>>8157234
I rate your poem check the catalog retard/10

>>8142338

>>8157248
I mentioned structure. This one is official like threads on other boards. I'm also not samefag.

Here, let me start

"fanning water on both sides"

my new expensive bicycle
completely unbecoming of me
is not meant for the craggy roads of this city
though it claims to be a "mountain bike"
hardtail, 21 gears (shorthand for 7x3,
though i would hardly know what that means
dipped in the filthy vapours suffusing this urban lung),
a titanium skeleton as sleek as an ocean liner.
when i pedal el poderoso through the undulating
wavy asphalt streets that line this rancid metropoliced hub,
my heart hops on every slippery slide, each jerk and skid,
each strangling strain on the wheels as i make a hairpin bend
fit to snap right down the middle.
yesternoon it rained and i found a microscopic honeycomb
growing off the plastic of my smoothly-hewn mudguards:
a present from mumbadevi for being born in her boggy
womb. my feet seemed dipped in ice, frozen nerves,
the skin perspiring dilute acid as i pedaled faster
than i should have over the slick cobbled lanes,
the rocks and stones and bits of road chipped off,
gnawed off by cats and hounds pissing over
the tiny clumps of grass that timidly sprout from spores
buried underfoot, then
the sonorous almighty nasal rumble
of rubber rolling over a metal drum embedded
in the ground. then the swerving, the shifting of weight
as we weave between cars many kilometres travelled to meet
here amidst a trumpet band from pandaemonium,
between men and women letting down their stringy hair,
the mask of water on their faces deepening the reds,
the sensuous browns of their pupils, and they stand back
and watch my bicycle chain pull us down the river and home.

>>8157909
I like it anon, though I have a distaste for free-verse. I would maybe omit the parenthetical part near the beginning, something about it is kind of jarring.
Also, unless I missed something, your poem doesn't seem to be about anything except describing a ride on your bike--which is fine, i guess, but I think a poem is much stronger if it has some sort of underlying message, and imagery that supports that, or whatever.
That being said, I still enjoyed your writing and your descriptive abilities.


anyway, here's one of mine:


>traditional sonnet (iambic pentameter)

And yet—despite this dreamlike gift of breath—
I dwell on how perverse it is, this life,
of wretched pain, and sickness unto death:
to catch the handle of a falling knife,
you reach, and grasp the sharpened blade instead—
and so it is to live—a life uncouth,
of stumbling through this strange and lonely dread,
and failing in your arms is fading youth,
not knowing why, or where, or what you are,
and what this is; but here you are, alive—
you crawl through knives and see out there, afar,
that roaring end, whose winds will soon arrive,
to sweep you out of this—and into what?
Someday, I’ll see . . . the day my eyes are shut.

>>8158041
Thanks for the critique. I really enjoyed your poem, and I've got no critique to offer you (perhaps because of the poverty of my critical ability) except this: I would tone down the use of em dashes. I see only one instance--"to sweep you out of this—and into what?"--where the use of an em dash seems requisite. You can substitute the rest with commas and periods.

Here's some blank verse I wrote a few weeks ago.

https://theverboseauteur.wordpress.com/2016/05/27/out-of-africa/