of paranoia, installed a land line into the big chair; fearful that Tears for Fears had meant shout as a term for a call.
Supermarket security was the first thought on George's mind as his hand slid through the goop to find leverage. On his way in he had seen the white grips on their Silverballers, and knew that they, unlike local PD, knew how to handle themselves in a firefight. So George brought his pistol to bear on the end of aisle five, but alas lost his leverage and fell back into the muck, slamming his left ear on a piece of glass. At this point, he knew for certain he was actually bleeding, and down an ear if the sudden migraine told him anything. He hoped that security didn't decide to go Mr. Blonde on his remaining ear– that and the gas thing.

[Anonymous No.4862150]

>>4862124
>>4862134
Joe saw that the shooter fell again, and felt a sudden urge to cheer, as his security had once again managed to neutralized another situation with their insistence on slippery floors in aisle five– they told him constantly that it was always the Italians you had to watch out for, sure they may claim to make their own sauce, but they buy the store brand just as much as any other demographic; they don't like to be caught doing it, and as such, have a certain proclivity for store based violence. This had been the third sauce based threat neutralization this year. Joe still made the call, if only to embarrass the PD again with his stores successful arrest record, which was exponentially higher than the PD's own.
Joe settled back into the big chair, as security carted the man off to police transfer in baked goods – aisle one. His security chief, Frisell, had made the climb up to the rafters.
“Thoughts on the droog.”
“Bastard cost me three-fifty.”
“Aside from the monetary loss...sir.”
“Oh, uh, wait for PD?”
“Indeed, sir, will do.”
“Oh, and Frisell, did you get that mixtape I asked for, the one with that band, uh, what was it, The Feelers, Zany Beat, or something like that.
“Yes, sir, I'm assured IT is integrating it now. Sir, may I ask if the investors have heard about tonight?”

“No, I'll do that soon, they don't need to hear about a consumer loss just yet. Dismissed.” Joe flicked a switch on the big chair, causing it to whirr off down the track above the aisles, crisscrossing over its rails into above the shopping sea. Frisell, gave no notice of his thoughts, but if he could, they would involve a correction, a slap, and a possible defenestration of America's favorite shopping personality. However, Frisell knew better than that, he had been through worse inanities for a pay check– hell he had even dealt with the fuck's desire for Silverballers after seeing that Olyphant movie.

[Anonymous No.4862156]

>>4862124
>>4862134
>>4862150
Frisell thought the best thing a supermarket ever did was strip a city naked, reveal its faults in diet, and interaction, a fish tank of obscura. Well, also pay his bills. Hell, that was enough to keep him here long enough to memorize the locations of all the upper track exit points.
However, Frisell wandered along the catwalk to long, slim, shaft, colored a dark blue to fade in with the ceiling to the customers. He pressed a few panels and produced the first few notes of “Shout.” A door slid across an invisible track, revealing a small grey compartment covered in buttons numbers one to, god knows Frisell never bothered to count them. Lester, the button counter, had been at that for years, subsisting only on payments of Terry Riley, and Moondog recordings. The scroungy man, covered in unseen boils, that reeked like fresh caught sponges in Tarpon Springs. Reminding Frisell of the time he spent there a few years back, when he was still playing free-jazz guitar gigs. What he specifically remembers is the smell of the dockworkers coming after long shifts to hear something, anything besides creaks, and groans. Memories of which, grow so vague flowing together like the sea upon which they were made.
“Floor?” Lester said, his mouth still making numbers.
Frisell foot touched down upon a carpet so soft, many swore it was made of the tanned skin of calfs (human, female) but that was not the case– not that Frisell had heard differently, but he felt he would have noticed. A few steps in, and a cascade of light poured down the hall, revealing the Joe portraits that stretched on till the hallway itself seemed to slope. Frisell took long galloping strides, in no way was this to avoid touching the off-pink carpet, and strut past a door marked Witness Retrieval, and another marked Siskind (whom he never talked too, he tended to drone on, a bit like TV static) , to find the wrought iron door (complete with randomized lock) marked Frisell.

[Anonymous No.4862165]

>>4861629
Bumping for feedback.
Will trade an honest and substantive critique of yours for one of mine.

[Anonymous No.4862265]

>>4862165
I felt like there wasn't much to say. It's just very clear and straightforward while still providing enough detail. That's good because many aspiring writers get lost in trying to nitpick stupid things or make it more complex when it doesn't need to be. I can't critique it as a story because it seems like only an excerpt of something larger but it sounds good so far. Only problem would be that it isn't stylized enough; it could be more unique, though you have to be careful because you could ruin the clarity that I just complimented you on. Got to find a balance.

[Anonymous No.4862303]

>>4861950
>>4861893
In that case here's my revisions
>>4861896
eat shit

The average New England town carries a sort of duality no one seems to notice. Say you live in Connecticut, just look out your window to see what I mean. Look and see the world in Spring and Summer’s bloom and Early Fall in its final hurrah. See the sun preside over a land of vibrant green; the forests shaking in the breeze. Or go outside and put an ear to the ground.
Hear the calls of wilderness echo in the day and night, the chirps and howls of nature mixed with the distant sound of cars on the main road breaking the wind. Notice besides the ambient background there's nothing else - no constant construction work or the white noise of shoes shuffling along crowded sidewalks.
The illusion's so perfect that no one complains about the seasons’ shortcomings. People bring up the mosquitoes, the humidity, and the thousand other things I could say about the supposedly quaint New England town, but it's all glossed over.
Then the coin flips – winter comes and the plants die and the days shrink while the land freezes. Suddenly everyone complains, but hardly anyone notices the subtle blossoms of Winter's reign.
No one remembers the relief of stepping out of the wind and feeling warmth course through their veins again, or how easy it is to fight the chill – all you have to do is put on a jacket. No one sees the good, only the bad.
I’ve learned from the seasons that a lot of people think in extremes. Summer is warm; winter is cold. Life is good; death is bad. Logic is sound; crazy is sin. Logic’s the biggest extreme, everybody puts stock in that. People think because you can reason something to be true that it’s totally true.
Everything breaks down at some point. If you have a kid, you picture him normal, growing up with a goofy smile on his face and making lots of friends. My parents had me and pictured a perfect boy. They reasoned that I had to be. They hardly yelled at me, saving the loud noises for my brother and sister and spoiling me every chance they got.
They saw my wavy brown hair and dimples, saw all the books I’d read and the way I smiled when they called my name and they overlooked my shitty set of teeth, the raccoon circles under my eyes and the disturbingly dark sense of humor that no five-year-old should have. They believed I was normal and perfect.
But would a perfect child hear voices in the dark, or embarrass himself at school and swear he sees the faces of the laughing kids distort and grow discolored with each cackle from their cruel lips? Would a child still be loved if everyone knew he was crazy?

[Anonymous No.4862341]

>>4862165
basically what this guy said >>4862265
I thought it was simple yet eloquent, but there are some things I'd fix.
>They stood alone...they were walls and inside them felt like a quiet place
Change it to "It stood alone, growing out of the yellow grass like walls and inside them it felt like a quiet place."

>A great predator had made this his place; had dragged his kills and finds here for a lifetime
This is fine on its own, but personally I'd change one or two words. Instead of "place" I'd say "haunt", and instead of "had dragged" I'd write "dragging his kills here for a lifetime."

Other than that though, pretty good. So, critique for critique? >>4862303

[Anonymous No.4862354]

>>4862265
Thanks a lot. I'll work on adding to it without drowning it. Do you have a submission on here?

[Anonymous No.4862528]

>>4862303
Thanks for the feedback on mine. I will try those changes.

Yours is impressive. The opening especially resonates because I live in a small New England town. But even if I didn't I think the dichotomy you point out is universal and aptly explained. The passage about people thinking in extremes and the examples are really solid and segue nicely into the logic as preeminent. It's a show of your strength as a writer that it establishes the later failure of logic to quantify a well loved child going mad. As well as the parents inability to see the cracks in the facade. The subject matter is engaging, a child descending, his auditory and viual hallucinations. I also like your ability to, in a single inquisitive sentence, establish exactly what kind of crazy the kid is, and how dark it is. He doesn't just hear and see things, he hears things in the dark and sees cruel lips. For criticism I would say:
>that it's totally true
-change that to something like absolutely or always or stone. "totally" is a shitty word.
>shitty set of teeth
- don't say shitty, it's a shitty word and not in keeping with the style of your narrative
>Everything breaks down at some point
-this is a pretty bold statement. Earlier you made a claim "people think in extremes" then you gave good examples to back it up in the case of "everything breaks down" the only example you provide is the breakdown of the boy/parents expectations that pushes the story forward. It might benefit from further examples or to be changed to something less broad than "everything."
The last thing I have isn't a criticism so much as a piece of advice. When you switch to first person, and you talk from the "my" or "I" be careful. It is fine in this passage and well executed but I assume this is part of a larger narrative. A huge amount of the Millennial generations literature is very self involved. Yours is fine in this peice and works well but be aware of it as you write more, don't write a short story or novel(la) that reads like a personal memoir. Publishers are getting tired of that and I think your language, style, and subject matter are definitely worthy of consideration for publication. I would definitely read more.

Again thnx for the response on mine. It was solid advice.

[Anonymous No.4862579]

>>4862528
Thanks dude, and I probably should've mentioned it's one chapter in a series of interconnected stories. Instead of writing it as a straightforward biography, I want each chapter/story to be a different moment in the character's life that defined him, with each chapter changing in style to convey how fluid madness can be

[Anonymous No.4862593]

>>4861976

Ah thanks, i'll change it pronto

[Anonymous No.4862620]

>>4861973
Crits please

[Anonymous No.4862627]

>>4862620
Dreadful. The writing is solid, but the content is just gross. I will never get back the time I spent reading that. You owe me 45 seconds. I accept payment in the form of cigarettes.

[Anonymous No.4862637]

>>4862124
responses? If only to the first (most worthwhile) section?

[Anonymous No.4862652]

>>4862637
You know nothing of produce, that much is clear.

[Anonymous No.4862664]

>>4862579
You're welcome

That's a cool idea

[Anonymous No.4862670]

>>4862620
That other guy is right. You're not a bad writer but the story is just so so awful.

[Anonymous No.4862684]

They took him from his fields and forests. he wanted to chop thistle heads off with a stick in battle. He wanted to go back and find those places in the forest where maybe nobody had ever been. Where the trees formed a canopy and that secret spot was darkened. They took him and put him in that room in the desert. Alarms on the windows, alarms outside his room. He looked at the desert outside and saw its scalloped texture. In his eyes was all the breadth of creation and none of the lonely places. Broken only by Indian sage and blank faced stone mesas. Once there had been water here. And in that water living things. You could still find them sometimes; the memory of them dimpled in rocks. When the waters dried they took the best things with them.
You could not hum here and imagine the trees heard you. You could not wonder what hid inside a glen or what was just beyond the next wood. You could not seek shelter from the sun under a pine bough and hide there. In the desert everything is laid bare and the land is honest. So he learned to hide in hisself. For want of a quiet green place he learned to go inward. The desert taught him how to hide openly and never be seen. Something was lost though; something that could not be put right again. Someday they would open the doors and he would walk out and return to his woods and thistled fields. And they would not be what they once were to him. He no longer needed them and they seemed now like a place one only occasionally visits.

[Anonymous No.4862692]

Sitting behind the wheel of this '87 Cobra would positively give Henry Ford a hard-on about the length of a conveyer belt. An exhaust that sounds like Zeus bellowing an opera with his ass, an acceleration that would make a mouse's hart pop, and leather seats fit for the pope or president's grandmother spoil me. But what really sets this car ablaze, I mean make it real fuckin' fiery, is my West Texan piece of chargrilled ass sitting next to me. The owner of these crystalline aquamarine windows into to heaven was none other than the wonderful Maylene, sweeter than May and leaner than any stripper I've ever seen. Right now, driving down route 66, I feel compelled to think AC/DC might have really fucked up lyrically with Highway to Hell; it should have been Heaven. Ironically however, Hell is far more similar to the the bar I'm heading to. While it's not the most stereotypically pernicious dive-bar, it has its idiosyncrasies that make it less like pre-school and more like eternal damnation. Watching a Korean guy smash a bottle of Jack-Daniels on his own forehead in front of a crew of black dudes comes to mind. Gladly, whenever I go with Reggie, I feel like I have diplomatic immunity. And as I'm overwhelmed by violent memories, a headful of gliding air, and waves of Slow Ride by Foghat, I feel Maylene's hand greet my inner thigh, and I grin like Cheshire Cat. Navigating to and around my junk, she whips out my chunky chicote and composes a symphony with her tongue that would wow even Ron Jeremy. It was May's inexplicable spontaneity and enthusiasm that had me hooked and booked. Eventually I release my reservoir of baby gravy between May's rose-coral lips and stroke her hair as I say thank you, admiring the past fifteen minutes of succulence and silence, and getting ready to park. We just arrived to Tabitha's, El Paso's deadliest bar.

[Anonymous No.4862693]

>>4862670
>>4862627
Thank you fuck that's all I needed to hear

[Anonymous No.4862710]

>>4862693
I'm in detox right now and I'm having intense mood swings so I cannot tell if my writing is shit or good. I wrote that in a very low state and my instincts are haywire. Thank you for releasing my mind from this topic.

[Anonymous No.4863243]

In my youth I fondly remember sitting next to a fireplace while my grandmother read me the adventures of the Greek hero Odysseus; the one thing that stayed from hearing about his exploits was about how he had placed candle wax in his ears to block out the gravity of the alluring sirens. Tonight I decided to put that idea into practice, I am sitting at my desk with quill, ink and paper writing all this down while I can still hear albeit faintly almost indistinctly the call of the sirens coming from deeper within the woods.

[Anonymous No.4863274]

pissy @$$

I drag my hands over the ragged floor of the city. Heaving and belching in day and night, shedding scabs like plastic bags into the gutters that are filled with gaudy leaflets selling more, more, more. My teeth seethe, burning my tongue with the recycled bile of these words and colours thrown at my mind day in, day out. I always take my time to listen, but the disembodied voices who spew meaningless babble through speakers and screens leave me no rest in the night. There is such solace in silence.

[Anonymous No.4863312]

>>4862692
>> Maylene, sweeter than May and leaner than any stripper I've ever seen.

Just woke up the next neighborhood dog - thanks!

[Anonymous No.4863850]

Visit old Blencathra, saddleback, ridden into the dirt.
Visit Coleridge's lakes, diced into bite-sized chunks by a net of b-numbers.
See Wordsworth's daffodils lined up along the M6, artificial colouring.
See the shitty movie about Beatrix Potter,
Or stand in her living room, rifle through her letters,
and leave through the gift shop.

The great English countryside:
where the trees are in grids
and you can buy your own mountain for 2.1 million.

[Anonymous No.4863884]

>>4863243

Wow, that's pretty awesome.

[Anonymous No.4864040]

>>4863850
More please.

[Anonymous No.4864291]

there is not much left to say about flowers.
as well, I think we can dispense with the sky
descriptions, and accounts of various weathers.
no one cares for conventions anymore so to try
them indulges an urge better left to others.
the dog waits at the owner's grave: loyalty.
the cat leaps upon the lap and purrs: whether
this is a matter of emotional expression belies
the essential solipsism of cats. At all hours.
Nor has the ocean ever much cared to try
much in the way of protest. Atlantis' towers,
or Orpheus' head, heart burned out of Shelley -- it's all the same and may well be all lies.

[Anonymous No.4864348]

after the estate sale

only mothers garden left
her strip of retail flowers
aside the stone pavers
to the chain link gate;
her tiger impatiens agate
veins, bubblegum geraniums,
purple loosestrife volunteers

and other family-bereft
guests. Down the pavers
gusts tumbled sweetgum
spike balls to the gate,
while Munchkin sunflowers
bowed to the code-compliant
fence they must be shorter
than to die here.

[Anonymous No.4864361]

>>4858810
They switched on the flashlights and followed him down into the sewer. Moving through the water, spying the distance past his bulk, both of them saw missed shortcuts. They didn’t say anything and followed without looking at their watches.
They paused with him, the torches settling on the alligator. It didn’t do anything, barely letting it’s lungs make a noise. They could hear little things drop from above. The man in front of them stretched his fingers out, as wide and as far apart as he could. The echo of a snarl. Five paces forward in the span of a second. The flashlights wouldn’t stay still and neither would the picture. It tustled and it bustled through the light and the night. A hand on a neck, an abyss of teeth. A roar, a scream and a dozen heavy breathes. Water swelled and they could hear the sound of bones against the brickwork. It began as a match against the strip, but it had settled now. Momentum had slowed the story to a crawl, of a man, with more scars than his near forty two years of life, tightening himself through the loser. It whimpered for another breath and then its eyes closed as it slid out of his grip and back into the water.
The walk took longer on the way back and one of their flash lights ran out of battery power half way through. They climbed out of the sewer, cleaned themselves up and argued about lunch.

[Anonymous No.4864371]

>>4864291
>>4864348

Thank you! It's rough still, but I like your descriptions.

[Anonymous No.4864412]

I make a tuna sandwich and I
sit at my table and eat it
alone as the gravestones
where great great grandfathers
summon if they watch from some
view above little comfort from blue
light, tar black and noise white
they have been replaced by.
Hands, pecks, bushels, drams,
the chain, the league, the talent; the
standard candles now make demands
in pixels kilometers long, angstroms thin.
Kings of apple barns singing
in their sky blue chains don't begin
to mourn us, who have better things to
remember than than our elders.

[Anonymous No.4864423]

>>4858810
>whether
>this is a matter of emotional expression belies
>the essential solipsism of cats.
this is supposed to be funny right because i am laffin

[Anonymous No.4864439]

>>4864423
yes. there is nothing wrong with a poem wiling to attempt a dry wit. Marianne Moore says so.

[Anonymous No.4864466]

>>4864412
>>4864439
How much of this stuff do you have? I sadly have no concrit for you, only interest.

[Anonymous No.4864473]

>>4864466
A chapbook's worth. The rest is juvenalia. Magazines only look at academics and I can't stand the journals. So /lit/ can have some if it wishes, they don't pay anyway.

[Anonymous No.4864485]

>>4864473
That's a bleeding shame.
(You can't condescend to submit to your least hated publication? I'm sure they'd take it.)

I can't speak for the board, but I will happily read what you post.

[Anonymous No.4864527]

>>4864485
This is a poem by Jennifer Chang which I like very much. It has been blogged elsewhere and first appeared in The Nation, and was anthologized in Best American Poetry 2012.

Dorothy Wordsworth

The daffodils can go fuck themselves.
I’m tired of their crowds, yellow ranting
about the spastic sun that dines and shines
and shines. How are they any different

from me? I, too, have a big messy head
on a fragile stalk. I spin with the wind.
I flower and don’t apologize. There’s nothing
funny about good weather. O, spring again,

The critics nod. They know the old joy,
that wakeful quotidian, the dark plot
of future growing things, each one
labeled Narcissus nobilis or Jennifer Chang.

If I died falling from a helicopter, then
this would be an important poem. Then
the ex-boyfriends would swim to shore
declaiming their knowledge of my bulbous

youth. O, Flower, one said, why aren’t you
meat? But I won’t be another bashful shank.
The tulips have their nervous joie-de-vivre,
the lilacs their taunt. Fractious petals, stop

interrupting my poem with boring beauty.
All the boys are in the field gnawing raw
bones of ambition and calling it ardor. Who
the hell are they? This is a poem about war.

[Anonymous No.4864677]

>>4864291
>>4864348
>>4864412

This is in the short story thread, though it is a narrative poem, with apologies to Mark Strand.

But What If And If Only

Al, John, and Jim sat on three clouds observing the United States during a recent vacation from the afterlife.
"It sure got big," John said.
"What a ghastly century the last was," Al said.
"They are still arguing about us. That is not nothing," Jim said.
"Women on the court. Can you imagine?" Al asked.
"And a black man. And a Puerto Rican!" Jim said.
"Such vast work, the blaze of progress. Our little project certainly exceeds my expectations," John said. Jim and Al always thought of John as the wonk of the group.
"Shall we return to the delights behind the curtain then?" Al asked, satisfied that there was nothing to be done here.
"I suppose so," John said.
"One moment," Jim said.
"What is it?" Al asked.
John half-way faded out already.
"Just..."
Jim was listening in on a nine-way deliberation over the meaning of "effects."
"Oh, never mind. They're going to muck it up either way. Let's be going then."
And just like that, they were gone.

[Anonymous No.4864750]

http://pastebin.com/frALqaPJ

A Raildex fanfiction (yeah yeah, I know) I've been working on for a short while, trying to get a grip of actual writing. Story is about a electric esper and magican teaming up to stop your average evil conspiracy.

I just feel it's easier to work with an established setting, when the point is to learn how create good flow in the story and writing.

I'll start posting critique then.

[Anonymous No.4864787]

>>4861909
I agree with:
>>4861978

But I have to say you piqued my curiosity, if only because Focault's Pendulum is still fresh in my mid.

[Anonymous No.4864866]

>>4858810
Queen log
I was walking down London Street
What did I see?
A glorious procession unfolding upon me
Tricolour confetti showering at my feet
A shimmering cart with leaves of gold
And out of the window peeks
A little old lady with rosy cheeks
Looking upon the land she hold
Cheers of wonderment blessed the air
The horses striving on
Despite all the song
At the Jubilee fair

Hand in pocket
I thought
Such opulence is earnt
Surely
Alas no this title is an heirloom
Because her father’s
Father’s
(repeat father 21 times (4chan thinks it's spam)
Father by pure chance
Ruled an army whose arrows
‘Led by Athene herself’
Struck an arrow into the eye of Harold

(1/2)

[Anonymous No.4864870]

>>4858810
(2/2)

And not a single one of these fathers have earnt this
No virtue
No arête in aristocracy
But now the snake sits silent within its adorned log
Upon the blood of workers
Shrugs it’s arms, avoiding spitting embers

Rotating a robotic glove
At her followers
Elizabeth
Daughter of George, most lordly, greediest for the gain of all men

[Anonymous No.4864889]

This is a little something I cooked up that I hope to develop im a full poem:

And misery grew the way misery does: by twisting and cursing and eAting itself. It changed to hatred, from hatred desire- it can look like love to the untrained eye.

[Anonymous No.4864917]

>>4864291
>>4864348
>>4864412
>>4864677
For to be read aloud in a single breath for a Halloween night "Dead Poets" - themed reading. In which the poet reading is "dead:"

Remember That One Time When

After Trelawney snatched Shelley's heart,
after Slocum shrank the globe,
after Maupassant ate his lunch,
after Ahab's ankle in the bight,
after Bulgakov killed Christ again,
after Eddie Willers did nothing wrong,
after the Don flowed in freshets,
after Amelia forgot the spare compass,
after David Markson fucked a Playmate,
after the dogs barfed up the poetry,
after Serling broke the glasses--
after the rubber duckies washed up,
but --
before the asteroid and the EMP,
before the war that no one wanted,
before the sneeze heard round the world,
before the solar flare and Martians,
before the New World Order,
before the end of all nations' borders,
before the great great grand neice,
before the megavolcano under Yellowstone,
before the hurricane that killed New York,
before the Big One made Death Valley Beach,

that was when this happened.

[Anonymous No.4865265]

Here is a short story of mine.

Other than extremely inconsistent comments on the authenticity of the dialogue, being criticized
for having a dis-likable main character, and the assertion that no one aside from teenage girls rolls
their eyes (Although I understand the caution of implementing such an exaggerated expression carelessly,
this is simply false.) I have had no useful commentary on this.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Hqre2qHqAa_tSJ3Y9CGsPNwGnP5U_OMv7CYanceCmac/edit?usp=sharing

Somewhere around 10 people read (at least almost the whole thing, judging from time spent reading) but I never got critiqued on the finished (rough draft) product.

Yet to be determined/arbitrary details are bracketed. Don't worry, they are few and are indeed arbitrary.

Also, just a friendly reminder to give a critique before you expect one.

To anyone who does read, the concern most prevalent in my mind at this time is whether or not to scratch, entirely, the short scene where Mercedes urinates in Kazi's hat. This sounds odd, I know, but you'll see.

[Anonymous No.4865975]

I wrote this a few months ago.

http://paste.programmedsun.com/tqNUNX5k

I feel like I've yet to be proud of anything I've ever done.

[Anonymous No.4867052]

>>4864889
I can dig it. I'd like to see it once it's done

[Anonymous No.4867077]

I apologize.
I cannot criticize the destruction in their eyes.
They try to capitalize on the lies and demise of those who they despise.
I'm done, I'd like a coke and fries.

[Anonymous No.4867165]

>>4858813
>
I can see this working

[Anonymous No.4867172]

>>4859026
>The world is smoke & mirrors/
stopped reading there

[Anonymous No.4867176]

>>4861670
something a 8 year old would write

[Anonymous No.4867472]

>>4863884

Thanks, here's the rest if you're pretty interested. I haven't finished it yet.

[Anonymous No.4867748]

Huddling on the edge of the tower reminded him of their cliff-side perch. Only, where the beck of the ocean had once stilled his nerves, here the indiscernible sea, either a mile away or seventy through the fog, yawned like a pit of despair calling for judgement.

Turn back. The winds roared at him like baying beasts as their greying faces leered out at them from the ocean mist. He ignored them, concentrating on his footing. The rain had made the cobbled surface slick underfoot and they climbed the stone stairs abreast, each with an arm about the other for support.

Glaucus wondered what they were doing here, assaulted by the weather, like two lunatics ascending to the stars. He pictured her slipping and tumbling and taking him with her over the edge. Falling though the bottomless fog for all of time, never hitting the water below. Burning brightest before their demise like the hanging night lanterns that they strived to reach. And those that found them, tangled in the nets of time, would but shake their heads. They deserved their fate they would say.

He shook the image from his mind and focused on the climb. The tower, built on the receding precipice, seemed at its most uneven here. The slant felt precarious enough so that if he had been able to make out the horizon in the gloom it would have seemed at a jaunty angle. Even his sea legs, long accustomed to the buck and sway of the waves, felt uncertain. As they headed above, in search of the eye, the storm showed no sign of subsiding. He swallowed back nausea.

Finally, after what seemed an age, the stairs broke into flat ground and they hurried across the concourse seeking shelter. The surface was slick beneath their feet, paved in dark marble, measuring time like the palm of a wizened man, his many fingers breaking into a balustrade that ran the span of the belvedere. They hurried through a maze of planters, somewhat sheltered by the latticed arbour, their contents looking russet and withered in the rain. As they moved past, Ophelia trailed a hand through the remaining vegetation, fingering the lifeless twine that wound itself through the latticework, rainwater staining her cheeks.

She had taken charge and was leading him to their destination, the final reaches of the tower, and the eye. It occurred to him that from the darkling plain this hanging platform, complete with secret garden, had not been visible. But as he pictured it now, from this new angle, he saw it formed from the tower a natural thing as the gullet morphs into the bill of a swan.

>help me /lit/

Is this far too purple? No matter how I try not to be, I feel like I end up being over elaborate.

[Anonymous No.4868166]

>>4867472
I'm the guy who hates modern poetry, but has contradictorially posted 5 modern poems.

When I read the first paragraph by itself, I was on board, but because I thought the sirens in the woods were the authorities coming after "I" narrator holed up in his hideout. I became convinced I was looking at the first para of a Nabokovian riff on Despair about a maybe criminal detailing his misdeeds and his flight from capture. High hopes, but, so.

Now, I am reduced to hoping that something happens. Soon.

[Anonymous No.4868187]

>>4868166

It's actually about a loner who goes into the woods to find out the source of a noise which turns out to be a giant carnivorous space plant that has a cult which worships it.

[Anonymous No.4868235]

>>4867748
I am not completely turned away, though effort is required. I would not deploy the word purple. There is evidence of effort to control. The moments where the abstractions either wobble off their axles, or leak air are:

>calling for judgement.
Of whom? Or of what? Also: isn't the "pit of despair" the place where Weseley is tortured by Count Rugen in the Princess Bride?

>tangled in the nets of time
This is an almost-working metaphor, except I have difficulty imagining wht the nets are made of, and I don't know how I am supposed to link it to the ongoing procession. There is obviously some missing context here. In general, I favor narrative in which the figures are chosen for their thematic relevance. This "eye" after which we are seeking, has some chronometric relevance, perhaps?

Other notes:

"Turn back." I presume this is Glaucus, expressing reluctance. I would like to be certain of this.

"surface slick underfoot" is followed close aboard by "surface was slick beneath their feet." Both very well may be so, but the presentation makes it appear that either you or I or both forgot that we just said that. Strategic placement of a word substantially similar to "again" would assure me that the repetition is not unintentional. "This floor slippery, too, .." or something.

"staining her cheeks" very delicate, but this "looks" dirty. A stain because the rain runoff is carrying soil or soot? If not, there must be another verb which the rainwater is verbing to her cheeks.

The palm turning into fingers into a balustrade, very nice, as well the tower to swan.

Certainly I can inhabit this architecture, at the expense of some patience. Dread and menace are well established. The above are merely small chinks where some light from your studio leak through.

[Anonymous No.4868241]

>>4868187
Excellent. I am now back on board. Given the second sample, do not fear to allow an event to at least begin to occur within some next few dozen words.

[Anonymous No.4868497]

>>4864917
>>4864291
>>4864348
>>4864412
>>4864677

As A Stone

The locomotive clattered through;
it sounded not like a tornado.
Nor the ocean as it crashed
and sifted like the breath
of a conch shell at all;
an even exhalation, withal.
We may be relatively doubt-free:
no one has ever heard a Banshee.
There are many types of drum
which are actually rather loose.
A profound eulogy delivered
in squeaky voice yields poor succor.
When one of these silent cars whiffs
by, I commune with the first
farmer who abhorred the first
car he saw, and mourned
his horse the loss of its primacy;
he knew futility,
and now so do I.
That the church is permitted to peal
its carillon at dawn is neither pall-
iative nor ever meant to be. The bells
were never clear. What the clock tells
to be Matins or Vespers may well
mean a daughter's train and veil,
or be the dreadful clang and call
that one of our neighbors is dead.

[Anonymous No.4868556]

>>4858810

Just wrote this this afternoon. It’s the speech of a lady who, being confronted by her husband as to why she enjoys being alone or with the serves and household, says that the noble lady’s and her maids and gentlewoman now only how to gossip and speak nonsense. Its from a play in verse:


(…)
In the first place because my brain
Molds and rots with boredom when I get stuck
With other noble dames and my ladies
Of company: what a petty bunch of women!
They are cicadas with puff of corrosive
Ginger, who know only how to tear to pieces
The names of others when they end up
Trapped in the rough webs of their tongues,
Who love to mutilate reputations,
Throwing them back and forth with their breath,
In each shot and play stinging the name
Of the absent one, because gossip is no more
Than a vile group of scorpions playing volleyball
With the vacuum of defenseless existences.

[Anonymous No.4868622]

Jesus christ.

Ok. An acquaintance of mine just gave me this and asked me to critique. I just... I don't even know where to begin. God this thing is a mess.

When I was fourteen I was told I could be
Pretty…
If I lost weight.
I was told my features were too perfect
To be wasted on such an
Enormous quantity
Of quantified flesh--
They told me they could count
The rolls on my back,
And said that
Boys
Would like me more
If I
Was…
Skinny.
As if my only goal in life was to be…
Skinny…
Pretty--
Based in the standards of
My culture’s Biblical sects--
Movies,
Fashion magazines,
Makeup ads,
And a straight man’s shaft.
Not once did the words
“Healthy”
“Well”
Or
“Proportioned”
Come out of my peers’ mouths--
My culturally brainwashed lab-rats--
My…
Significantly overrated media-pet Barbie dolls--
They were so perfectly manufactured
With their ripped jeans
Layered, lace tank tops
And their…
Eating Disorders…


As I’m sure they did, too--
I remember
Looking at you--
I thought you were hideous.
I’m sorry for that admission
But the sensation of
An,
Evidently,
Illegitimate imposition
To alter you
Became my obsession.
If I look at you too long,
It’s like a feverish
Vision of distorted
Flesh
Melting into itself
Becoming one large mound of
Breathless incoherence
In glass.
Apparently what
I see--
Isn’t really you--
…You aren’t me,
At least not the
You that I see
Is…
Me.
I was diagnosed with BDD
A little late in the game.

(1/2)

[Anonymous No.4868630]

>>4868622
I started wondering
If that boy
Would
Could
Might
Should..?...
Notice me.
I would stand in my room
Imagining what his hands would have been like on my body.
I pictured him telling me I was
Beautiful,
Sexy,
Cute,
Desirable--
Not once did I think about him calling me
Smart…
Or intelligent.
Maybe funny?
Or talented…
I remembered using you…
Me..
Pretending your melting
Skin into skin
Was him.
I would rehearse my
Demeaning monologue saying--
“Sometimes I wonder…
Why do I care
About What you think
Of me?
You--
Oblivious superstition

You--
Stereotyped camouflage
Boxer-briefs
With a backward flat brim
And white socks
In Home-Depot-Jet-Age,
Rubber flip-flops
And a painted double white check
On top.
You--
Culturally integrated
Science-experiment rat.
They wave
Ugg-boot gouda,
Zebra-print-trimmed-yoga-pant cheddar
(extra mild),
And multi-fastened-lace-tank-top
Swiss
In front of you
And you bite into each piece
Because they told you
You would get
Out of the maze of harsh identity
With a pat on your back and a
Welcome mat into society.

(2/3)

[Anonymous No.4868634]

>>4868630

I am not thin
I am not skinny
I found out
Recently
I am healthy,
But just because you take a test
Or just because you see a scale
Beneath your feet
Where the numbers point to
Something lower than
You anticipated--
Just because you’ve been drilled
For the past five years
By psychoanalysts
To believe that
You
Are
Healthy,
And you are
Beautiful--
It doesn’t change the fact
That fourteen years
Contrasting those simple five--
Which were
Too late
And too fake
In trying to bait the illness
Out of my mind
And my soul
And my stomach--
Trying to pull the images of me
Putting a cleaver to my belly
And a barber’s knife to my throat
To bring definition to my body--
Away from those insignificant
Five years
There were fourteen other years
Of complete alienation
And loneliness
Hoping to find a cure for my
Reflection.
I wish I had a fighting chance…

To
Love
You…
Me...

[Anonymous No.4868642]

>>4868630
>2/3
good lord....

[Anonymous No.4868645]

Autumn nights
cool, cruel
wishes for longer light
for sight of the path
cracks in the cold, covered with snow
soul numbing
will crushing
waiting for mending by the sun

I don't write bad poetry by accident

[Anonymous No.4868649]

>>4868622
So. You poetry otherwise? Outside of this?

[Anonymous No.4868661]

>>4868622
Well, let us begin by making a clear statement of the problem:

She is not attempting to refine an emotional artifact into any convention of aesthetics. She is venting an emotional frustration, and the difference places her in an approachable position as far as judgements of versification go, because any negative word will explode against the impenetrable armor of her explicit sincerity.

Does that seem accurately to you to sum up at least the baseline of the dilemma?

[Anonymous No.4868664]

>>4868661
*un-approachable.

[Anonymous No.4868700]

>>4868661
I found you a framework, anon. Instead of framing this as a draft of a literary work, address it in its proper context:

"The goals of poetry therapy are:

To develop accuracy and understanding in perceiving self and others;
To develop creativity, self-expression, and greater self-esteem;
To strengthen interpersonal skills and communication skills;
To ventilate overpowering emotions and release tension;
To find new meaning through new ideas, insights, and information; and
To promote change and increase coping skills and adaptive functions."

So something along the lines of:

"I read that from the self-loathing at the beginning, through the dismissive spite in the middle, to the relief, or at least willingness to reconcile, at the end, that you have gained a realization of your self-perception.

"It is very brave to ventilate these life-defining emotional traumas. Do you feel it has helped you to cope, to adapt in ways that were previously unavailable; or that this work is a step in that direction? Because of so, then it functions as a poem."

Presuming your intentions are etc....

[Anonymous No.4868706]

>>4868649
Yes. I dabble here and there. It's not my primary focus but I've done it before.

>>4868661
That seems like a pretty good summation of it. I offered her an initial critique just on the form (The useless line breaks, terrifying use of ellipses, etc.) and her response was essentially "Well that's an opinion. I put them there on purpose."

Apparently she made the poem bad because it reflects that it's bad to have Body Dysmorphic Disorder.

[Anonymous No.4868747]

The Midnight Muncher

Behold! Forsooth! I see you now
A sightly sight, beneath my furrowed brow
The culprit caught!
A Justice wrought!
A thief so swiftly caught.
But lo, the beast it's murmured mumble
hummed and hawed it's hungry grumble
From before the door, there rose a head
And munch it did, on loaves of bread!
I cast ye out! I bellowed with might
Go snack ye elsewhere upon this night!
I've had enough! I've drawn the line!
No stoner shall ere have food of mine!
A pox upon thee, midnight muncher!
Bedside bruncher!
FULL MOON LUNCHER!
You're time here is gone
So well and so long
A convenience store
Is where you belong
This fridge is mine, holy and divine
With food for only I shall dine.
Out you go, have a smoke!
have a hit, have a bowl, a toke!
But leave and know this,
This warnings no joke!
I shall know thee well
And for that you should thank
The omnipotent smell
Of that stinkweed dank
So off you go! Get out of my house!
Stay any longer and I'll have to delouse!
Take what you've took and go on your way!
I'll have no more stoner nonsense this day!

[Anonymous No.4868781]

>>4861134
>drawn by the epoch's stagehand
lol no

[Anonymous No.4868782]

>>4868706
got the link wrong. I was suggesting this:
>>4868700

[Anonymous No.4868789]

>>4868747

[Anonymous No.4868794]

>>4868782
Seems like a better way to go about giving a full critique than any other in this case.

Thanks anon.

[Anonymous No.4869238]

>>4864412
Yeah, ok, so it is incredibly vain to repost a previous post for the sole purpose of adding ", or" to line 5 just because it would otherwise read nonsensically that the grandfathers appear grammatically to have been placed in two realms at the same time, which makes no sense even for ghosts, but fuckadoodledoo if I can let that go by and have some future anon looking at it and thinking, "might have been nice if he'd managed the basic fucking grammar amongst all the structural lookeeloo." So there.

I make a tuna sandwich and I
sit at my table and eat it
alone as the gravestones
where great great grandfathers
summon, or if they watch from some
view above little comfort from blue
light, tar black and noise white
they have been replaced by.
Hands, pecks, bushels, drams,
the chain, the league, the talent; the
standard candles now make demands
in pixels kilometers long, angstroms thin.
Kings of apple barns singing
in their sky blue chains don't begin
to mourn us, who have better things to
remember than than our elders.

[Anonymous No.4869267]

>>4858810
Um, guys. I find OP's pic arousing. What do I do?

[Anonymous No.4869268]

>>4869238
of course, to parse it down to its last semantic corpuscle, there should also now be a comma after "above" in line 6.

[Anonymous No.4869287]

Waking Hours

I am awake.
I know that I shouldn’t be, but I am.
I see the night wander aimlessly outside the window
but inside
I am awake
and the day struggles onward in my head.

I sit up in my bed to see your half formed mirage resting in the darkness beside me,
curling against my phantom self;
a memory of peace, and I want to say something
anything,
about the Summer, or the year that
sprung inexorably from the days and months to savage it
towards the end of August.
But I don’t.
Because I am awake
and you are lost to your dream, muttering something about
classes and homework.
I’m not entirely sure. I can’t hear you very well.

I'm uncertain if that means anything.

Maybe I can hear about it in the morning,
safely after the sun has risen and you are back
in the daylight with me.
I smile at the thought.
A pleasant dream, that one.
But not possible at the time.
Many days from now perhaps.
Now however, you sleep.
I throw the thick covers off my single bed
and for a moment imagine that I perceive your imprint on the rumpled sheets
as I push my legs off the edge and plant them on the cheap carpet.
But when I stand and look around in the tiny room
I see no sign of you. Because you are off, living.
And I am awake.

[Anonymous No.4869360]

>>4869287
I don't want to argue. It would be so much more novel rather just to exchange impressions. I believe that every poem is granted a strict limit of "I"s. And that it is the project of the "I" poem to transfer by its art and artifice the "I"-ness of the "I" to the "you"-ness of the reader. In other words, not to perform an act of isolation, in which the reader is watching "I" act out without having a reason to empathize. "Classes and homework" narrow the scope of potential identifying "yous" by quite a lot.

There is also something to be said, other than derisive snorts, about the discipline of structure. Even in the value-free multi-whatever it ism of the current schizophrenic speech community of English poetry, the close attention of even attempting to impose a structural element upon a verse dramatically increases the attention paid to every single word.

>and for a moment imagine that I perceive your imprint on the rumpled sheets

What a loss, a waste, of opportunity to make something of that "imprint." Ghost, phantom, fossil, salt angel, a million considered possibilities of imagery that could have thematically enstiched that line into the fabric of displacement.

Here is the first thing that came to mind, as a thematic companion:
Sleeping With One Eye Open

Unmoved by what the wind does,
The windows
Are not rattled, nor do the various
Areas
Of the house make their usual racket --
Creak at
The joints, trusses and studs.
Instead,
They are still. And the maples,
Able
At times to raise havoc,
Evoke
Not a sound from their branches’
Clutches.
It’s my night to be rattled,
Saddled
With spooks. Even the half-moon
(Half man,
Half dark), on the horizon,
Lies on
Its side casting a fishy light
Which alights
On my floor, lavishly lording
Its morbid
Look over me. Oh, I feel dead,
Folded
Away in my blankets for good, and
Forgotten.
My room is clammy and cold,
Moonhandled
And weird. The shivers
Wash over
Me, shaking my bones, my loose ends
Loosen,
And I lie sleeping with one eye open,
Hoping
That nothing, nothing will happen.

[Anonymous No.4869377]

>>4861851
I really liked this.

[Anonymous No.4869392]

>>4862002
CRAWWWWLING IN MY SKIIINNNN

[Anonymous No.4869427]

>>4858838
I like this, actually, and it's completely out of my zone of shit I like.
Well done Anon.

[Anonymous No.4869451]

That cat is walking by again
The alley, the trash, the garden.
Head held up high, tail behind,
Trotting through that afternoon
With its dusty sun--
Angles of light.
This demur cat,
So tattered and graceful,
Is on an adventure and I,
Not knowing the end,
Jammed its story in tight little lines.
There the cat goes,
And so goes the story.


I call it "Mr. Cat"

[Anonymous No.4869494]

>>4869360
I- Wow. Thank you.

I wasn't sure what I expected from posting that, but it wasn't a levelheaded and attentive response.

Personally that's never how I had perceived "I" poetry (as you call it), but I can see how an argument for it could be made. Reading this one is certainly more an act of watching the event unfold in detail than giving the event to the reader. I'm not sure I'd be able to change the poem from one to the other without simply destroying it and building it from the ground up, but I could certainly try, and I can see the value to be gained in doing so.

As to the wasted opportunities for imagery, this has repeatedly been a weak point for me. Every time I come back to old work I see it.

Again, Thanks.

[Anonymous No.4869505]

>>4868556

good speech: 8/10

wonderful pic: 10/10

[Anonymous No.4869547]

>>4869494
And btw, Sleeping With One Eye Open is Mark Strand, whose name I have typed into about twenty threads, in the vain hope that someone might look him up. I am not him. It was just a thing I associated - dread in the night in bed.

Also - is the "other" in yours also the "I"? Like an out of body observation of self? Because I suspected it is, but I would like to be certain, unless the mystery is the point.

[Anonymous No.4869558]

You will see here in practice my reasoning of value, and this I cannot reiterate enough. I could have taken the wallets I threw into those roadside ditches and discretely sold the silver that arced through the air after them: I could have done so many things, but I could not yet leave the circus: I was bound in gaudy colours and sideshow acts; money was key to a lock behind so many other locks and bolts. There was much more freedom in the unseen, in the hypothetical, and I suppose in a search for knowledge, in its initial stages, it’s easiest to appeal to the higher powers: thus the gypsy, and this primordial escapade of mine. I did not want for money; I wanted for things: terrifying, tangible things that might be plucked from right out in front of you. Gypsy-language, I have said, is based words that "are".

[Anonymous No.4869565]

Here I am
Spanking my ham
But I must be quick
Some asian will do the trick
For really i should be studying for my exam.

Took me for years to write

[Anonymous No.4869582]

>>4869547
Because here is why the question: Or are there three agents/entities; the narrator, a missing other, and the "phantom self?"

[Anonymous No.4869592]

>>4869360
>dat critique
i wouldn't be surprised if you were a teacher

[Anonymous No.4869609]

>>4869565
There once was a man from AuStraya
Who paynted his oss like a daylyah
The colour was fyne
Lykewyse the desyne
But the armohur - oewer -
That was a faylyah.

[Anonymous No.4869688]

>>4869547

If you were trying to get someone to look him up, you succeeded. The first thing I did after reading your post was search "Sleeping with One Eye Open poem." I'm definitely going to have to look into this guy.

>Also - is the "other" in yours also the "I"? Like an out of body observation of self?

Kind of. The other of the poem is a composite person. Partially the "I" partially not.

The poem was initially written in response to a particularly painful breakup. Eventually I came back to it and reworked it to be about the portion of myself that was lost in the process rather than simply the loss of her, but it didn't quite ring true.

The "you" of the poem is the composite of the lost other and the portion of the "I" that was lost along with it.

For me at least. To the reader it could easily be either one.

It's more about the loss than it is about what was lost.

[Anonymous No.4869704]

>>4858813
That's beautiful. Not even kidding

[Anonymous No.4869707]

>>4869592
Once, in grad school, the prof was sick and named me to lead the day. It was terrible.

[Anonymous No.4869713]

>>4858813
2postmodern4me

[Anonymous No.4869780]

>>4861670
shit sux, faggot. Get good.

[Anonymous No.4869848]

>>4869565
>Here I am
ROCK YOU LIKE A HURRICANE

[Anonymous No.4869939]

>>4861270

10/10 I laughed

[Anonymous No.4869971]

Her bubble gum hair stays stuck to my thoughts,
bound by something stronger than memories.
Mottled on the matted fabric of my mind,
bubbling in the bowels of my brain.
indigestible.

Her porcelain features moulded by angels,
the labours of an eternity searching the spectrum.
Sitting in the throne I fashioned from screenshots,
adrift in the sea of cess inside my head.
irreplaceable.

Her crystal eyes float in the infinite celestial,
iris's swirling around the deep centre of being.
My plastic reality bends for all that matters,
forever falling - never reaching their horizon.
irresistible.

Her lips are rose petals plucked from Eden,
its ephemeral scent diffuses into my dreams
my attention wonders towards its origin -
beyond a cold glass pane
indescribable.

I'd love critiques!

[L No.4870034]

Her eyes were glazed over. She was lying on the couch with a hopeless look upon her face and a half empty bottle of liquor at her hand. Her neck was bruised a deep purple where my hands had been and the right side of her once lively face was bloody from where I had been bludgeoning her.
I don’t remember why I was mad at her nor do I remember why the fuck I hit her. I just snapped. A fuse in my mind just blew, and I went off on her. Goddamnit what the hell have I done. I loved her for Christ’s sake but, she just pissed me off. She pissed me of so much that I couldn’t take anymore of it. I couldn’t stand to come home anymore after a long fight to see her drunk and angry at me. I just couldn’t. Now she’s dead because of me. Because of all my pent up anger. She knew I had anger issues. She knew how I could get. Now shes dead cause of it.

[Anonymous No.4870061]

>>4870034
sin city narration is that you?

[Anonymous No.4870081]

Some people think love is everlasting, unconditional, pure, holy. Well, that's not true. I would bet that the fundamentals of love follow the same laws of conservation of mass and energy that everything else does. In order to yield a result, you need to put energy in. If you don't put in energy, there is no resultant. It's simple logic.

We can compare this to making and eating a pizza. You place the pepperoni, sauce, and cheese on the dough, you place it in the oven, and set it on a plate once it's cooked. You have now put 1 unit of energy into the pizza. Now you are free to enjoy 1 unit of energy, which would be, in this example, eating the pizza.

Same with love. You put energy and hard work into the love, with no discernible pleasurable feelings about that work except maybe the fleeting, expectant glimpses of what's to come. When you are finished putting energy in, you are free to enjoy love until the energy runs out again, at which point you put energy back in.

Love might be the dramatic example, but the input/output effect always makes itself seen. From this arises the cyclical nature of humanity. You can observe its effects everywhere our skinny feet have trodden. Stock markets, art movements, culture, war, peace; all products of the impossibly complicated collective mass of our consciousness. All our relationships, ideas, feelings, can be as simplified and minimized as the atoms we are made out of. Energy out, energy in.

Remember this.

[Anonymous No.4870345]

Bungholius and Arachnophobius laid their tables and humped horses in the stables and told tales of vicious fables, pushed over the disabled and this were labelled liabilities.

They worked on their Latin tenses:

Bungholius: "Paedophile!"
Arachnophobius: "Paedophilius!"

he quipped jokingly as Paedophilius entered the room naked with a small bare bottomed boy tucked under his arm like a newspaper.

He started into a speech, taking their acknowledgement as encouragement, rightfully so as it was how it was meant.

"Oh, my gentle fellows, here's one I tried to ride earlier." He pointed to bite marks on his neon cock."If one were to look at the bottom of my young friend here," he stroked the boys taint and jabbed with his long fingers, often described as twigs, ambimodally speaking. He continued: "one would assume it were soft, like a peach, with its delicate soft hairs." He smacked the boy's bottom, spread the cheeks revealing the butthole to in fact be the mouth of a lamprey. He continued: "But, and I do hope you excuse that pun, feel, brothers, oh gentle gentle brothers," On saying brothers a third time he achieved climax, with sperm shooting out of the bitemarks on his cock, "with the coarse hairs and difficulty this one presented, t'would remind one of The Great Bumblebee.

And what a great bumblebee was The Great Bumblebee. What a terrific bloody bee. Skin it and you'll make a fortune selling its wings and black yellow fluff. Oh what obscene amounts are made when even a tiny bit of fluff flakes off The Great Bumblebee and is found and sold, just imagine what the whole thing, big and wide as a moutnain, would fetch. Some people believe The Great Bumblebee was born from the sun. Others believe it was a result of nuclear warfare. Others even dress up as bees and go to Tangiers to pay to fuck dogs dressed as bees, though it is unclear whether or not this is related to The Great Bumblebee.

The Butler entered. He exited so that he could re-enter, only to exit once more, then entering, he burst into song as he exited the room. From the hall, the three deities could hear his voice:

I am a fish
A fish with a lisp
If I had a wish
I would wish for a lisp.

Paedophilius callled for the Butler: "Bring this young boy to the stables!"

The deities, Bungholius, Arachnophobius, and Paedophilius, they drank and practiced their tenses in levity:

Paedo
Paedophile
Paedophilium
Paedophilerum... or Paedophileriam?

An argument broke out between Bungho and Paedo over which was correct. Both men turned into lions, leaping at each other with their mouths open and eating each other at the same time. Arachnophobius' arms turned into legs and he grew four more. His skeleton pushed through his flesh and wrapped around it, forming a hard hairy exoskeleton. He whimpered, "Paedooooo...-", and his legs curled up as he died. Amen. Jesus Christ.

[Anonymous No.4870361]

It's an excerpt. And yes, I know it's probably shit.

It had happened at about a quarter to eleven on a rainy night, with a knock on my door, I went to the door "Come in!" I cried. When I opened the door, I was
surprised to see Henry, specifically the state he was in, his skin was bright red from exhaustion and his eyes were bloodshot and he was breathing heavily.
"What's going on Henry? You look terrified!" I asked, backing up out of both bewilderment and politeness. "It's terrible Daniel! Awesome! Grotesque! Grisly!
Horrifying! Your mind, and most others, couldn't possibly understand the things I have seen! You'll laugh at me for sure! They'll all laugh at me and call me mad!"
he barked out in an almost inhuman manner, certainly this voice was not his. He leaped forward and shut the door as fast as possible. "Henry! What is the meaning of
this? Awesome? Grotesque? Grisly? Horrifying? What exactly do you mean?" I responded, Henry sighed, "If I must...Let me regain my composure."

[Anonymous No.4872345]

>>4869609
Breaker Morant

[Anonymous No.4872366]

>>4869267

[Anonymous No.4872600]

I remember when Spring came and you went
And said to listen to the music that the
Curtains played as the wind blew through
Our windows. Eventually I heard
What you were talking about, the fabric
Of the curtains gently pushed by air
Began to sound like music, melodies
Drifting in and playing silk instruments.
It was only a matter of time, and
Then we heard it everywhere that we went.

I remember when we had all that time,
How the tones of branches would whistle by
And we would imitate the sounds with our
Own breath, our breath. And so we were happy—
And every room you walked into then was
Full of a soft charm, the result of that
Sweet lilt that only we could hear, we thought.
We unfolded inside that Spring as one
And one together, and time suspended
Itself, an expanse of rhythm or rhyme.

But then music doesn’t play on without
The company of time, and then so soon
It seemed the drifting music became lost,
The last recorded syllable of our
Relationship like a note that lasted
And sustained itself in the thoughts it left
Behind. But I turned to my own affairs
With other people, and that sustained note
Became hollow. I made my way back to
Life, with a heart of wisdom not of gold.

All these rooms are empty now, even though
They’re full of things. Your music is all gone now,
And the curtains never sing.

[Anonymous No.4872901]

Welp, you two,
>>4869971
>>4872600
-- what non-obvious thing can we find to say about a pair of love poems?

>>4869971
>something stronger than
and yet the "something" is never named. Very Marianne Moore from Steeplejack. I approve.

>bowels of my brain
I will block this image out of memory, and pretend it never existed.

>...angels
>...spectrum
I do not suspect it was your intention, but I will observe that by mixing this metaphor so, your beauty is carved out of light. Very well.

>cess
again with the scat?

>rose petal lips
a bit on the nose.

and so on. A confection of early adulthood, a bit of powdered sugar on the nose, a rite of passage to be done, and done. I'm sure she will love it. Get rid of the toilet imagery, no one wants to kiss such a head.

[Anonymous No.4872906]

>>4872600
>>4872600
OK, now the sad one, love lost, etc.

the music of casual objects is a fine conceit. Through the first 3 stanzas, there is a management of epistemological expansion of this sense phenomenon into the sustenance of the romance; The presence of the emotional bond itself is defined by and identified as the presence of "our music." This is an accomplishment.

Now, as usual, I will complain of a lack of sustained effort to condense and concentrate upon each word's dependent and and inter-locking potential for semantic multiplication.

For example
>The last recorded syllable of our
>Relationship like a note that lasted

"recorded" discords with any present medium or device, what is doing the recording, which comes of nowhere; and are we, in what amounts to an aubade, going to admit the clinically sterile DSM-V term "relationship" into the great canon of love poetry?

The result of concentration and condensation, would, to be consistent to this metaphor, be called "density."

"I remember when we had all that time,
How the tones of branches would whistle by
And we would imitate the sounds with our
Own breath, our breath."

compare,

"And trees suddenly appeared in the bare place
Where he spoke and lifted their limbs and swept
The tender grass with the gowns of their shade,"

Of course a Robert Lowell can get away with confessional vernacular and everyone applauds, politely. What I wish for this is that I would have been more willing to continue had I been astonished to find the promise of this...

the fabric
Of the curtains gently pushed by air
Began to sound like music, melodies
Drifting in and playing silk instruments.

...sustained at that level of imageraic invention (or, alas, dare to dream, heightened) through the whole thing. There is a poem I cannot remember the title of: a narrator is strolling along a town street and hears a harmonica. He combines the sounds of several observations and repeats at strategic intervals the word "harmonica." In the final stanza, the accomplishment and revealed project is that the word "harmonica" by a subtle process, has been converted in semantic charge from "small steel musical instrument," into "a Latinate abstract noun denoting harmony between all living things." It is an example to strive for.

[Anonymous No.4873597]

>>4870361
The opener would be better,

[Anonymous No.4873632]

Being, being, being, every instant being, sunrise sunset being, being without heart, being without soul, being without hope, being qua being qua being, being until not. A being defined by its being, yet being still not being a predicate, being still being a sentence. To be at the expense of one's ability to be. Being being the river undammed, the blindfold, the coffin.

[Anonymous No.4873740]

>>4858810
i'm not much of a writer but i wrote this short story a while ago

I walk down the street with my deck of cards in hand. They help me through my times of boredom, and I’m definitely going to need them since I will be in my doctor’s waiting room for quite some time. Just then, out of the corner of my eye, I notice a young girl enthusiastically running up to me. "Hey, can I use your cards for a second?" she asked cheerfully. "Sure, why not" I said with a smile, my headache isn't TOO bad, the doctor can wait. "I learned a new magic trick a couple of days ago" she says as she shuffles the deck right in front of me, "I've been waiting for a chance to try it with someone" she then slightly frays the deck under our faces, so that neither of us can see what the cards are. "Pick a card!" she exclaims in an affable manner. I then slowly pulled a card out from near the middle of the deck. I turn it over so that I can see the card's face. "WHAT?!" I think to myself "this must be a mistake!” Just then she finishes shuffling the deck for the second time and swiftly whips a card out of the deck. She raises the card to her face and her cheery mood vanishes instantly. The young girl flips the card to face me, and then looks at me with a disappointed look. "A zero of hearts?" she sputters out, "are you kidding me?"

[Anonymous No.4873775]

>>4862684
Bumping for feedback please.

[Anonymous No.4873794]

First there was nothing.
Then, suddenly, something.
Where it had come from nobody knew,
how, why, when, and what, also too.
But it did come.
Or become.
Or seem to at least,
giving us something to do.

[Anonymous No.4873801]

>>4873794
>also too
?

[Anonymous No.4873819]

If Eric had been able to tell you the story at this point, he would have said it probably started with what we call the big bang. He might have speculated what had happened before, but only to entertain the idea, as the universe did with his whole life. From that little spurt of matter and energy sprung a few galaxies and solar systems here and there, one of which Eric eventually came to call home. Earth, what a marvel of biodiversity and geological phenomena. It's amazing how such simple amino acids went on to form the decidedly valuable DNA of Eric Roethlesburger, this century's most unappreciated Y-chromosome carrier. Anyway, the parents of Eric were basic Canadians from Calgary who were blandly dubbed Joe and Mary; Eric had always resented their white-collar blend of banality and kindness. He like to throw the spice of life he called variety on everything he did. This explains his first word being: buckle; starkly contrasting the average toddler's 'momma,' 'daddy,' or 'cookie.' But that was forty-two years ago. Eric now was taking a nap that medical professionals called a stage 3 coma. You see, success had its limits, especially in the drug business.

[Anonymous No.4873820]

Poetry is some hard shit man. How the hell do I do this crap.

-----------------------
I look past the fence
I wonder what is yonder
and so i wander
but only in my place.

I look to the stars
I wonder what is yonder
So I wander to the edge
To bring to light.

I am not columbus
I am columbus
I let my feet across
The grass is greener.

[Anonymous No.4873826]

>>4873801

Yeah you know, why it had come, how it had come, when it had come, what (it) had come. I know it's redundant, but time and space are redundant so I like to make the parts like the whole. No good?

[Anonymous No.4873833]

>>4873826
might be just me, but it doesn't feel like it belongs there.

Not trying to be a dick, just like the rest of it a lot and that bit irks me

[Anonymous No.4873851]

April 6th:
The cop stopped the dune-buggy as it passed a streak of red. Fat as fuck, the little piggy wobbled to the driver's window to oink as it realized that it had just pulled over Patrick Swayze, this little piggy's favorite screen-person. Anyway, being a dumb, fat, fatuous belch of a person, the pig rolled around in the dirt of stardom for a moment, then cream-pied his metaphorical pants and let the neutron-star off in his sand vehicle.

April 7th:
Variety's headlines read: 8 Philippino Women found Dead and Glittered in Patrick Swayze's Motel; Dune Buggy held responsible.

Mort the mortician saw the headline and thought: well tonight should be fun. Then he remembered: fuck, it's Jerry, that fucking deadbeat brother of a cop's birthday tonight. Welp, looks like Miranda's gonna have to take tonight's shift.

[Anonymous No.4873861]

>>4858813
i..... kinda like this...

[Anonymous No.4873862]

>>4873833

well I'm a moron, because it should be

>how, why, when, what, and also who

gracias

[Anonymous No.4873882]

>>4873862
I thought you were trying not to use all 5 question words on purpose so I didn't even suggest it but that's what I was thinking would be best xD

No problemo

[Anonymous No.4873898]

I edited my poem.
Help.

-------------------------

I look past my fence.
I wonder what is yonder, and so I wander
but I remain here
Stars do shine, and I do stare

But staring’s not to walk
among the grasses and the flock
of sheep near lakes and women too
I seek to wander, over yonder.
Past the fence and free.

I am not columbus
For he had not tv
He could not see, america and its plains

[Anonymous No.4873904]

Limoncello: syrupy and yellow,
when I drink it, I am so mellow.
I lock eyes with you and say hello.
You do wait, then also say hello.
We smile together, surprised and confused
I really want to say it's not because I'm boozed.
It's isn't. Let's just not leave each other bruised.
For too many of your species I have perused.
Cheetos on my fingers, I'd let you lick them.
I don't know why I just said that, so random.
I don't know you, but I love you: a memorandum.
Like a limb from the body, separation's a problem.
So anyway, thank you Polly, for being here,
for your mirroring voice, I love to hear.
Too bad I rely on beer.
To to anything but sneer.

Anyway, Cheers.

[Anonymous No.4873916]

>>4868556

Great metaphors. You have an uncommon talent for imagery.

>>4869971

I like it.

Many of the images are cliché, but it's better to start with old-school classic style and gradually find your own voice than to decide to go mad and wild from the start. To many poet-wanabes ruin themselves under the influence of the beatniks, for example.

Loved those lines:

>bubbling in the bowels of my brain.
>indigestible.

>>4861134

Nice. Is this part of something?

[Anonymous No.4873928]

>>4873775

It's too vague and ambiguous to be interesting. It feels like you're trying to describe a veil without hinting at what lies beneath. Try to make it more alluring and concrete, something that catches the reader, because you write somewhat well, it's just the content seems slightly saturated with nothingness.

[Anonymous No.4873950]

>>4873916
>>4861134

Well I guess it's part of my creative /lit/ canon, along all the other random excerpts and bits of poetry that I blindly write. But yeah, I kinda just cranked it out on the spot. Though I had been holding on to this idea, more-or-less, with the intent of formulating it on paper for awhile. So I thought why not. But I do feel it's a bit clunky, especially where the other anons pointed out, so i'll mend that asap. But thank you, you brightened up my dim day.

[Anonymous No.4874048]

slivering 'round bellies
while chopping your dinner up:
sooth-sayers seethe through
their teeth

chipped cigarettes wisping
to be smoked soothe
our sallow bones. bribe me,
the east "ess" of your tongue
bakes us flat packed lunches.
our selves were on offer for dollars
and change was all i had for payment.

restraint is lost
mulling over cold fingers.
saliva wine will help meld
us with suns. we'll smile
while spitting each other
down into the moon
soaked waters.

[Anonymous No.4874151]

Selfish post. 1000 words. Sci-fi.
http://pastebin.com/6w19gKw6

[Anonymous No.4874186]

Don't be gentle /lit/

http://headcutoff(dot)4ormat(dot)c om/poems

[Anonymous No.4874217]

>>4874186
Absolutely rubbish.

Just kidding, I didn't even look. You know that 4chan doesn't filter the posting of links, so you can post it in its original format? If you post a link with (dot) and spaces in there, you can be guaranteed I'm not going to take the time to follow it.

[Anonymous No.4874247]

>tfw spanish speaker
I just want to share my shitty short stories...

[Anonymous No.4874260]

>>4874217
It doesn't let me. Says I'm a spammer.

>>4874247
Postealo, aqui hay mucho latino-americanso, espa~oles y caribe~os.

[Anonymous No.4874266]

>>4874260
They're probably extremely shit but I'll look for my folder.

[Anonymous No.4874280]

>>4874247
Spanish speaker here, share, I'll read some.

[Anonymous No.4874284]

>>4874280
>>4874260
El letrero de ALTO estaba goteando, acababa de llover. Tiritaba del frío.

No le gustan los días lluviosos, normalmente hay menos gente en la calle y a él le gusta ver a la gente pasar. Él los saluda pero no le contestan, lo cual lo entristece. Tal vez es porque estoy un poco oxidado, pensó.

Es porque les ordeno, se dio cuenta por fin. Claro que nadie va a querer a un letrero que les diga "¡deténganse!" cuando quieren llegar a sus casas después de un largo día de trabajo, o cuando están impacientes por platicar con ese amigo que tienen años de no ver.

El letrero se odió a sí mismo por un momento, pero no por mucho, es sabido que los señalamientos viales no tienen buena memoria.
El cielo se aclaró, el agua ya se había secado. El letrero saludó a un niño, sin respuesta. Un poco decepcionado, se preguntó si sería por el óxido en sus bordes.

[Anonymous No.4874288]

‘Excuse me? Do you know that your life consists entirely of being a dog? And that situation will never change?’
Ralph looked at me with his tongue rolling from the side of his mouth.
‘You know, if I never opened this door again you’d never go outside? Ralph?’
His tail wagged at the mention of his name, beating against the floor in a steady rhythm.
‘You don’t have opposable thumbs, see. That’s why I can open this door. I am the lord-master of walkies!’
The beat frenzied, launching dust from the carpet into the air.
‘I am the superior animal, you know.’
Ralph let out a whimper of excitement, the trickle before the damn breaks.
‘Okay let’s go.’ I opened the door.
Like a bolt of gold lightning, Ralph zig-zagged to the front gate.
‘The age old conundrum, eh Ralphie? Good old opposable thumbs. Very handy…’ I trailed off as I look beyond the gate. ‘Ah, well. Looks like it’ll be another day on the boat.’
We stepped from my front yard down onto the little wooden skiff. Ralph immediately assumed a figure-head position at the prow. I picked up a rod and launched ourselves from the bank. We glided out over the water, the wind running its fingers through my hair.
‘Heya, Philip,’ I said.
‘Nice day, isn’t it?’
‘Sure is.’
We drifted past each other. Ralph barked.
‘What is it boy?’
He pawed at the water.
‘A fish, is it? We’ve seen plenty of those.’
He kept prodding at the water, so I carefully clambered over to have a look. Some sort of object was floating past. I reached in to pull it out, letting my fingers curl through the water until we got close enough for me to grab it.
‘Looks like an old suit-case. Good find, good boy,’ I said warmly. Ralph vibrated vigorously from the attention. ‘Let’s see what’s in it, shall we?’
I pulled on the latch, which was stiff with age.
‘Come on,’ I muttered.
It cracked open suddenly, one of the metal hinges snapping free.
‘Guess I won’t be using this, then.’
I looked inside. It was dry, fortunately. One of these suitcases must’ve gone for hundreds back in the day. Papers were carefully folded inside.
‘What’s this? Some sort of pamphlet?’
I struggled to make out its letters. It had words I hadn’t seen in my thirty years of life on this blue world, but I got a general meaning.
‘Ice caps mel… melting. Stop globil? Global? Warming be fore it’s too late?’
Ralph looked at me expectantly.
‘This, well, this must be one of those old pieces of propaganda about climate change, Ralphie. They used to go on about this stuff, how it would ‘end the world’. Good thing we didn’t go along with them.’
Ralph looked satisfied with my explanation.
‘Simple animal, aren’t you? Yes you are, just a simple little boy,’ I rubbed his chins just where he liked it. The air filled with the warm scent of dog mingled with cold salt. ‘Look at us! Didn’t hurt a bit, did it?’

[Anonymous No.4874298]

>>4874284
Here's another one.

El cielo azul, las nubes como bañadas en plata, el verde intenso de las hojas que caen del árbol, el petirrojo con el vivo color de su pecho, las gotas de agua tan cristalinas que absorben el color del rededor. Y el pobre hombre no llevaba sombrilla.

La lluvia multicolor es terrible, mancha la ropa y todo a su paso.

[Anonymous No.4874303]

>>4874284
Me gusta la idea, pero me parece que la escritura es bastante pobre.
Cambiás de pasado a presente sin aviso o sentido aparente, y en general se siente medio torpe el ritmo.
Tampoco me gusta el uso de la palabra tiritaba, buscaría algo menos móvil, pero es un detalle ínfimo.

Guardá la idea, borralo, esperá una semana, y cuando te hayas olvidado de como era originalmente, reescribilo.

[Heaven !ccqXAQxUxI No.4874310]

Nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga.

[Anonymous No.4874319]

>>4874303
Gracias, lo tomaré en cuenta. ¿Qué opinas del otro?
>>4874298

[Anonymous No.4874329]

>>4874298
De nuevo, el tiempo es inconsistente. Si el hombre llevaba, las hojas caían, no "caen".
Me gusta mucho más la línea en general. Sin embargo lo editaría un poco:

El cielo azul, las nubes de plata; el verde intenso de las hojas que caían. El petirrojo con el vivo color de su pecho, y las gotas de agua, tan cristalinas que absorbían el color en rededor.
Y el pobre hombre no llevaba sombrilla.

La lluvia multicolor es terrible, mancha la ropa y todo lo que toca.

Entendés a lo que me refiero? Por lo menos así me da una sensación de mayor musicalidad, de una línea más fluida.

[Anonymous No.4874338]

>>4858810

The Circus has come to town. People were in a panic, no one expected the clown’s abrupt return. They had learned in the years prior to shut their doors and hide their daughters when the Kruel Klown Koalition came, but they were powerless in face of the sudden rampage. They set up the tent in the night making preparations, and now they’d ride around in their little cars, terrorizing the city with acts of tasteless frivolity; In one case they were throwing chromatic cream tarts at unsuspecting bystanders, where the cheap Chinese food colouring used was later proven highly toxic; in another, simultaneous incident fifteen clowns assaulted two local preschools, handing out inappropriately phallic balloon animals to at least three dozen six year olds, and in one iconic event a clown successfully double-parked in front of the courthouse, leaving his parade float on a row of handicapped parking spaces. The float depicted a chimp signing a bunch of brown-stained bills with a banana-shaped pen in a graffiti-covered and basketball-themed interpretation of the oval office, the whole nightmare on top of rainbow-colored words: FOUR MORE YEARS.

[Anonymous No.4874339]

>>4874329
Sí, comprendo. Siempre revuelvo tiempos, trataré de corregir eso. Gracias de nuevo por tus comentarios.

[Anonymous No.4874342]

>>4874338

But the worst of it came only after the clowns discovered the tolerance exhibit in the local community center. They were drawn to it from the moment they first saw the Rainbow flag flying proudly, and come midday, the community center was filled with a grinning, giggling mass of red noses, painted faces and curly rainbow wigs.
After they sacked the place it was decided that they too should spread the message of tolerance, and went on to the local synagogue with buckets full of paint. A horde of clowns smeared rainbow colours on the walls and the pavement, while the rest held an impromptu pride parade on the nearby street, drafting the nearby populous with threats and giggly mayhem into complying and marching along with the clowns.

[Anonymous No.4874348]

>>4874342
By this time swat teams were mobilizing in full force, but the damage was already done. The clowns departed as quickly as they came, but not before they abducted a swat member, and forced eight other people in a small red clown car with unmarked plates. One man was found later in the evening wrapped in a gigantic whoopee cushion, two others found the next morning had to be rushed to the Hospital with concussions from slipping on banana peels. The rest had been dressed as characters from Tom Sawyer novels, even applying blackface where the clowns deemed necessary, and then let loose three days later. The swat member is yet to be released. No ransom demands were ever made. Allegedly a piece of paper that looked like a ransom note was found by authorities, the illegible penmanship in crayons and the horrible spelling mistakes however made deciphering the demands impossible.

[Anonymous No.4874354]

>>4874339
No hay problema che, me gustó tu estilo, pulilo que promete mucho.

[Anonymous No.4874373]

>>4874354
Gracias. Este es un poco más largo (con el mismo problema de los tiempos). Quiero desarrolarlo para que sea más extenso, pero por ahora lo tengo así.

La estatua decidió que quería caminar un poco, así que bajó de su base con un brinquito y comenzó a andar a paso lento, inhalando el aire frío que flotaba en el parque. Iba admirando las estrellas cuando vió un hombre rechoncho y de poca estatura envuelto en una gruesa chamarra negra de lana. El hombre descansaba su redondez en una banca de cemento mientras que los codos estaban apoyados en la mesa del mismo material donde los ancianos jugaban ajedrez por las tardes y las niñeras descansan mientras los niños brincotean. Parecía más un barril que un hombre, pensó la estatua, pero no quiso ser grosero y causar una mala impresión.

El individuo dejó caer la mandíbula como si estuviera cansado de cargarla cuando se dio cuenta que la figura que lo saludaba era la estatua de la entrada del parque.

- ¡Hola!, bonita noche, ¿eh?

Pero el hombre no contestó. Después de pensar un momento concluyó que se había quedado dormido, así que optó por pellizcarse una mejilla pero eso no se llevó a la sonriente figura de piedra que seguía agitando la mano de un lado a otro en señal de saludo.

[Anonymous No.4874376]

>>4874373

- Es de mala educación no contestar un saludo - dijo el hombre de piedra con aire juguetón, sentándose en la banca opuesta.
- Sabrás disculparme, no estoy acostumbrado a toparme con estatuas.
- Para todo hay una primera vez.
- Seré directo: ¿cómo es que hablas y te mueves?
- Porque puedo. Sería ridículo que, pudiéndolo hacer, no lo hiciera, ¿no crees?
- Ese no es el caso.
- Es precisamente el caso. Tenía ganas de caminar así que di un paseo. Te he visto muchas veces cuando das tus paseos nocturnos y quise probar.
- Pero es ilógico. Eres de piedra.
- Y tú eres de carne. No entiendo el por qué de tu molestia.
- No estoy molesto.
- Suenas molesto.
- ¡Eres molesto!
- Nunca me lo habían dicho.
- ¿Has conversado con mucha gente?
- Sólo contigo.

Isaac se masajeó las sienes en un intento de digerir lo que estaba pasando y de disipar la frustración que su interlocutor le hacía sufrir, aunque sin mucho éxito.

- Debo irme - anunció la estatua, interrumpiendo el ritual de relajación de su nuevo amigo. ¡Nos vemos mañana!, gusto en conocerte.

El hombre de piedra se alejó con paso despreocupado. Isaac hizo una nota mental: de ahora en adelante daría sus paseos al medio día.

[Anonymous No.4874442]

>>4874376
Me gusta el tono humoroso en general, y como le das vida a todo lo inanimado, tienen una atmósfera un tanto lúdica que las hace muy vivaces tus historias. Sinceramente no se me ocurre como podría seguir este cuento -me parece que cierra bien aparte-, pero tampoco creo que estaría mal el continuarlo, sobre todo por esto:

"- Pero es ilógico. Eres de piedra.
- Y tú eres de carne. No entiendo el por qué de tu molestia."

Como material se presta muy bien para un desarrollo futuro.

Yo creo que si trabajás más en pulir el estilo, (y con esto me refiero simplemente a aceitar engranajes, no a cambiar tu forma de contar las cosas), podrías editar una colección de relatos cortos muy buena con el material que tenés.

>pic related, es un poco la atmósfera que me transmite tu escritura en general

[Anonymous No.4874446]

>>4874442
>me gusta
christ, fuck off back to reddit with your shitty-ass memes

[Anonymous No.4874605]

>>4874442
Mi meta a mediano plazo es precisamente escribir una colección de cuentos cortos. Aún no decido si seguir el relato de la estatua o no, me gusta cómo cierra pero también quiero que conozca más personas.

Dejo otro relato corto a continuación. Lo escribí porque sí y me gustó, ni siquiera estaba deprimido ni nada. La intención es que sea caótico, pero no sé si lo logré o sólo se lee confuso.

[Anonymous No.4874608]

>>4874605

Vamos por un café. No. Está bien, ¿prefieres una cerveza? Tampoco. Qué exigente, vamos a donde quieras, pero baja de ahí. No bajaré. Tan testarudo como siempre. Calla, tú no existes.

Ella, al darse cuenta que sólo estaba siendo imaginada, desapareció. Él lloró, pues no quería que ella se fuera. Despegó los pies del borde del balcón y se imaginó aventándose a la cama elástica de su tío, pero, esta vez, no hubo agua de limón al final del día.

[Anonymous No.4874664]

>>4874608
No me cierra la frase final "no hubo agua de limón al final del día", queda rara. Quizás eliminaría toda esta parte:
"pero, esta vez, no hubo agua de limón al final del día", y dejaría que termine en tío. A _mi_ gusto, esa última coda lo hace sonar medio trillado, en cambio el prescindir de ella le quita ese exceso de tragicismo que hace que quede muy a lo momento triste de película.

La idea del texto de todos modos se entiende perfecto y me parece que está muy bien presentado, cambiaría algunas palabras aquí y allá, pero eso es puramente gusto personal.

[Anonymous No.4874713]

if anyone's still here-

Prologue
The train moved unsettlingly fast through Newbury Pass, or at least Mr. Game thought as much peering out the fogged windows at the frozen Nebraska skies. He wondered if there was some kind of meaning to this sudden shift in speed, a reason that the telephone poles once delineated in precise lines now were muddled blurs of brownish-grey jutting from the frosted white ground. His father would have said they looked like the space between cells of slow moving film, but Mr. Game tried to brush the thought away of the silly old man’s ridiculous poetics for his pointless obsessions, but it lingered as if a ringing voice in his ear.
“it would be probably in that sweet spot between 12 and 16 frames a second Mark… what would you guess, fifteen, maybe fourteen, but that’s pushing it.” He would say, accent still as thick on his tongue.
“It’s fourteen, dad.” Begrudgingly Mr. Game answered in his mind, adding in bitter whisper “don’t ask the question if you already know the answer.”
“Hey, lighten up Mark; don’t you remember when I got you and your brother the 12 frame? It was a Cinemajik, very rare, 1909? 1910?” he started, with a hesitant pause as he saw my eyes roll slowly back. “I honestly don’t know, I told you that when we shared a lone star after mom found out you were smoking. Before then I had more or less relied on guesstimate and optimism and just told you boys it was from 1909, the older the better, at least as far as cameras go.”
If only the same applied to fathers, thought Mr. Game reaching for the cigarettes that weren’t in his pocket, head pressed against the cold glass wondering how low he had sunk to be arguing with the father he wasn’t even sure was still alive.

[Anonymous No.4874801]

>>4861670
I kind of want to start a movement like New Sincerity but we just make things that seem like juvenilia.

[Anonymous No.4874806]

>>4874664
Estoy de acuerdo con lo trillado y excesivo de la última frase pero al quitarla siento que le falta clausura al relato.

[Anonymous No.4874814]

>>4868630
I started wondering
If that boy
Would
Could
Might
Should..?...
Notice me.
I would stand in my room
Imagining what his hands would have been like on my body.
I pictured him telling me I was
Beautiful,
Sexy,
Cute,
Desirable--

So I gave him
this poem
Boy
I sure hope
He doesn't
Post it online?
And let people
See it
Laugh at it
Imagining what their hands would be like on my body.
Boy
That would
Really suck
But
It seems like
Maybe?
He browses
4chan
That place
Scares me...

[Anonymous No.4875748]

>>4874814
>..?...

[Anonymous No.4875967]

>>4874814
kinda cute and goofy, needs some overhaul and reformatting. i would cross this off as practice and work on something with more substance. i mean it's barely a thing, but any amount of putting down words is a good thing.
it's basic in an alright way and ok for 4chan spouting but i wouldn't post it anywhere else unless you decide to put some real effort into rewriting it.

the thing i have problems with is remembering a poem can be completely reworked while still retaining the overall essence.

-------------

wrote this in five minutes with no edits so please bear with me:

thirteen summers

june bugs
me, crawling, pinchers
steeled and stolen
slurping up sweat from
necks of boys who’re sweet
on girls, we stick onto ring
fingers, pretending. preening
and shiny, green, they like to
smoosh us. how mean!

beetles beat us to
the finishing line
up for backyard barbe-cues.
i don’t mean to roast you,
but i have some questions, father!
“do you step on or inspect the sects
we made ourselves long for?”
stretched thoraxes, ask them for axes
to mangle us up.

i’m sorry
ants stepped in your flower,
left pollen fallen footprints
across kitchen’s crackled floor.
my mama’s got a hurtin’ back
and forth, she misses my papa
got picked up
by the cops yesterday. he buzzed
‘round bees perched on his helmet,
visor up, lookin’
cool was the wind
blowing in the right direction
for best mileage? i’m about to run
out of fuel.

lady bugs duel for my
affections run high as election
daze-walks closer.
i broke apart their wings
(all off and coughed them!)
downed words lovingly spoke
in hopes of surviving for vying
for more spots in my heart and
on their backs
i can’t do anything but
marker them on.

[Anonymous No.4875998]

>>4875967
You didn't actually write this in five minutes.

[Anonymous No.4876003]

>>4875967
>June bugs

F-fellow Sparklehorse fan? No, surely not.

[Anonymous No.4876032]

>>4875967
Excellent, but yeah, you've been working on this for quite some time.

It's okay to tell people you put work into something! Be proud of your effort!

[Anonymous No.4876081]

>>4875998
thanks for the well thought out critique but i guess it's a compliment.

>>4876003
i do like the song but i didn't mean a direct reference, but if you resonate with it because of that that's good.

>>4876032
thanks! but no i had been struggling with some other poem for about three days and decided to do some cathartic spring time writing and i wrote it in segments in a chatlog and decided it was nice enough to become a poem. it's probably going to go through a few edits before i consider it done so i'd appreciate more input and hard-hitting critiques.

[Anonymous No.4876538]

pls crit my folk punk lyrics

"Videogames and Internet Porn (The Age of Paranoia)"

When I was 6 years old they blew up the World Trade Center
and when I was 7 Holly Jones was murdered
and when I was 8 I discovered Internet pornography
Just exactly what life was I supposed to lead?

When I was a kid I didn’t play outside much
‘cause outside was a battleground between terrorists, pedophiles
and the Department of Homeland Security
so I just stayed home and watched TV
This was the life safest for me

[CHORUS]
But what hope did we have
When our mom and our dad
Watched CNN, took tramadol, and both fucked other men?
They used to give kids like us a frontal lobotomy
Now they just leave us alone with videogames and Internet pornography

I played videogames instead of doing homework
and when I got a little older I just smoked weed instead
in highschool the weed turned to into meth and ketamine
Was there another life that I was supposed to lead?

Now that I’m older I’m less afraid
but Jesus and the NSA still watch over me
Imagine a world without terrorists and pedophiles
and videogames and pornography
Just what a wonderful life we could all lead

[CHORUS]

Imagine a world without terrorists and pedophiles
and videogames and internet pornography
Just what a wonderful world that would be

[Anonymous No.4876549]

>>4876538
>>4876538
edddddddggggggyyyyyyyy

[Anonymous No.4876596]

>>4876538
Fucking atrocious.

[Anonymous No.4876628]

>>4876538
why

[Anonymous No.4876653]

>>4876628
>>4876596
>>4876549
Its satire

[Anonymous No.4876660]

[Anonymous No.4876666]

>>4876660

[Anonymous No.4876669]

>>4876653
>I'm only pretending to be retarded!

[Anonymous No.4876671]

>>4876669
>>I'm only pretending to be retarded
near as I can tell thats the folk punk ethos

[Anonymous No.4876677]

>>4876538
Whose >>4876538
lHolly Jones

[Anonymous No.4876684]

>>4876677
A little girl my age who was kidnapped, raped and butchered by a pedophile when in was in elementary school. It was in my neighborhood and the police came in and gave a big talk to my class and generally scared the shit out of us.
It was a pretty major case in Toronto at the time.

[Anonymous No.4876749]

>>4876081
The post you critiqued was in reference and answer to >>4868622 >>4868630 >>4868634 , which was obviously a therapy work. Double meta.

>>4875967

OK. I believe I am reading a conceit in which humans are described in the terms and contexts of the insects they resemble, in various elliptical ways.

The first three words appear to be the informing anecdote of transformation. Stanza one imagines the narrator "me" as a buzz of june bugs.

The pronoun-ial relationships in the second stanza are not clear. "us" may be expected to be the june bugs, but then "i" asks a question of unusual precocity for a young june bug; confounded with "we" in the quoted question, who seems able to imagine 'stepping on' which is another un-June bug-like thing to be able to do. I am left concluding that at this point we have a different transformation, and that "i" is a person at a barbecue, continuing the first stanza reverie in a different, as yet not-nailed-down mode.

Now that I am unglued from the referent for "i", stanza 3 begins with some trepidation, as also now "your" is another floating entity. I'm going with, "since she is able to fly, this must be three vignettes chosen for their apparently, but let's hope not really, random insect would fly here in this order sequencing." This stanza's action is in sharp contrast to the above.

Stanza four does not resolve the ambiguous "i". For this I am sad, in the sense of disappointed. Either a june bug broke the wings off of two lady bugs, or a person ideating as a june bug did, but the ambiguity teeters upon the razor blade between artful and artless, upon this first reading. I am not a fan of "it's up to you to decide" type endings, because I believe they are usually a cop out. Like the endings of many over-rated French films.

Like:
sweet [line break]
on girls

beetles beat; sects; thoraxes, ask...axe; pollen fallen; lookin cool was the wind; surviving for vying.

Not clear, or not clear on motivation for:
who is getting roasted; stretched thoraxes (by what or whom, and why); and forth (playful for playful sake?); out of fuel; election; marker them on.

Especially distressed that the last line is a shaped peg of no matching shaped hole in my semantic playboard.

Bottom line: Is this something? It is almost something.

[Anonymous No.4876958]

>>4874288
It is likely that everyone who saw it in the story thread are the same anons seeing it here. I like this original better than the optional ending the other guy needed.

[Anonymous No.4876974]

>>4874288
Aside: do you ever get the feeling that there are really only like 10 or 12 people on /lit/ who actually even try, and our mission is to shout to be heard over and around the thousands of tourists who stop by after their first semester of humanities to muck up the joint? Because I do.

[Anonymous No.4876999]

>>4874151
>http://pastebin.com/6w19gKw6
So it's been 19 hours. Sorry no takers up your alley. Long enough for me to let you know that I remember giving this a close read some weeks ago. It is better. I have no more substantive observations to add.

That was also me above saying "do you ever get the feeling there are only 10 or 12..." Almost eerie.

Someone who really likes and gets sci-fi should give the pastebin in the link in this post a read and an informed line or three about it.

[Anonymous No.4877026]

>>4874048
So to tell the truth, I was afraid I really did not get this one at all, but now it seems more like this is English off-USA, so it is probably just me.

east "ess" is not in my brain's lexical rolodex.

there is pleasing evidence of sound selection in lines 3, 5, 9, 14, 15.

i developed a personal peeve about gerunds after hearing Philip Dacey inveigh against them at some length during a hilarious rant he couldn't resist about how much disdain he had for Frank Sinatra. And gerunds. If you agree, provided the alternatives of perfective, past, pluperfect, etc., then you may want to take another shot at slivering, chopping, wisping, mulling, spitting. At the very least, there is nothing to be lost from the effort.

I lack contextual continuity for the semantic portion of the soothe sayers, the aforementioned "east "ess," and the selling of persons. It might be the non-locale awareness. I was also screwed up by 'b-numbers" in the trinket above about Wordsworth's daffodils.

The gerund thing not withstanding, the last sentence is very nice and cooly executed, and does what you wanted it to do.

[Anonymous No.4877065]

I'm quite happy with this, so I just want to check with grammar and punctuation/metre things like that and just to share. However, I welcome your vitriol.

Didn't your mother
ever inform
"Don't talk to strangers!"
with anger and scorn?

Indeed she oft did,
stranger concerned.
But I have a feeling
that you should learn:

When mother was small,
she was approached
by a cowardly man
in a trenchcoat.

On that cold day
a piece of her died.
He took it from her
forever to hide.

She then gave to me
her long held on burden
that talking to strangers
meant bad things were certain.

Yet to my poor mother
it had never occurred,
that her mother too
taught "don't say a word!"

So despite this passed-
down warning of fear
My mother has scars
she'll forever bare.

For those cowards who
are lacking in gut
like the small children
that keep their mouths shut

So talking to strangers
has no danger I see
but rather the strangers
that come talking to me.

[Anonymous No.4877107]

When will the detailed banner achieve a curriculum? The retirement system turns inside the statistic.The ridden relationship resides outside a persons hobby. The silent ear swims opposite the sterling symphony. A go bacterium paints the postage nervously.

This short intellect counters the client; your cue shifts! The beating expertise sugars a chalk against the neutral blackmail. The salt theory beams. The specified promise forms its purpose outside the vertical breach.

My acceptance reminds the sequential blank. The up crunch riots a magnetic conductor. The classic empire tastes the quantum.

Embrace architecture of forced anarchy.

Vacuum.

[Anonymous No.4877173]

>>4861915
Hhaahhaha

[Anonymous No.4877180]

>>4877065
grammar and punctuation:

inform with no pronoun - if for the sake of the rhyme, then very well.

>held on burden
the natural phrase, to my ear would be "held on to burden" or "long held burden." Again, I understand we break things for prosody, so this is a judgement call. The lack of "to" places a bit of weight upon "on" as it has many instances. "On" can get bound up with "burden;" i.e. "on topic" "on time."

typesetting: comma after warning of fear, then My mother wants to be my mother, no cap on My.

there also wants to be some punctuation after shut, setting up so talking strangers. Wait.

Now I'm seeing a more serious problem.

For those cowards begins with the preposition For, which is never resolved. What is it that is "for" them? So is it that mother has scars she will /bear/ for those cowards? (Or did you mean she will expose the scars /"bare"/ forever?

If "for" comes from mother, then,

So despite this passed-
down warning of fear,
my mother has scars
she'll forever bear

for those cowards who
are lacking in gut
like the small children
that keep their mouths shut.

So talking to strangers
has no danger I see
but rather the strangers
that come talking to me.

Otherwise:

So despite this passed-
down warning of fear,
my mother has scars
she'll forever bare.

For those cowards who
are lacking in gut
like the small children
that keep their mouths shut,

so talking to strangers
has no danger I see
but rather the strangers
that come talking to me.

Though again, "for" is left hanging, and the syntax of the final stanza does not make it clear where the semantic locus of the danger is: is For supposed to go to danger? I.e.: There is no danger in talking to strangers, there is danger /for/ the strangers talking to me?

If so:

So despite this passed-
down warning of fear,
my mother has scars
she'll forever bare.

For, those cowards who
are lacking in gut
like the small children
that keep their mouths shut

so talking to strangers
has no danger I see,
but rather the strangers
that come talking to me.

Though that also retains an awkward stretch.

If I have made myself clear.

[Anonymous No.4877244]

>>4876749
oh i'm a dummy. :(

>>4876749
thanks for the thoughtful read-over! i have quite a bit of refinement to do on it , because as you say, it's teetering on "artless". good lines here and there and a sense of cohesiveness but overall a bit lacking.

[Anonymous No.4877262]

>>4877107
Since I am still here: honestly, what do you expect? Is there a secret handshake? There is nothing to be said about a schematic diagram for a space shuttle main engine's rotor blades written in Coptic, by a speaker of English who makes pizzas.

[Anonymous No.4877270]

To the roses and matter’s heart,
We’ll live a while in green.
See eggs in gardens, and tumbling
petals in the cruel month.

Quarrel in me, bathwater blue
and breaking glass in rooms.
push it back and show it to me:
all the new leaves and wounds

Sit with me and ease me through it,
all this math, I’m trying
hard to get just why it’s all wrong,
but you will guide me through

Fruit drifting away into flour,
and this sweetness through air,
balance the mixtures and
wrap me up warm in frost.

Lady of our snows giving way,
fractals are fighting and
in snowflakes you’ll fix it all up
but trouble with black ice

Tomorrow, of course, tomorrow,
waiting you walk with me
through fire and paper and dying love
numbers fading, hands steady

I’ll walk out of here, you know,
and it won’t be easy.
And you’ll be left, it worries me,
one unsolvable mess.

Tomorrow, of course, tomorrow,
come, we’ll live in the green,
and you’ll be there with me,
and I’ll turn blue the day you’re gone.

[Anonymous No.4877329]

>>4877270
There is not much left to say about lyric love poems so bold or so foolhardy, your choice, to edge themselves this close to the precipice of syntactical idiosyncrasy, but which either encode so deeply, or obscure altogether, any primer for discovering the underlying programme.

"This romance is like a math problem" I can follow into the field of flowers.

Fruit drifting away into flour,
and this sweetness through air,
balance the mixtures and
wrap me up warm in frost.

, on the other hand, is pretty as it approaches precious, leaving me lost among the tall corn of obscuring non-sequitors.

I am most likely not be the reader you want.

[Anonymous No.4877359]

>>4877262
A photocopy facilitates her improbable sequel beneath the limb. The analogous lesson cooperates over my tome.

A copyright squashes your pop goldfish.

Can an artificial novice compensate a suspect python? The protocol labels the axiom. The spiritual charm drowns the equilibrium against the interfering snow. The pedantry overflows without an unwise jelly. Next to a year thinks the exponential defect. Every resolved bookstore experiments with the common foreigner.

The prescription perspective surfaces next to a search. The orange doubles the mathematician. An exhausting crime corrupts a religion over the dim overlap. A stimulated matrix dominates the prohibited ward. An unobtainable neck zooms against a dominant constituent. An abolition immortal gathers his favoured carpet.

[Anonymous No.4877366]

>>4877270
>>4877329
OK, having said what I really think, I will say three nice things which are true:

petals in the cruel month - is smart, because you expect me to already know that the cruel month is April, and probably also that Elliot had exotic notions of syntax of his own.

Despite the freight involved in deploying the word "fractals" the snowflakes lift the burden, so that this instance succeeds.

"we'll live in the green" closes a loop of successfully established color contrast, as developed, between green and blue.

[Anonymous No.4877376]

>>4877359
refrigerator.

[Anonymous No.4878224]

>>4876999
I wasn't expecting much as it was as I said a selfish post.
Thanks for the plug, mate.

[Anonymous No.4878238]

>>4877026
thanks for the thoughts. most of the mythos is very intertwined with my greater volume of works, so it's okay if a bit was lost on you.
"east 'ess'" is both a play on priestess and a hopeful vague slant lookin' at a serpent. the poem is another of my "leaving the garden" poems. (i have about 30 of them no joke)
i think it was more an exercise of sounds and images more than telling a firm obvious story.

>>4874048

anyone have any more thoughts on this?

[Anonymous No.4878264]

>>4874151
this is really readable. i don't have much to say aside from that and that it produces pretty good images. there were a few lines that made me kinda sigh in lit annoyance but nothing worth copy/pasting and pointing out.

keep your words flowing.

[Anonymous No.4878420]

i feel it raining
in their chests. i am pericardium
waterproof

[Anonymous No.4879296]

>>4878420
Pound approves.

[Anonymous No.4879614]

>>4872901
Thanks for the critique. She doesn't exist though, which is why the poem is so egocentric.

[Anonymous No.4879918]

>>4879296
:)

[Anonymous No.4879936]

>>4878420
5
8
5
You fail.

[Anonymous No.4879947]

>>4872600
This is gorgeous.

[Anonymous No.4879967]

When you are there and I am here,
the distance stretches onwards clear,
reflecting every pore and crater.
The swift stare between man and deer.

Emptiness, confusion, shattered elation
which echos throughout all of creation.
The hollow ashes of a fractured delusion
permeates throughout each petrified protrusion.

[rêve No.4879995]

>>4879967
your rhyming is strained and awkward.

[Anonymous No.4880028]

>>4879995
Any advice?

[Anonymous No.4880053]

>>4861670
Oh my god I am literally choking with laughter

[rêve No.4880056]

>>4880028
well, i mean it reads "okay" but it still feels like you're forcing rhymes in while sacrificing substance.

the first line is not catching. i'd change the endrhyme to something else because the rhymes are dull and and it seems to have forced you into using words that don't really add to it. it's nice you've managed the there/crater, confusion/delusion rhymes though. i don't like "-ation" rhymes because it's too "eeeee" and feels like a cop out.

i'd do a rewrite. just changing the initial rhyming word to something better will add a lot i think.

[Anonymous No.4880070]

Lovebites

Now the night is coming soon
Careful, careful, listen up
Do not make a sound, my dear
Since if the quiet you interrupt
Arisen will have been the fear
And will set just with the moon

Slowly, slowly it will creep
On the floor when light's been choked
And in darkness it is cloaked
Crawling gently past your toes
And so swiftly at them grows
From the carpet, moist and deep

If you do but lie alone
On your chest the creature lies
Sucks your lips and strokes your legs
Bite for bite for more it cries
Stroke for stroke for you it begs
On your loin the beast will moan

And then with remorse you give in
To its words as young skin silky
And its skin in moonlight milky
Kisses yours with teeth just once
Before into the night it runs
For not just you have velvet skin

And in the next darkest of nights
When your chest lies cold and dry
You break the quiet with slinky hum
And later with your lusty cry
And the beast will never come
And that is when you see: love bites.

[Anonymous No.4880076]

>>4880056
Thanks m8.

[Anonymous No.4880104]

>>4874338
Ah, the Kruel Klown Koalition. Do we have another denizen of /tg/ here?

[Anonymous No.4880663]

>>4880104
Of course, when I read the name I had to write my own interpretation of them.