Post a thing that you've written.
It can be a short poem here or you can pastebin your entire novel, whatever.
Others critique.
>>6363892
"If you use a pan to make a pancake, does it make it a pancake pan?"- Anon, 2013
http://pastebin.com/2XwcDkVm
a short story that I wrote two year ago for a competition that I thought I would at least place in
I was quite discouraged when I didn't win, and have since given a few small attempts to redraft it substanially
although in last year's competition, I placed first :)
>>6363895
>2013
Every time I look at the calendar I remember it's already 2015 and have a mini heart attack.
Bored and can't sleep I'll critique everyone in the thread while I'm awake
>>6363912
>I wanted
Don't have your narrator tell the reader what they want. The fact that he wants the old man to continue telling the story is already communicated through his demand to know what happened next.
http://tv.adult-fanfiction.org/story.php?no=600098537
Hunger. It's that feeling which drives the human spirit, which churns the marrow in our bones. Its those same six letters that drives the wagons to the west, that sails the ships over the seas. It's that little whisper in your ear that keeps you pushing, keeps you moving. Move or die. Go home, find a new one, or starve. Every callous, every ache, every gasp for air, it helps you over, helps you through it. Explore, adventure, be free, until it fills you up. Its up to you; light the fire, shoot the starting gun, sound the horn of battle. Most will try to stop you, you must succeed; if you want it, you must succeed. Throw off the gloves, bear your teeth, clench your fists until your fingers break, show the world the hunger in your eye. Stand or sit not, idly by; go and get and take, and show the world the hunger in your eye.
My only real hope
Is that somebody kills me
Before I tell you
all my secret words
That acts I do in darkness
Never print themselves on your waking brain
So that we never have a hope to reconnect the dots
You smiled that labrador smile
Your lips hanging loose
Your teeth out
Your eyes snarling into me
I was powerless to stop you
As your memories destroyed the person I tried to be
Mash of some phone-notepad poems.
2014-02-04 18:37:13, Info CBS Starting TrustedInstaller initialization.
2014-02-04 18:37:13, Info CBS Loaded Servicing Stack v6.1.7601.17592 with Core: C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-servicingstack_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7601.17592_none_672ce6c3de2cb17f\cbscore.dll
2014-02-04 18:37:14, Info CSI 00000001@2014/2/5:02:37:14.732 WcpInitialize (wcp.dll version 0.0.0.6) called (stack @0x7fedc58f0ad @0x7feeab39849 @0x7feeab034e3 @0xff58e97c @0xff58d799 @0xff58db2f)
2014-02-04 18:37:14, Info CSI 00000002@2014/2/5:02:37:14.975 WcpInitialize (wcp.dll version 0.0.0.6) called (stack @0x7fedc58f0ad @0x7feeab86816 @0x7feeab52aac @0x7feeab035b9 @0xff58e97c @0xff58d799)
2014-02-04 18:37:15, Info CSI 00000003@2014/2/5:02:37:15.013 WcpInitialize (wcp.dll version 0.0.0.6) called (stack @0x7fedc58f0ad @0x7fef5448738 @0x7fef5448866 @0xff58e474 @0xff58d7de @0xff58db2f)
2014-02-04 18:37:15, Info CBS Ending TrustedInstaller initialization.
2014-02-04 18:37:15, Info CBS Starting the TrustedInstaller main loop.
2014-02-04 18:37:15, Info CBS TrustedInstaller service starts successfully.
2014-02-04 18:37:15, Info CBS SQM: Initializing online with Windows opt-in: False
2014-02-04 18:37:15, Info CBS SQM: Cleaning up report files older than 10 days.
2014-02-04 18:37:15, Info CBS SQM: Requesting upload of all unsent reports.
2014-02-04 18:37:15, Info CBS SQM: Failed to start upload with file pattern: C:\Windows\servicing\sqm\*_std.sqm, flags: 0x2 [HRESULT = 0x80004005 - E_FAIL]
2014-02-04 18:37:15, Info CBS SQM: Failed to start standard sample upload. [HRESULT = 0x80004005 - E_FAIL]
2014-02-04 18:37:15, Info CBS SQM: Queued 0 file(s) for upload with pattern: C:\Windows\servicing\sqm\*_all.sqm, flags: 0x6
2014-02-04 18:37:15, Info CBS SQM: Warning: Failed to upload all unsent reports. [HRESULT = 0x80004005 - E_FAIL]
2014-02-04 18:37:15, Info CBS No startup processing required, TrustedInstaller service was not set as autostart, or else a reboot is still pending.
>>6364729
get well soon anon.
Burnt my hand on it so hot it shot vertical in a blink,
Smack against the top of the oven, thwack, like that,
That if needles hanging I'd have Swiss tendons by now,
And how automatic my body can be,
In pain,
When faced with pain in hand, thwack, like that, hard backward into fresh broiled skin,
Three sticks of butter shoved right into me, harakiri,
Laughing victorious while slowly on sepulchral probe's LCD the calcification of my circulation feed my eyes,
All tumble downward, always in slowness, and silence, from inside,
One day swallowing and in your ear a rasp in the drum like strangled circuitry, frying, and there every time,
Halving this glass, these little lumps of flour nestled together, chicks, meats, put here to crawl in my mouth and crackle dead ashen in fire laying on its side face ablated or turned unknowable through the flare licks to form mouth sensations,
Stuffed in my mouth as much as I can gather feeling lusty behind all my hate of lust and lusty hate, irrational,
Of needing endorphins to escape the absence of endorphins,
And hate of these things that allow me to hate,
Well roasted chicken,
Thanks.
An intangible entity incapable of prediction, oft arriving through an amalgam of conflicting hesitations and realizations, a veritable maelstrom of sudden clarity forging a link created from whimsical ideals given form on the plane of reality; permeating every mental pore with magnificent pulsing vibrations larger than the world, larger than any conceivable measurement, unbreakable by the strongest of armies, retroactively allocating itself as a fundamental force residing unto the person with the utmost conviction formed from the strength of willpower and doctrine, the pinnacle of conclusion. A fickle and delicate infant vulnerable to the pangs of betrayal, whom must be protected from any contradicting authority; infinitely powerful yet exposed to the omnipotent entropy that is erosion of feeling, originating from the disappearance of cause, of why, of explanation, of purpose, of grave disruptions, a molestation of sanctity, sundered by time or worse, an unspeakable actuality; rendering this pure untainted form inert, removed as the preceding date of advent, transparent enlightenment hovering in peripheral vision.
>>6364795
Do you have any semen left in your scrotum
And the soft, almost-there whisper of “you should have let me die”, the briefness of her lips on his cheek, and then nothing but a sharp intake of breath as she turned away. You can’t see the ocean for the waves. It’s not even a coherent thought.
If there is a God, he's going to have to beg me for forgiveness.
Undern inky shadow of moonlight, in patches of debris both greyed and embering, a shallow puddle of liquid was settling. In a settler's dream, old men with blades shaving skin off -what we know nothing- skin grew from coffee cups in the concrete. Looking at the sky from below ground, through glass he saw a living playground, inducing nothing at all, voices polychromatic, sick with ash inhalation he slept for unknown reasons, to relax was unknown, his body can't be said, should not be said to resemble what he was, what he may have been, or anything recognizable to we, spinning corpse, light brains, light as rice paper, the sun so heavy, sighing too, shying from its chains, this flame who screamed for so long, so weakened its scorch could not warm my flaking golden teeth. After his sleep, could take no pride in the flight of fools, through the frozen bones of earth bubbled the carbonated blood of ghosts no longer dreaming, the belly of god no longer distended, deflated, all the worms have died of starvation, no more fossils to be found.
>>6364806
Everything here is solid until the phrasing of the last sentence. The "not even" ,for me at least, doesn't fit with the mood, nor does "coherent thought" propagate the emotional momentum. I think what you're trying to say is really interesting and quite emotive in a non-cringy way but if that last sentence could be improved the passage would be a lot stronger.
>>6364807
10/10 can't stop giggling
>>6364785
I really really like this except for the endorphins line. Besides that, I really enjoy the phonaesthetics and your style in general. 8/10
I’ve often felt like
a ship tied up to a dock
listening to the faint whispering
of a lonely sea.
Looking up at the stars
I connect dots
and they always seems to spell,
“Go,
we’ll show you the way”.
The sirens and me
are old friends,
you see.
They showed me where all the rocks are
and they sing me to sleep sometimes.
I think one or two of them may have even loved me.
So I’m sorry I’m so far away.
You must think I was kidnapped
by wanderlust,
but I thought I ought to tell you
that I’m just trying to show you how small the world really is.
>>6364867
You're working with some really banal images here. The sirens, the "faint whispering" and the "lonely sea" are far too familiar to be performing the same functions they always have in any poem. I'm assuming that this is a sincere poem, and that you have genuine emotions backing up these words but the bottom line is that you need to produce radical innovations to get away with overused tropes like connecting the dots of stars. Having said that, all you need to do is keep working at it until your writing matures and you can express what is both different and universal about your sentiments. 3/10 tho, sorry.
>>6364881
>It's not diffrent nuff
lol holy shit hahaha
>>6364795
I'm all for purple prose when done right, but this isn't done right. A shame too, because your syntax and vocabulary aren't bad at all. You have potential for talent if you tone it down. Reading this passage is like walking by a homeless lady sleeping with her vagina exposed; under other circumstances (if she was cleaned, if you were both in love, if you got to know each other and built up to the experience), seeing that vagina would give me a hard on, but right now it just seems vulgar and inappropriate, albeit abundant.
>>6364647
I like the material here, very intriguing concept. But the second person narrative is a bit off-putting. This would go much better from a third person omniscient I feel.
>>6364729
This is the next Ulysses
>>6364881
What about this one?
And the Goddess of empty pleasures
gave unto me
a pack
of endless cigarettes.
And I watched with amazement
as she poured two holy liquids together
and called it, “wineka.”
And I drank this wineka
with a zealous haste
until my heart fluttered with warmth
and my eyes grew glazed
and lazy and wandering
like the cherry-scented thoughts
that were so soon lost to me.
>>6364893
I like you.
>>6364725
>secret words
I like that
>You smiled that labrador smile... Your eyes snarling into me
I like this too, seems very sincere
>As your memories destroyed the person I tried to be
Can't relate, won't hate
The first stanza is great, really potent. Overall though, and I'm sure you didn't expect much more in the way of criticism, it is apparent that its an amalgam of phone-poems (not that phone poems can't be wonderful), and not something refined.
>>6364899
Wow full 180 for me, I really like this one.
I have no problems with it whatsoever save one nitpick (would prefer "with zealous haste" to "a zealous haste").
This seems publishable to me. Flows well, self-parodying (to an extent), but still (for me at least) allows an undercurrent of unironic, though drunken, pathos. Right on.
When it came to fish, lampreys were at the bottom of the barrel in terms of appearance. Drawing inspiration from them required creativity you would not expect a drop-out art student to possess, but Maya proved she had it in abundance. Without doubt, Lamprey was Miami's heart...and in a dire need of transplantation.
beehive being
yes, honey
it stings
>>6364906
Ha cool, glad you like the second one. Whenever I show people my work they always like the ones like the first one. Sincere, predictable, happy. But I really like the ones that are more like the second. About dead dreams, being drunk, and screaming at inanimate objects until my voice is raw. They give me odd looks when they read those ones.
>>6364914
that's bound to happen. I'd encourage you to write more of the latter category, if for no other reason than the fact that poetry is , in a certain sense, about how much depth you can create from surfaces (interrelations of sound-image via text). The former poem has, to me, fairly dull associations. The second is funny, not nearly as predictable, and conveys something that isn't quite satisfied with itself which, I've noticed, is extremely rare with amateur writers.
I call this one "Aged Edge, Hidden Fedora"
A periodicization under the name of post-culturalism could hardly be effective, considering how its hypothetical predecessor, culturalism, has no predecessor itself, humanity has never before existed in a period which so weakly reinforced its own cultural roles without providing new alternatives. The culture of contemporaneity would have to be characterized as a perpetual cultural negation that is itself the cultural dominant. Or at least, with the advent of sexual liberation, women's liberation, the civil rights movement in general, we have people seizing an individuality without consciousness of its responsibilities, or rather, the responsibilities they impart to the next generation in socialization. For this reason, cultural roles would appear more open to neg(oti)ation when encountering the turbulence, the oscillation inherent to any cultural mode of experience (i.e. binary romantic relationships, passive feminine role, dominant male role, etc.)
>>6363892
His boots smacked against the scorched dirt almost as loud as the canons thundered in the distance.
Observing his new surroundings which where large, pale domed alabaster coloured buildings as far as one of his eyes could see, though most of them now ruined from the current ongoing siege, would have looked magnificent in their prime and golden days. The Corsair grimaced at the sight, "What a shame," he muttered then spat "Hopefully the empire's dogs have left something for me to take".
Unstrapping a horn straddled to his hip, he unbuckled bringing it slowly to his lips then blew into it hard, but taking great care as not to damage as it was an ancient horn.
>>6364928
The last part about how the horn was ancient made chuckle internally.
>>6364933
I think I need to clean it up a little, I could've done more at the end but I hated that I made myself repetitive by using pale and alabaster.
>>6364899
Daaaaang, man. I really like the imagery you are laying down. It's very fun and funny.
Is 'wineka' just mixed wine and vodka? Is that the joke here? Because if so: hilarious. If not, what is wineka and how do I pronounce it?
Do you experiment with meter or just stick to free verse? It'd be cool to see consistency in meter in two stanzas of free verse. Haha, I'm an amateur poet, I don't know if what I said makes sense.
I looked at your blog. You've got some good ones in there m'dude.
>>6364940
Yeah I mean if you did neaten things up and work on the flow I'd be interested to read a longer excerpt. It definitely seems like you're more inclined towards prose though, the style there isn't self-sufficient in its aesthetic content.
>>6364920
Thanks for the kind words man. I struggle to keep up with the motivation, but I have feelings and stories within me that always will find a way to escape. If you are at all interesting in keeping track of my progress, I have a webpage that I post to fairly regularly.
There was a car: red, smooth-lines, German made. Then there was a man: thirty-three, prematurely gray, with a thick stubble eclipsing the pale skin underneath, blue eyes that seemed to droop more than stare at the dash mounted GPS. “Destination reached,” it says. Turning it off, he looked out at a curl of subdivision road winding about the equal sized lots, each curve another attempt to slow people– the aesthete's speed bump– it's why he never liked suburban living. Looking around his car, he pushed aside a stack of dated college newspapers on his passenger seat to reveal a single page containing a list of names. All but one was crossed out. He read it aloud, “Ashley Miller.” Allowing his head to fall back into the curved, anti-whiplash cradle of his seat, he closes his eyes, and repeats the name, allowing the syllables to flow through his mouth like warm milk “Ash-lee, Mill-er.”
>>6364948
Ha thanks man. Yea wineka is wine mixed with vodka and it FUCKS YOU UP. You can hardly taste the vodka and you feel like you're just drinking wine. I figured it out one night in a rather dark place. Woke up the next morning fully dressed in a pool of my own drool on a mattress without sheets or pillowcases and no memory of what happened. Wrote this poem that day of recovery.
>>6364795
ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
She told me to place my hand on her stomach, so I did. Then, with my head propped on my arm at a right angle, I began to tell stories. In moments of brief silence, she pressed herself against me organically, and I felt gratitude, fear. Every few minutes, she would turn slightly to look at my face, and if in those moments she found herself situated somewhere between disgust and indifference, it could only be a product of my frightening expectations. But limbs kept twisting. Our thighs met each other like calm children. My words fell against each other trying to participate in the presence of bodies, failing, while all sounds were shut out by sensation, the slow movement of hands and fabric. Time passed, she continued listening, reacting, responding with words, sentences, paragraphs of her own, and for so many minutes it appeared there was somewhere else besides myself where one could detect the hunger for sighs.
Momento Mori
This moment. A moment now gone.
This moment. Another lost
Where did our precious moments go?
How many spent on callous costs?
This very moment. Never to return.
This moment. Already past.
How many did you invest in fun and games?
They've all vanished in a blast.
This moment a healthy life delivered
This moment another all gone.
The future's coming closer, beware.
What remains when your moments're none?
>>6364949
Is this any better from what I originally wrote?
Boots bearing large chains smacked against the scorched dirt almost as loud as the canons thundered in the distance. Clanking and ringing sonorously.
Observing new surroundings which where large, domed alabaster coloured buildings as far as one of his eyes could see, though most of them now ruined from the current ongoing desolate siege, would have looked magnificent in their prime and golden days. The Corsair grimaced at the sight, "What a shame," he muttered then spat "Hopefully the empire's dogs have left something for me to take".
Unstrapping a horn straddled to his hip, bringing it slowly to his lips, pressing the ancient dry wood against his lips then blew into it hard, but taking great care as not to damage as it was an ancient horn.
The timing was almost perfect, if not a little too perfect and coincidental for The God of Death and his crew of The Black Wind, judging by how much destruction there was going on currently.
>>6364893
I don't consider it to be good at all. It's stupid shit I've typed. Thanks for the feedback. Seriously.
>>6364987
>first period should be a comma
>" Observing new surrounding which were large, domed alabaster coloured buildings as far as one of his eyes could see..."
that sentence just gets clunkier and more tripped up as it goes along. Gotta find another way to say he was a one-eyed dude staring at domed alabaster buildings.
It seems like you're trying to describe the setting a little too quickly and in too dense a fashion for it to be tasteful. Add a few metaphors, get some style in there (or don't, if metaphors aren't your shtick). Bottom line is you can spend more time setting up the environment, and there are other ways. Here's me giving it a try:
"Through one eye, the Corsair surveyed the ruins of alabaster domes. Towering plumes of smoke rose against the auburn backdrop of dusk as the vast architecture of Istanbul crumbled under siege by the Franks. Boots smacked against the scorched earth, chains rattled ambience behind the thundering cannons, when suddenly, the Corsair pierced the air with the sounding of an ancient horn."
That's what I would've done with it, but again, you have to find your own voice. Honestly, if your ability to craft a formidable plot is up to snuff, an editor can clean all the clunky shit up. If you're trying to write fantasy or historical fiction then style is not as important, R.R. Martin writes fucking god awful sentences left and right but his story-crafting ability is what makes his nut.
>>6364987
>loud
should be loudly
>thundered
should be thundering, I can't quite tell you why because I'm not a native speaker, but in the context of the comparison it sounds better
>Clanking and ringing sonorously
this is redundant both in itself and in relation to the sentence preceding it
>>6364987
>Observing new surroundings which where large, domed alabaster coloured buildings as far as one of his eyes could see, though most of them now ruined from the current ongoing desolate siege, would have looked magnificent in their prime and golden days.
this is grammatically incorrect. The beginning should lead up to a main clause (Observing z, x did y), but no main clause actually follows. The last part, following 'would', does not properly connect to the sentence structure either.
Avoid hypotaxis like the plague. Think about economy of expression. What are you trying to convey? How can you do this in the shortest, simplest text? Descriptive writing is good if there is a high ratio of sensory impressions conveyed with a relatively low amount of verbal complexity. Your text is the other way around.
>>6365024
>Honestly, if your ability to craft a formidable plot is up to snuff, an editor can clean all the clunky shit up. If you're trying to write fantasy or historical fiction then style is not as important, R.R. Martin writes fucking god awful sentences left and right but his story-crafting ability is what makes his nut.
don't listen to this, it's wrong.>>6365024
>It seems like you're trying to describe the setting a little too quickly and in too dense a fashion for it to be tasteful. Add a few metaphors, get some style in there (or don't, if metaphors aren't your shtick).
My advice is to get less style in there, and more substance. The style should be a tool, used to transport something you are trying to convey. I think you are already using style too much as an end in itself. I also disagree with the idea that your description is too hasty.
I'll let you guys know when somebody writes something good here.
>>6365034
>Descriptive writing is good if there is a high ratio of sensory impressions conveyed with a relatively low amount of verbal complexity.
This is the first thing I've ever written, how is it?
Vesuvius was overflowing with life, resembling a red-hot savannah rather than a nightclub. Even some of it's patrons – lecherously grinning sharks with heavy wallets, thrill-seeking youths straight out of teens – fit into the exotic theme, all playing their parts.
Every society, be it one of predators or victims, has a leader. Strong. Intelligent. Charismatic... Those were the sought qualities. And he had them.
He was sitting on the sofa, watching the strippers' performance. The leathery piece of furniture could seat at least a dozen of people, yet he was alone, sprawled like a lion, with enough self-confidence to drown the building from the foundations to the top. That man was not a leader. He was the leader. His eyes, greener than the emeralds in his father's rings, followed the dancers' movements, but held no interest in them. While their painted faces and bodies were attractive, they all lacked something. They weren't her.
>>6365070
i wouldn't call it ideology, there's obviously room for disagreement here. You're welcome to share an opinion, if, indeed, you have one.
>>6365079
pulpy good. This can get published if the plot holds, etc. A few minor mistakes, but nothing beyond what the editor will likely expect:
its not it's
a dozen people, no 'of'
more green instead of greener (I think)
'sought qualities' sounds slightly off, but that might just be an issue of taste.
> not callin 'em 'poyms'
This is a paragraph from a piece I'm working on about a critically acclaimed robot painter who's struggling to reinvent himself while navigating the fickle and shallow New York art scene.
"Do you think it's a name for girls?" he asked shyly, struggling to fish out a cigarette with his cold titanium claws. "Don't you?" she replied, handing him one, and lit the thin cylinder of paper clenched between his mechanical jaws, A faint whirring of gears could be heard as he inhaled. "Lindsey," she said, airily, feeling the soft touch of the syllables on her ears, "Lindsey..." They were staring at the painting by the window, a Caravaggian rendering of Chairman Mao waiting in line at a Starbucks; mid-morning light drifted in from the tall windows and bathed the packages of coffee beans in diluted gold. "I guess so," he said, defeatedly. The squeaking of taxi brakes and a myriad of horns -- long aggravated wails, short impatient jabs, and cute double half-notes -- echoed up from the street. Almost sounds like birds, he thought.
>>6365134
this reads like (shit) whiteboy rap.
http://www.docdroid.net/t1g8/pessimist-manifesto.pdf.html
in the process of rewriting
>>6365134
the last paragraph I like it because I don't understand it and it is silly
>>6363912
anyone?
Xanaxia
I am blinking
3:32 AM, 03.24.00
exhaling fumes that choke me
3:56 AM, 03.24.00
Breathing electric lights then swinging miles over shadowed cracks in the sidewalk
and each of them want me to die temporarily
4:37 AM 03.24.00
but if they won't stop shaking me
5:00 AM 03.24.00
I'll cry, and go to sleep
with arms resting on my chest
5:44 AM 03.24.00
in a bathtub, warm and wet,
with red waves splashing and spiraling across the surface of the water
as platelets and plasma sigh downward from the liquid skin
like tendrils from the manic sky
5:28 AM 04.06.15
"water damage'
on the ceiling below my bathtub
because I turned on a faucet
that wouldn't stop running
I awoke on Monday feeling like warm butter. After a breakfast of cold coffee and newspaper ink about misplaced oil which I got on my fingers, I embarked on a third trip to the Greenhouse. From outside my home just above the trees which dotted square miles all the way off into the distance I could spot the tip of the tower which loomed over its smaller structural siblings in the grey distance, a beacon of hope. I walked along my road down to the train station feeling like an electric toothbrush as my nerves and the cold air both fought to shake me. At the station I stood proudly amongst men and, this being the 21st century, women, who loomed about the place with their suits and briefcases awaiting the train to London. I stood taller than them all, holding my chest out and gripping my briefcase tenaciously as if there were anything more than last week’s browning banana inside it. This was a big day.
The train ride said a lot about the quality of today’s businessmen and women, all of whom stared with dead eyes out of windows or at adverts for AIDS and homeless children. I kept my chin in line with the forehead of the slovenly passenger opposite me for the entirety of the time we spent together. He kept his consistently in line with my crotch but I’m sure he wasn’t lucid.
>>6365172
The dialogue is interesting, and some of the descriptions are very engaging. I also like the idea. If i had one criticism, it would be the number of the adverbs you use i.e "he said, defeatedly" and "she said, airily" are kind of unnecessary when the dialogue is obviously implying this kind of delivery from the characters.
>>6363912
For this I have to agree w/ >>6364176 . Otherwise I thought it was okay.
2K+ words here. I'm still insecure about how the ending translates, so any feedback at all would be helpful.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S-DKamc9Sr03G5LXbZoPHNbsQvcpbH3vgahJWA-SfkE/edit?usp=sharing
>>6363892
This is just something I came up with as in about five minutes off of the top of my head. Would love some criticism.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"Our world is without end, but there must always be an ending."
The guardians’ eyes were dark and sad, although they expressed a determined finality within them.
Desperately, I spun around in a circle, hoping the answer would not be repeated.
As I turned, I received looks that were spun from the same cloth, all of which were grieving in their own fashion.
I knew then that this was not perhaps my world’s end, but the end of the world that I knew all the same.
“If I am to die, let it be on my own terms,” I spoke solemnly, damning myself for the faint quiver in my voice.
I had to be brave, brave not just for myself but for the ones who still cared for me, although I had done my best to ensure that there were few left who did.
Tears ran down my former protector’s face as he moved slowly forward to envelop me in his arms.
I hugged him back strongly, aware that this was the last time we would see each other alive, perhaps forever.
“You were the kin that I never had,” he whispered, as I felt pain blossoming between my ribs.
“You were the father that I wish would remain so,” I murmured, darkness quickly overtaking me.
>>6365172
That picture needs to be memed into the feels guy stat.
Are these intentionally bad? I tell better stories when I'm talking in my sleep.
>>6365310
post some then
>>6365034
>>loud
>should be loudly
this is not true, you choose the one you like, they are both correct
It's not how I think of you badly
Easily, I could, in all manner of ways
It's how the thought of you barely crosses my mind at all
And when it does, it is within such a passing moment,
Maybe a snippet of a memory,
That I feel I have forgotten
Almost all of our course together
Our combined impact on the Earth
May as well have never occurred in the first place
And although I learned,
I simply re-established my morals
So in the end,
All I take with me,
Is muscle memory
>>6365321
I'll consider your requests.
>>6365134
Sorry I can't offer any helpful criticism, I just wanted to tell you I really really like this
>>6365366
>this is not true, you choose the one you like, they are both correct
it's not. Which word would the adjective modify? Chains? Chains aren't loud as such. The clanking is, but it's not a noun here, it's a verb.
Hark! Now hear the jailers cry
Winds sweeping, winds moving
I find new life in words that once meant nothing
Stark. The barren women try
Skin touching, skin crawling
I find new life in people who once meant nothing
>>6365454
How you start off each stanza sounds silly. But I have no idea how you would ideally change it
>>6365466
thanks, anon.
I just wrote this shit.
Poetry is like your bitch
Really really really really easy.
What do shit to me, he said that little bitch? Navy Seals that graduated top of my class, I know, and I was involved in many secret Al Qaeda attacks, and leave more than 300 confirmed kills. I am a trained gorilla and went to war with a sniper in all the US armed forces. They are not for me, but for a different purpose. I do not see exactly how in the world that I am not the devil by the population, was sentenced to delete my words. I think I told you that shit retirement on the Internet? Think again guys. I'm talking more, poor little thing called life worms prepare to storm the storm if my secret American spy network and IP address processed. Whore dead child. I will always be around, and I can kill over seven species, and only their bare hands. I am full of fist-fight training, but you can access the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps, and I was your sorry ass continents, delete some whore's face, you can use full-screen mode, Commentariolus "smart" that this holy vengeance, you can store your fucking tongue fall. But I could not, and now the price can pay iiot curse. I'm crazy shit and walnut. Whore dead child.
I wrote this
>>6365095
I appreciate your advice, although I can't understand one thing - how exactly is it pulpy? As I said, I'm new to this so sorry if it's a stupid question, but I just don't see it
>>6363912
possibly interesting concept, but completely vanilla: you lack any and all sense of style
>>6365726
>how exactly is it pulpy?
not too bad, some of the images and style are very common, bordering on cliché. Sprawled like a lion, etc. The emeralds are a bit overdone (unrealistically intense colours, especially for eyes, are common in shitty genre fiction).
>>6363895
...Yes. Is it not normal to call your pancake pan a pancake pan?
I'm writing some new shit right now.
Wheel
We are candle flames lost in an infinitely deeper darkness because human eyes always face forward.
The universe is lit ablaze by light from end to perdurable beginning.
That is the sound of a star piercing through its very being through our gaze.
This illusion of perpetual forward motion imitates stillness by virtue of its eternality.
Here you are.
>>6364619
Why?
B. Night
You peel back the covers and bloom. Feline back bent bristling over broken connections; the nightly ritual birthing. The cold air touches your pores and your nipples rise to greet the night.
You slip your perfect nakedness around the house. Your feet don’t touch the ground because it’s not worthy of touching you. Nothing is; there is always a layer of dead space between the molecules of your skin and the outside world. You don’t know that but it’s true, and it explains why you feel so distant from everything around. If you knew you’d probably brush it off until three am and you were completely alone; then you’d cry in slow soft sobs as if someone could hear you and you didn’t want them too.
1) Its a good thing you don’t know. No one can hear you.
You go naked to the window where below the city lights paint the contours of your breasts in red and green. He comes to you like that,
(RED = STOP) (GREEN = GO)
stuck in some kind of in between motion. He’s moving forward, he’s holding back, and it’s all because of you. It’s all because of color, which is simply the perceived rays of light, and you curse him for not being color blind. He takes too fucking long.
You’re gone by the time he gets there. The window stands open and your wings, all sheet rock and wiry metal have broken their way through your velvet skin. All you leave behind is an outline in blood so long and thick it will stain the carpet until he removes it and puts in hard wood floors instead.
The city becomes the size of a quarter in your hands. You toss it back and forth. The cars squeal and belch blue smog and the ants get where they’re going so fast that miles no longer frighten them. People used to travel by their own two feet, and what we do now in an hour took days. You watch it from your flying perch and talk.
You say, “I don’t choose to change the world, it just happens. Every time I breathe somewhere miles away a butterfly shakes its wings. The point is we’re all so connected we’re completely separate, and I can’t help it if you don’t feel me. You were never meant to, you silly boy.”
Where do you guys usually post your stories, besides /lit/? I was considering tumblr, but
>tumblr
Stricken
A star stands
on the Eastern Waters,
living, free and wild,
aside millions of grains
of lifeless sand.
A stricken astronomer sits
in the Western Desert,
gazing and wishing to
shine with and for her.
All the while sand dunes
roll over and bury him.
>>6366759
On a blogspot account. With Tumblr, you'll either get a bunch of people praising even shit-tier work or hate messages
There's a guy walking in the woods. It looks like he's searching for food. He's awfully thin. I wonder what he's thinking about. Probably food. But why would he be searching for food in the snow? Maybe he lost something. I'll watch him a little while longer. He should have a hat on out here. Must be lonely for him out here with no one to talk to. I thought I heard him talking to himself earlier. Should I talk to him? Shit! I lost him. Oh well, I'll follow his footprints... if I can find them, that is. Where are they? He was next to this tree just a few minutes ago. Shouldn't his footprints be here? Does he exist? Do I exist?
"Hello, son."
"Who said that!? I'm not your son. My dad's dead."
"Come home, my boy."
"Home? Where? Hello? Are you there? Hello?"
http://pastebin.com/VTM7MHV0
throwaway story for practice, short short short story, just a story about nothing.
>>6365134
Hmm yea this feels like it is not really focused on images but more so on sound and word play. I don't really see anything that crisp and clear here. Honestly I think that is just one of paths a poet can take, focusing on words and sounds more than images. If you want to spice up the visual aspect I would say it's as easy as just adding some concise, more concrete bits of language. Such as, "the dog barked" "his hair was brown" Still I like the wordplay here
Is this the light of a brand new day?
The breeze to blow my troubles away?
Have I seen it through the cold dark night
with a will still there in strength and spite?
Have my enemies retreated?
Did I see that they’re defeated?
Or did they 'bout-face, and turn around
After running me into barren ground?
As the morning comes, I pause to ponder
What’s over in that frontier yonder?
What opportunities lay for me to find
Now that I’m whole in body and mind?
Through all the wrath and tears I felt
I knew my iron core can’t melt
It’s forged in flames, through black and blue
and yet it still rings loud and true.
Now today’s the day I stand up tall;
my resolve is hardened as a red brick wall.
With courage and force I break the glass;
for the night is over, it’s day at last!
I wrote this after I felt I finally turned a corner in a fight against alcoholism. Hopefully it isn't too bad
that dun and sea-tossed little pebble in the surf
it is da earf
Kill all men, kill them all. old, young, brown or white. I want them dead now.
>>6366253
too short and broken for me, but it's interesting nonetheless
You see, I began posting on lit roughly 2 years ago, I thought I was the dank meme master. I would riddle my opponents and when i was in the face of defeat, I would pull out my final tactic. I called this ''shitposting my way to the top''. I would flood every thread that disagreed with my views, I would post squinted eyed frog memes followed by a few meaningless insults to discourage meaningful discussion
>>6367865
it's pronounced "/lit/"
>>6367053
Are you practicing being Raymond Carver?
>>6367874
no u
POQ 0 ends.
2014-02-04 18:37:23, Info CSI 0000000c [SR] Verify complete
2014-02-04 18:37:23, Info CSI 0000000d [SR] Verifying 100 (0x0000000000000064) components
2014-02-04 18:37:23, Info CSI 0000000e [SR] Beginning Verify and Repair transaction
2014-02-04 18:37:23, Info CBS Archived backup log: C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CbsPersist_20140205023713.cab.
2014-02-04 18:37:24, Info CSI 0000000f Repair results created:
POQ 1 starts:
POQ 1 ends.
2014-02-04 18:37:24, Info CSI 00000010 [SR] Verify complete
2014-02-04 18:37:24, Info CSI 00000011 [SR] Verifying 100 (0x0000000000000064) components
2014-02-04 18:37:24, Info CSI 00000012 [SR] Beginning Verify and Repair transaction
2014-02-04 18:37:25, Info CSI 00000013 Repair results created:
POQ 2 starts:
POQ 2 ends.
2014-02-04 18:37:25, Info CSI 00000014 [SR] Verify complete
2014-02-04 18:37:25, Info CSI 00000015 [SR] Verifying 100 (0x0000000000000064) components
2014-02-04 18:37:25, Info CSI 00000016 [SR] Beginning Verify and Repair transaction
2014-02-04 18:37:25, Info CSI 00000017 Repair results created:
POQ 3 starts:
POQ 3 ends.
2014-02-04 18:37:25, Info CSI 00000018 [SR] Verify complete
2014-02-04 18:37:25, Info CSI 00000019 [SR] Verifying 100 (0x0000000000000064) components
2014-02-04 18:37:25, Info CSI 0000001a [SR] Beginning Verify and Repair transaction
2014-02-04 18:37:25, Info CSI 0000001b Repair results created:
POQ 4 starts:
POQ 4 ends.
POQ 5 starts:
What came after was immediate death.
POQ 5 ends.
2014-02-04 18:37:26, Info CSI 00000020 [SR] Verify complete
2014-02-04 18:37:26, Info CSI 00000021 [SR] Verifying 100 (0x0000000000000064) components
2014-02-04 18:37:26, Info CSI 00000022 [SR] Beginning Verify and Repair transaction
2014-02-04 18:37:26, Info CSI 00000023 Repair results created:
POQ 6 starts:
This is a short comedic story that I wrote for fun. I have more I could post if by some twist of fate this is received warmly.
http://pastebin.com/nM1GUjzr
>>6367878
Is-is that bad?
>>6367935
Raymond Carver is already Raymond Carver buddy
>>6367950
practicing to do something means you've failed, and failing at an imitation is just embarrassing
>>6367963
>practicing to do something means you've failed
What do you mean? Practicing means you're working to develop the skills to achieve something
>>6367980
Read his short story Cathedral you dingus
Eli listened as the bass vibrated through Graham’s speakers, setting a robust pulse over which droning guitar and whirling organ hovered ethereally. He tapped his foot to the rhythm of the slow but deliberate percussion, feeling the energy of the composition vibrating through his restless body and mind.
“I really like this part,” He informed Graham. “Listen to the way this chord resolves.”
“Yeah man,” Graham responded perfunctorily. “It’ll be even better after this jay.”
Graham had not been listening to the song, which ironically was his favorite. He instead concentrated on the unfinished marijuana joint between his sticky fingers. As Graham tucked the remaining herb under a canopy of white paper and lifted the vessel to his lips to seal it, he felt a turbid sense of anticipation. His entire evening thus far would culminate with the consumption of this drug, which he had so dutifully and diligently prepared that the finished product filled him with pride. Flick. Flame and herb met in an isolated moment of intimacy, and then withdrew as Graham inhaled. Finally he was free to roam in intoxicated bliss, relieved of the burden of his former mental acuity.
“By the way,” Eli remarked. “This is the last of it.”
>>6368052
get your head out of your ass and start writing like more than just your over inflated ego is going to read this garbage or no one will
>>6363892
OK.
Stepped into the elevator, pressed the button, heard the door shift and close. Upon seeing the closed door, he became uneasy. He felt as if his consciousness would rapidly exit his skull and fill the elevator like the air leaving a popped balloon; he felt as if Death was nonchalantly holding a needle an inch away from his skull, contemplating his options. He thought that Death might jab his toy balloon, at any moment, out of boredom. He hoped that Death wasn't bored. Maybe Death would gradually ease the needle into his skull, allowing the air within to putter out at its own pace. He hoped that Death wouldn't do that either. His air certainly wasn't unique, just oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and argon; however, he did not want his air to occupy an elevator nor did he want it to spill onto the floor of the elevator's destination, only there to stagnate and decay.
>>6363892
Wrote a one act play for my uni's One Act Play festival. It's kind of shitty and I wrote it in one day, but I wouldn't mind some outside opinions. It's set in a Waffle House and it's about the mafia.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bbWjbBwe7vzZ2oDj64X6uZ9sr4dYyuqamhDIUISZb6o/edit?usp=sharing
Apologies if the format is a little fucked, I transferred it from a Word doc and too assed to unbold everything.
You’re a beautiful person
With all your beautiful sort of needs
And I thought you would thank me
If we got a chance to breathe
But now my lungs are full of smoke
And I haven’t moved an inch since we last spoke
So if you’re ever around in your Sunday best
I’ll be right where you left me
I’ve kept your big ideas in a jar and I held
Myself up in this radio station and
Transmitting on every wavelength I know
So you know right where to find me
I see your face in gallery frames and in midnight fantasies
I see your name behind damp eyelids and picture screens
Good for something
>>6367931
Lol I Chuckled
>>6368027
Will do, ty.
>>6368071
not even bad enough to laugh at
>>6368079
I'm trying to do 50 genres. I'm on like my tenth now, a western. It's a good exercise.
A word is worth a thousand pictures
if carved in the forgotten bark of a magnolia
by covalent lovers 'midst the mist
of fog-less farts from man's machines;
and foxes wield mechanisms of defense
in unveiled wooly sports-coats worn
by and by the jinni in shattered carafes
polished to a frozen lake of mercury;
and Montana slides to and fro, catching gnats,
sprouting seedless sunflower tenderloins
torn away from sow-less lantern skies
obscuring the pupil black curtain behind;
and when a blind man trips on fingered feet
dampened in salty dew and mucous fun,
he sees that silence makes those who weep
hear the sobs from echoes' rain-dropped keys
up onto the eminent brows 'n' ridge furrowing furred:
a promontory for truck-driving fleets of crippled use
to warehouses bustling with oily nails and meat;
and vowels tesselate to Persian patterns
seamlessly collected by some suspecting eyes
surprised mid surpluses of decanted meaning
that floats on by like fiery birthday blimps
manned by a trillion cells named Giuseppe;
but what factory made the first factory?
and whose name formed itself first?
by the letter-less alphabet comprised of grunts?
These questions sit ashamed in the corner
wearing far a pointed cap quoting "dunce;"
and so the shell with the infected pistachio
cracks open inexplicably and decides
to grow into a salamander's spot–a maze
constructed by invisible web-coasts called a poet.
I have thought myself a God. Amongst men I stand bearing burden inconvievable to the haughtiest giants. The weight my great belly throws fell mountains, and the grail from which I drink harbors the seas. My bones are of pure diamond, and my heart the seething center of a star. I have captured all likeness of the devil and cast him from my form. I have turned the moon round the earth and the earth round the sun. I have embodied Poimandres in his dialect with Hermes, and died the death of Christ upon his cross. I have birthed a thousand worlds, and suffered the forfeiture of a thousand souls. I am the Righteous and the True. The Noble and the Brave. The Saint and the Master. Truthfully, I am nothing but a man.
>>6368221
>>forgotten bark of a magnolia
stopped reading.
>>6368287
>Truthfully, I am Chuck Norris.
then you might have been ironically sarcastically ironically a cringey chuckle
have you even graduated high school?
>>6368301
I'm a bit of a muntard, so could you explain why the phrase creates an aversion to you? Too cliched? Cheesy?
>>6368318
yes
Of all that was attempted this side of nothingness, is anything more pathetic than this world, except for the idea which conceived it? Wherever something breathes there is one more in infirmity: no palpitation which fails to confirm the disadvantage of being. The flesh horrifies me: these men, these women, offal that moans by the grace of certain spasms; no more relationship with the planet: each moment is merely a vote in the urn of my despair.
>>6368287
>The weight my great belly throws fell mountains
>great belly
Ayy get on a treadmill you fat pompous fuck.
This is a very rough draft of a song I wrote just now.
The seven trumpets sounded up on Jackson Street
And the cattle in the field look like stars
We were burning our heels on the cooking concrete
As the Wormwood night began to fall
It was the death of all our dog days
And we knew it right from the start
All the water's been tasting like brimstome
All our seals have been blowing apart
So give me white robes to wear in the morning
Give me my name and a stone
Lamb's eyes are shining upon us today
Tomorrow I'll be far from home
They say thou shalt not kill, and thou shalt not steal
So they ought to pay us for all these years
And now they've got the Beast stalking down Ol' Mac Road
Once the fire's out we'll light out of here
>>6364729
Sexy and elegant.
Give them the circus
So they'll rave and raze it
Then die truthless
So they'll gloat you knew it,
our noble human spirit.
>>6364619
That was actually well constructed and made me keep reading.
You sure wasted some good writing on something barely a handful of people are actually going to have the morbid curiosity to read.
The trouble with having friends and family is that you go on missing them whenever they’re not around or happen to be distant at the time for whatever reason. I’d wager that even those who don’t have anyone to care for will still feel like they’re in on the missing feeling part, just that in their case they can’t really do much more than distract themselves from that yearning to alleviate the feeling. I swear, you do the stupidest things when you’re feeling like that, missing everybody. I have this tendency to go on looking for the people I know if I suspect they could be around and if I happen to run into them, I’d just pretend it was total happenstance. Sounds to me like a total dependency complex, like the whole damn condition for your happiness of the day is dependent on being around someone you’re familiar with. The trouble is, those conditions are all so fleeting. I mean, it’s the best when you’re in high school, where you’ve got all your buddies in one place, and you know everyone’s guaranteed to be there the next day, and you’ve always got an excuse to see each-other. All of that just changes afterwards. Step into college, and you’ll witness a “scatterization” effect that you never saw coming. People build their own schedules, their own desires of where to go and what to do, and your wants and thoughts just clash with theirs. It’s kind of a necessary hindrance I suppose; it would be total chaos if everyone were the same. But then you find yourself amongst others that supposedly have the same mindset as you, because they’re going for the same degree or are in the same club or whatever. But it all feels so forced, like you’ve no choice but to pick people stuck in these categories with you and make friends just because. But I have a tough time admiring people who think the same as me. I always turn to missing those days when I could run into someone that’s just totally the opposite and make me see from a different angle. Also, when you’re in college and really getting into your discipline, you could easily fall into this trap of associating your friends with studying, since they’re always calling you up to study together. Eventually you dread their call or seeing them in the flesh because you just associate that person with more cramming. It’s just a terrible side effect that happens to be nobody’s fault.
>Posted this last week, was talking to some friendly anon who said he'd give an in depth critique but we never got to it. If you're still around friend, I'd love to hear what you have to say. Also would love general comments/criticism from anyone else.
We wrote these stories that we live
We grow this food we throw away
We teach these lessons that we get
We give birth to the children that we've been
Overcooked promise, it's not that cryptic
Powerwash the promenade with a thunderstorm
There's no paycheck but it's strictly business
Beholder's eyes smile but there's no joy in this
Duck into a parking garage to eat ice cream
This one's real, this one happened
Feet wrinkled from street flooding sea water
Toes torn on submerged gravel scattered sidewalks
How to describe people without being cynical
Naked apes suck poison to forget that they're miserable
Stumble and holler, hips thrust and chests puff
A call making, hormone soaked, mating ritual
Black box badly thought congested
Charcoal heartpiece is weak in the knees
Another hill and its bent back might submit
These counterfeit streets may be the last it sees
Trephining is a straightforward surgery
I'll puncture it good and let it be
I'll do them a favor and lay down in the tub
I won't be here to clean up the blood
And the night breathes saline through the reeds
And a pale demigod peers through the clouds
And for as long as squealing cognitive gears allowed,
If I'm going to live, I need to decide right now
We give birth to the children that we've been
We teach these lessons that we get
We grow the food we throw away
We wrote these stories that we live
>>6368612
that friendly anon here. i've decided its shit and that you should kill yourself.
>>6368719
Thanks, before I go, can you at least tell me what's wrong with it for closure?
I had wanted to work for NASA ever since I was a little kid. At first I wanted to be an astronaut, but when I found out how dangerous it was as a teenager I decided I’d rather just be ground control. I guess that’s why I was so excited to be involved with the Odysseus 3 expedition. It’s only the second unmanned probe to orbit a black hole and gather data on hawking emissions.
I’ll admit I’m a bit of a pansy, and teared up at the launch. I was living my dream. When the probe achieved a stable orbit we had an office party. We partied the only way a bunch of nerds in blue polos could in this situation and wrote a quick script to convert the data we were gathering into sound, so we could “hear” a black hole. Technically there’s no sound in space, but there is radiation and it basically recorded with the same file type.
So basically, we spent the night drinking microbrews and dancing horribly while listening to white noise from an event horizon. Around 11 the crowd had dwindled down to three. It was me, my friend Ross, and this old veteran named Dennis who had been here for just about 30 years and had worked on Odysseus 2 and 1. He was telling us this great story about this time he went to a party at MIT and his roommate stole the host’s oven knobs as a joke when all of a sudden the data feed started beeping. It wasn’t some other piece of equipment, the beeps were actual pulses coming from the black hole. At the time Ross was too wasted to realize the significance of the beeps, but I think Dennis may have been the only one to realize it was morse code.
I don’t know where he got the pen and paper from so fast, but he jotted down each letter like a man possessed. I asked him what he was going on and he looked up with eyes as wide as dinner plates.
“Someone is playing a joke on us. I don’t know how, but someone is pulling a nasty prank.” I picked up the pad and Ross leaned in way too close for comfort to read with me
Houston, I hope you copy. I’m cold. I can’t close my eyes. I’m cold. There are others here. I’m so cold. I don’t like them. Cold. Please send help. Over.
Ross and I sobered up fairly quick after reading that. “Hey Dennis,” Ross asked, “if there have only been two unmanned missions to a black hole, why is this Odysseus 3?”
>>6368287
I like it, but I feel you kind of need a stronger sense of despair in the end
>>6365134
New revision of this. Worse or much worse?
>>6369089
>lately naught but nothing but nothing fitst quite just tight
>naught but nothing but nothing
>but nothing but nothing
no offense, but it looks like half way through it goes from being written by a poet to being a heavily-censored nikki minaj song
Doing a poym a day like a scrub.
Walking through the Subway on a cold Thursday night watching the F-train to Brooklyn leave, roaring, being asked for cigarettes by a homeless old man, obliging, and feeling unspeakably sad. Being tired of this shit. Being tired of feeling blue all the time, of feeling invisible, like a god damn social leper. Smoking a cigarette because you took the pack out of your pocket so you might as well, and feeling that little tinge of guilt that you're giving yourself cancer even though you swear to yourself that you don't care about death.
Catching yourself slipping into that fatalistic mentality again. Getting angry. How the fuck could you let this happen to yourself? Didn't they tell you in health class that happiness was a choice?
Hit the city
Strode into the door
Gyre around when I heard you
Enclosure
Addiction
How do I feel
I hate you
Don't go
Blacks and cold metal felt more water that night, rain hit the window. It was nothing, there's not anything to recall. He strode down the concrete slick with an orange shine from flickering lamps. Every ally was dark, and each breeze stung. He wouldn't come back.
-
She heard the rain hit the window,like tears. She knew it would happen. She felt the bruise on her cheek, the cheep windowsill hardly holding from the window she opened. She wanted to feel frozen. She wanted to die.
There was nothing else to it. Cracked mirror, shattered glass. Blood. Come into my life and beg me to fuck, don't tell me to eat, tell me to drink, tell me to lighten up, tell me that you could make rain turn warm, and that the answer was fucking until we felt like a being, a worm digging in ground. The ice built up on the windowsill. She shut it. She grabbed a gun, the trigger went off with a click. Blood hit the wall, followed by a yelp from down the hall. Her body was still in a cold night where blacks and greys shone in the light of 1:34 AM. Her last thought was of her parents.
Non fiction
Aruba
We rented a big pink umbrella on a crowded beach. The kid we rented the chairs from, Solomon, said he would give us two floaties for ten dollars. Free if we bought some other water sport from his open little white bungalow. His heavy set friend was eating sweetly glazed chicken when I stumbled around asking where I could go for cheap drinks. The minimart in the Hotel Radison would sell local beer for three dollars a can. I passed the talking birds and bought one and two cokes. One finger sized bar of chocolate under the impulse that it was from Belgium and no sugar added. The girls like chocolate right. I tried mixing the beer and coke at Lena's suggestion. It came to a frothy head and a tepid sweet beer soda I gulped quickly. I found some other chairs and fell asleep for a nice portion, paddling out into the water and escaping the heat. We took two taxis, they could only insure four passengers each. Me and the girls in small sedans back and forth. On the way back the lady told us if we wet her seats she couldn't work. Than she told me they eat cactus in curaçao. When we get back we wait for the rest at the port populated with little shops. Pop tells me I have to walk to get my key card from mom and Lena one km into town. Skeptically I find them in a shop buying sun tan lotion.
Curaçao
We go eight in a van driven by a fresh lady who's back seat jerked at every stop. Pop has a secret cove called Hemingways. We've been there before. The little bay is calm and flows smoothly into the ocean. There's good shade by where we sit. I let the current sweep me into the ocean the second time I go swimming, after we ordered four frozen drinks and a cappuccino. I revert back to the beach at the first rocky inlet. The rocks had some fossil looking embedments. I notice a skinny masseuse in a pier jutting from the rocks. Danny makes a huge panic about me going out into the ocean. I was exploring the rest of the beach where I met some kids from the cruise. I talked to that masseuse and to some other girl from Amsterdam. Natia tried bubble tea. Taro flavored with tapioca. Peach with lechi. Danny got his own. The girls brought fries. I climbed a coconut tree to prove to my self I could. We smashed it on a rock caveman style. Ball playing cavemen. The juice was lost but the meat was in between too fresh and mature firm. I got another cappuccino and a coke for Stacy. I thanked both the barmen and didn't pay them and left. We passed the scuba pool and the rich tropic villa entrance to the van. I thought I lost my belt. When we got out I bummed a cohiba from a shopkeeper. Later I stained it eating lunch. It wasn't remarkable.
I wanted to play with the stupid idea that I can write things that didn't necessarily happen but play a role in transferring information to the reader.
http://pastebin.com/gxGKsN2P
Tell me why it's shit.
The taste of you
Burns under my tongue
Like a fucking good pill
Sparkling Ice Tea% left in the freezer for too long %now thawing in my peripheral% vision making subtle sounds as the the syrup stone cracks and dissolves into transperent brown goodness
A bookpile on my coffee table looks so good %dropping long shadows %that kiss the texture of the carpet
Carpet has satisfied my parents' and mine need for aesthetic stimulation for so many years% pleassure that emanates% from% how %well% it fits in our tasteful interior design %we like to call it Ikea purism
My Ice Tea looks just like in the advertisements% secreting shiny% sincere% drops of chilly h2o %daring %luring me to pop it open
Inertia is a killing clutch
A counter-wind to keep a ship
In port, with captain swearing loud,
“Away from here! Away I must,
I will not linger on to dust
To lands ere dimly known I’ll fly,
To live, to love, or else – to die!”
>>6370098
experimental punctuation?
>>6368814
The prose is tight. Watch fill words like 'basically'. Watch for cliched usage - 'like a man possessed'
The encoded message seems too on the nose, as does the early reveal that Odysseus 3 is only the second mission. Also, if it's only the second mission how come Dennis worked on O. 2 and 1?
>>6364899
dont know about the rest but I like those first 4 lines
Look at the fragile golden petals of this flower, some say 'weed'...
Don't you admire the smile of a happy child, before the consumption of forbidden fruit, as she searches for Pandoras egg...
There is a kinship with the pines and poplars, with all the beaming creatures, as they perform their dharma, like clockwork in the ether world...
Admire the beating and rioting in in the streets, beautiful bruises of black and purple form, such love...
Feel the white noise of mechanical ocean waves of traffic moving towards 'enlightenment'...
It's really beautiful that you want to save a county, your so perfect and pure, in you coexistence of über alles...
Let us applaud the dirt, as we do the butterflies, the celebrity gods, the holy empire of golden values, our dear leaders...but not the swine
, for they are only here to prod and consume.
Tonight I listened to your wailing, as I continuously suctioned the sulfuric feces that poured out of the half dead shell of your dying husbands mouth, am I not special? Is life not beautiful?
Silver is a lovely shade to contrast blackness, but never blue, never black and blue...
Pat yourself on the back, as you have accomplished your mission, know that it was of your own choosing, nevermind the cold metal guns that surround us, those are simply for our own safety...
As we are all children, and a little fear is a healthy supplement for human growth; and grow my child, grow, and bloom with the color of his sacrifice, crucifixion grey and sanguine red...
Spread your wings and rise, you won't fall, you can't fail, it is not in your karmic program.
Don't imagine a glitch, don't think about such nonsense, for all is in perfectly connected harmony, all is as it was meant to be, and don't you dare say it's not beautiful, just what kind of child are you?
Thirty paces from my backdoor towards the south-west puts you on a path I made. I used my fathers brand new machete to cut low hanging branches off the black spruce trees that grew densely here at the back corner of our yard. This path was made without any consideration as to what its purpose would be or to the trees who had their extremities sheared away, but the new machete had to be tested.
Reaching deeper into the forest greeted me with a faint sound of machines. I had driven past the soil-slinger machines and the dumptrucks that this landscaping company employed nearly every day for years on the way to school, but today was the first time I considered they made sound. Another twenty minutes of hacking away at spruce trees led me to the cliff, and abruptly put an end to my pathmaking. The cliff wasn't much of a cliff at all. A relatively steep but certainly not dangerous incline about fifteen feet down towards the dirt and machines.
From the end of my path I could see out into their work yard. Much louder I could distinctly make out the sound of grating machines refining their soil, keeping the rocks away from their product. If I had my glasses with me I reckon I could have made out the letters on the sign of my school. Surely this was the greatest view in Gormley.
There were a lot of men shoveling and moving the dirt around by hand. These men did not work for free, but they seemed to really enjoy what they did. I imagined all the worms in the dirt they displaced, and how they would cry as their homes were destroyed without (in their little minds) any rhyme or reason. These worms would be taken from their families sometimes and most times to never return. The lucky ones who were not sliced in half or in quarter by the men's sharp shovels would vow, and I'm sure of this, to make it back to their family.
>>6370071
>Ikea purism
Love that part
>>6370083
Bro give Tennyson back his ending
>>6369264
bump
>>6369264
sweet blog
gimme character-driven story pls
I can't believe you idiots write in the first person unironically. You make me feel sad.
>>6369363
I wanted to hate all of this affected language, but I actually didn't and found it soothing.
>>6370050
hey thanks
>>6366984
Pls respond ;_;
>>6370692
thanks i'll try
I'm too scared to actually spend time writing something for fear of it being shit but I wrote this a while ago and thought I'd hear some opinions on it.
Every night I take a train
There and back and home again
Never a 'to' or ever a 'from'
The ride is a rhythm, a deafening hum
I take my bags and strain to board
Tired, tattered, tainted, sore
Over-sized cases, a weighted chest
Shut just once and opened less
I lug this luggage, far and wide
And breathe with relief when the dark arrives
But on this train I'd meet a friend
A man none carried, as free as wind
He spoke of a ticket that just went there
No backs, no homes, no fees, no fares
But I could not hear him, the hymn of the train
A hum made of stone, a break from the rain
So he held his voice, escaping the ear
Speaking in silence, in time I would hear
The pain at the end of the train when it slows
Gone with a train that instead only goes
I accepted the ticket, farewell said the light
Good bye and good riddance, forever the night
In the distance a train, the last one to board
At its front stood the man, with a hand given forward
Its speed never slowed, his hand was for mine
A longing to leap, a clinging to time
The time had approached, the schedule had inched
I clung to my bags and was late ever since
>>6366984
Well chief, it's not 'good'. It's not nice to read; there's no rhythm to it, natural or otherwise. Read everything you write out loud. Does it flow, and if not is there a reason for it?
Second, I get what you're trying to say, and it's a little tired but that's irrelevant: it's HOW you say it, which here you didn't really achieve anything interesting. Regarding your diction, it's kind of boring; there's nothing here that drew my attention or made me think "wow that was clever" or "wow that was imaginative". Your figures/imagery/etc are tired to. I can't recall how many times I've read people making connections with grains of sand and stars.
Overall, nothing noteable. I'd recommend just reading a lot more poetry. Draw ideas from your favorites. Look at what types of images they use and incorporate and mold those to fit your poems. Make them your own, though.
http://pastebin.com/ci22afcf
Critique is appreciated.
>>6370864
Thanks, I'm still just starting out writing, so it makes sense that I'm boring. I definitely need to read more, and thanks for the advice
Enclosure in the gentle rain,
Bask in the scent of rotting wood,
Live with humility, as would a shrew,
Live at one with leaves and mud.
There is no contrast here
In the land of dew and spider webs,
Even the river runs in meekness,
As it flows and as it ebbs.
Give yourself to the void,
And we’ll wander the grey fields
Forever and ever,
Hidden from starlight,
A brotherhood of twigs and lice.
We’ll drown ourselves in the mists of peace,
In it's pure grasp corruption shall cease.
A friend of mine wrote this, not me.
https://thebluedodoliterarymagazine.wordpress.com/
>>6371825
I'm referring to "Leanne" but both work
>>6368064
Bump. Please give me feedback guise.
>>6363892
When i was a kid I really liked fantasy, Greek mythology, the Roman Empire, and reading the Bible. I wrote this when I was ten years old and I never finished it, so it isn't very good. I wrote another paragraph about the creation of the god the sky, but it's more garbage than what has been written so far, so I won't upload it unless someone asks for it.
>Creation
>by Imperator Cladius Augustus
>Oblivion
Before Everything was Oblivion; the Realm of Absolute Nothing. No Something can Rule over Nothing; only Nothing can Rule over Nothing, and so, NIHIL, the Faceless One, the God of Nothing, Rules over Oblivion. As Nothing has no Face, neither does NIHIL, as Nothing is NIHIL and NIHIL is Nothing. The only Face of NIHIL is Oblivion.
Oblivion is the Haven of the Forgotten, and the Graveyard of the Gods. For mortal Men, to imagine Oblivion is to imagine the impossible. To imagine Oblivion is to imagine Absolute Nothing; to imagine seeing, hearing, feeling, and being Nothing. This is impossible for mortal Men still alive, for even if we close our eyes we still see Something: Darkness. All the Minds of Men go to Oblivion after Death, but only a God killed or forgotten, and only them, can truly experience Oblivion, and see the Face of NIHIL.
>The First Something
In the beginning, there was Nothing, Oblivion. And as always, from Nothing Sprang Something: DEUS, the First Something, the Unseen God, and the God of Gods and of Fate, First Existed. Something cannot be Nothing and Nothing cannot be Something, and so the Realm of Oblivion split. There were two Realms now: the Realm of Nothing, NIHIL’s Realm, and the Realm of Everything, the Realm of OMNIA; Oblivion and Unvorsum, the Universe. Just as NIHIL is God of Nothing, whose Face is Nothing, OMNIA is the God of Everything, whose Face is Everything. As NIHIL is Nothing, OMNIA is Everything.
>I wrote this on shrooms. If you do me I'll do you.
Clean underwear and someone to explain it to
I fall into the page like,
You laugh and in the symbolism
of our self effacing prophecies
I can taste in the intricacies
of the words trickling down
the wires buried in my branches...
how foolish we've been
I staple my heart on my sleeve
And I always speak of hearts
(it's getting wrinkled,
it's getting weak)
as if I know,
The meaning of what bleeds
Down my fingers, off my tongue
>>6364924
wow anon you're so clever
"Misandry, misandry, misandry," He says, speaking to his life-sized animu pillow girl. He crosses to the bed and whispers into the cloth ear of his wife.
"At least I have you," He says, "You can't hate men."
He strokes the fleshlight sewn in to the bottom of his textile consort while licking the seam on the top.
And he's away. She's next to him, running her soft fingers through his grease-ridden hair. She laughs, high and lilting, and tells him she could never hate him for what he is, because what he is is what she needs.
She kisses his nose lightly, makes a mention of butterflies before lightly tracing her feline ears across his pocked face. They roll in the grass through trails of dandelions, those puffs of cotton, and they float on the wind around them in a shroud of perfect affection.
Then the perfect world is shattered by a cold voice from outside the world of dreams.
"Dinner!" It says.
He's back in his bed, and she's no longer able, but still pure. He smiles at her infirmity, and watches the white drip from his fleshlight.
"Shut up!" He yells out across the small house thinking hateful thoughts.
>>6372167
pls respond
> First stanza
That part of me of which is worldly,
Ashore as stone remains,
Has anchored me for centuries,
Amongst the tide's domains.
>>6372167
I don't to read your autobiography anon
http://pastebin.com/2cefr9Rz
Trying to work on writing fluent dialouge. excerpt is from a short story, convo takes place over the phone.
Come here, traducing buccaneers of ebullient froth. Ignite your succulent risks and gnash the oases of dearth, the dastardly rules of Phoenician sailors, their trombone girth, their selective siliceous humbug, heuristic in its height. Were it not for other jungle cats, haranguing queer zebras aslant on mangrove branches, the whole ship would capsize and sink. The depths, dark with aquatic storms, aflash with strange fish, there the sinkers need to make a home, gaudy gardens of buffet items, planted on plastic floors, difficult directives lead the crew to callous calculations, reductions that serve but a few. Falling through water, slow and creaking, bottom-bound and running out of air. The on-deck pool becomes a hotspot for eels. Faults that begin to crack, bolts springing, plinging to life, hissing steam of ship’s hurt, the end approaches! Hugs are distributed from each according to his ability to each according to his need. The handicapped children are positively spoilt.
i like to doodle poems in class heres one i kinda actually like:
Jump into a still pool
You are not the water
But in time
You may move through it all
>>6372407
>if you spent half as much time looking into orthodontic surgery as you do coming up with vapid criticisms of American masterpieces, maybe you wouldn’t look like a godamn llama.
I kek'd
>>6372429
Tumblr-tier.
>>6372407
I honestly like this. Some of the dialogue feels a bit forced, but it could be out of some BEE novel, or from someone who likes BEE at least.
>>6363892
when I was little
I made no cents
I took a wiz on
an electric fence
it hurt so bad
it shocked my balls
then I took a shit
in my overalls
>>6372167
That reminds me of that story about the Martin Heidegger Real Doll.
>>6372445
thats what i thought, ill keep trying anon
>>6370839
Not bad at all. Honestly nothing I can point at that seems corny or contrived. These two lines are probably the weakest:
>The pain at the end of the train when it slows
>Gone with a train that instead only goes
Besides that, great work man. Afraid I can't give you useful critique as you're a better poet than I am.
>>6367051
Spooky, or at least has the potential to be. I like it. It walks an interesting line between humorous and unsettling. Can't say much more about such a short piece.
>>6367802
I'm sorry to tell you man, I don't think it's very good. Respect for your struggle and cheers for getting past addiction, but I think the sincerity of your feeling and intention may have gotten in the way of the poetry. Is very blunt and predictable, the 'question' format is pretty cheesy. I'd recommend going back and reflecting on that period in your life, and instead of trying to describe it with well understood figurative language (struggles = cold dark night, resolve = brick wall, new opportunities = frontiers, etc.) try to come up with unique, specific metaphors that describe your unique experience and memory.
I hope this helped some.
>>6366063
Tries way too hard to be deep, comes off as extremely pretentious, no interesting poetic elements. Go back to the drawing board m8.
>>6368071
Is that a Mountain Goats reference in there or am I crazy?
Not terrible. It's more lyrical than anything, reminds me of some of my own stuff tbh, and that's not a compliment. There's some good ideas, it flows well enough, but still feels stuffy and too sparsely meaningful to be taken seriously as poetry. Sorry if that sounds harsh, again, I feel it's the same place I'm at myself.
Now that I've shit on everyone else's work, come shit on mine please >>6368612
Death
This transition is one more,
foreign.
One, more questionable
but unquestioningly all encompassing.
We take what we think we know,
What we think we have pieced together,
During our turn.
We take what we hope, and take what we need to be,
at peace.
We take what we can from the unforgiving,
as the unforgiving takes us.
>>6372688
Also Death is the title, not part of the actual poem
If alcohol is depressant
than consider me depressed
pushed down away from whatever I'm forced to feel during the day
I like life, I really do
whatever this dream is, nothingness playing tricks on itself
it's still real pretty, nothing like the sun cutting through the swampy florida air
but at night in my apartment, with the tiny roaches that run across my plates
with the air conditioner roaring in the background, laying on sheets I haven't washed in weeks
I feel it all, I feel that existance, that fear, that .50 cal, bone shattering impact
that this is all real and everyone else is feeling different version of this mushy, confusing semi-something
I sometimes think that's what god is, that's what awe actually is
awe isn't comfortable, awe is the realization that everything you have done and ever will do is nothing in comparison what you have just glimpsed at,
life is a gift and i'm damned selfish fool for worrying and wasting my way through it
alcohol is a depressant, and sometimes listening to the saddest song, ripped on beer will make you feel more than you could possibly imagine, but it's nothing compared to the next night, stone cold sober, the fear setting in, the realization that you are who you are, and that person is no one, an extension of your experiences and prejudices, and that your mere existence is totally absurd, that's real fear, that's real emotion,
I believe in God, but I have no clue what he is, and he scares the shit out of me. But damnit do i love him.
Be gentle anons-this is my first time doin something like this, don't really like sharing too much
>>6372688
>We take what we can from the unforgiving,
as the unforgiving takes us.
i like this, not sure what to take from it though. could you elaborate on it?
>>6372167
Pt. 2
He took the stairs with a sort of autistic fervor. His mouth open and salivating to the thought of his favorite meal, which his mother was cooking. Cheeto brownies. He could smell them on the air. Every time he ate them he was swept away in an orgiastic feeling. As he approached the kitchen his heart rate quickened, trying vainly to pump viscous blood through his veins. In order to contain his excitement, he took out his phone and pretended to get a text. When he rounded the corner to the kitchen his mother saw him on the phone.
"OH honey, who is texting you?" She said, "Did you finally get a girlfriend?"
"FUCK YOU MOM," He screamed in unnecessary rage.
>>6372864
not much of a critique but i really like and can relate with this. running on alcohol and some klonopin right now... dunno when and if things are gonna get better.
>>6372864
Lose this:
>I believe in God, but I have no clue what he is, and he scares the shit out of me. But damnit do i love him.
And it's good. A painfully real stream of consciousness. You can't have an entire catalog of work like that, so don't stick to this form/concept, but this piece is very good, I enjoyed it a lot.
>>6372876
Of course, if you're asking about that line specifically the "unforgiving" is life, and the unknown after life, so we take what we can to make us happy in the present as we attempt to prepare ourselves for the end, as all the while we are getting closer and close to being taken by death
>>6372891
thanks man. recently gave up the booze, but it kinda sucks. realized i was self medicating myself to keep anxiety at bay. best of luck to you man, running/working out helps a little.
>>6372900
i was iffy on that last part too. thanks again for taking the time to read it and respond. means a lot.
>>6372903
i like it, really focuses on the cyclical nature of life and death.
1/2 my attempt at philosophy.
What hence the man to do to the crow? What ought he to do? Ought he to love? To die? To see? To sing? Oh friends, come with me on this journey. Come to the arduous cave and fight the crow and the wildebeest. Doth nothing forget the flee?
This paper is on Metaphysics and meaning. Oh shall we discover the meaning of life together? Has any philosophy every really been written? Oh artists among you, capture the fire and love the screen. To the cinema, the time, and the lovely loving lay. The ancient greeks foretold prophecies in philosophy's of love and strife. They chased the meaning of the world and begat ten thousand letters written upon the loneliest death. Tis here that I complete the works of the greats of old the masters of young.
Oh meaning of life, why dost thou not reveal thyself to me? May it be, because I am but a lonely serf in the tideside of the eternal slumber of being? Oh heavens above, REVEAL THYSELF NOW FOR I CALL UPON THEE! Oh fill me with meaning and glory so that I shall never be forgotten and shall be read in ten thousand years.
Oh but what is meaning? Meaning is what is meant of course! I mean it. I mean ME! I mean the Lord, the lover, and I mean the cloak of but ignorance and laughter. Oh what is it that i mean? I mean the universe, reality, and lore. Oh PLEASE! Categorize thyself. I shall categorize thee.
Thus meaning is the sea? Meaning is ME!!!! I am the one. I am the two. You are the one too to be the two. Oh friends, cannot you see? We are the meaning and we are me. Oh the meaning of life is you and me, it is we, and she, and he, and thee. I see the asteroid, the world, the GOD, and the sun. The meaning of life is all of them. ALL of them. It is the teeniest flee and the meanest me. It is the stars and love for the sun and the flee.
I have chased the meaning and chased it to me. OH LORD FORGIVE ME AND FORGIVE THE SUN!! I offer this meaning to he and she so that I may finish philosophy for eternity. But the truth might lie beyond the meaning's me for I have unlocked the paradox of Meaning's SEA. Oh meaning, for imbue within me the strength to give it off. Come to me for i see. Why would meaning be so forlorn and lost for the ages but come so easily to me?? Surely there is the cryptic meaning for me to mean.
WHY THEN? Why must thy be so cryptic? Why must thy reveal now? Why must the sun and the tide water the oceanside with a prominent frown for meaning is me and meaning is we and meaning is them and meaning is we. Oh meaning forgive me now for I must reveal your truth to the WORLD. I MUST REVEAL YOUR TRUTH TO THE WORLD!!!!!
For meaning hides and meaning resides. Meaning hides under tides. Why so secret why so frail? I must tell you and I cannot fail. OH meaning be absorbed. OH MEANING!!! I see meaning as hidden for that meaning is true. I must tell the meaning and I must tell you.
>>6372937
2/2
The Meaning of Life is secret because it disappears. The meaning goes away for when you HEAR it. It is gone. It runs, it hides, it reveals itself. It disappears when put on a shelf. But you know what? You know that you cannot know. I have shown what I cannot SHOW. OH NO!! Forgive me fellow philosophers and forgive me on my quest. For I ought to show meaning but meaning cannot be shown! Oh NO!
But should the meaning disappear then there is no meaning to be known so meaning can be free once again! It is back! The meaning of life has returned. But, <Gasp> OH NO!!! It's gone again. But now it has returned? It seems we can never know the meaning of life. Some say this but they they, I SAY NEIGH!! Surely I shall discover it. I shall make it. I have promised and made it my duty.
It seems that we are void, we have no meaning no strife. We must play in the search and rival with the day. We must tickle the flee and explore the sun. Hopefully the tides will be with us! Oh stars and heavens, religions and friends, WE MUST!! So then if we do not have THE Meaning of Life then we shall create one. Oh brothers we must create one. Oh Sisters we must create on. Oh Transgendered individuals we must create one. To the cousins, to the friends, to the best of the worst and the convicts of the heart we must create one.
Oh creators and yes that is you, oh creators of love the creators are you. Let us create the meaning and create the love. Be kind to your family and the stars and craters above. The meaning of life that we shall create is to be kind to the lions and to the snake. Oh Meaning of Life you are to be kind to reptiles and you are to be kind to the fish. Oh we ought to be kind to all the living things and the plants to.
Oh it is so clear and it is so clear to ME I have discovered to create the Meaning of Life for We. Oh friends! Oh Philosophers! Oh SEEKERS OF TRUTH we have a Meaning of Life for Meaning is ME! Meaning is We. Meaning is here for eternity. Oh wise ones and death, oh seekers of bread, we shall never kill a living thing again! Oh what meaning we have found, what love in the bushes. Oh what meaning we have now and what love for the brushes. I have fulfilled the stars and solved the puzzle. Philosophy is finished for I am the finisher.
Oh Men and lovers of this beautiful day, let us carry onwards for eternity. The puzzle is solved and inquiry is finished. I am the philosopher and I invite you.
>>6364619
>mfw I read your shit
>mfw it's actually good
>mfw that twist that legitimately made me dizzy
Write something a publisher might actually look at faggot.
>>6370678
haha....that's not a good thing, I presume
>>6368067
pls respond ;_;
Tuesday poem o' the day
>>6373238
0/10 didn't make me feel a single emotion
>>6372204
Allow me to give a basic technical analysis:
So close to ballad meter, but the first line is off, has a dying fall. Otherwise the meter looks good.
Really that first line is hard to parse, maybe even grammatically incorrect.
Let's try this:
>That part of me of which is worldly
>That part of me is worldly of
Yeah, naw, still doesn't quite come out right.
Rhyme:
If you're going for strict rhymes, worldly and centuries don't. Remains and domains do rhyme, and they are different parts of speech, which is good. Same amount of syllables, and not particularly interesting comparison of ideas. But not terrible.
Imagery:
stone on the shore in tidal waters = your worldly self, alternating wet and dry, part in, part out. Cool, not particularly vivid, but there's not much you can do in one stanza if you're building that specific metaphor.
Also:
>implying there's more than 1 stanza
Should post them all m'dude.
Critique back, plz.
>>6373238
>>6373244
There is no culture is my brag.
>>6373257
You need to learn what poetry is.
I posted a flash-fiction draft of this story before, but a friend told me I should extend it to a short story to build up a bit of foreboding. Can you guys tell me if this is along the right lines?
http://pastebin.com/tDfYBPXm
>>6373272
cool critique, really helpful, thx XD
An auto-da-fe
ruined my lunch. Vibrating
giblets beneath a bloody
meat cleaver.
my belly is full
of plums and potatoes.
sacrificial loneliness
gathers under
a dripping awning.
forecast calls
for more blood.
a teratism stirs
in my intestines,
postponing the fear
that fear fears.
>>6373288
That's not an attack, I am serious and this is helpful advice.
Your writing is purely contingent and doesn't answer to a necessity.
You do not know what poetry is; you need to learn it, then come back with a purpose.
Here's a list of things that I'm not:
mirrors, beer bottles, morphine lollipops;
the feeling that I'm being watched
(by a faceless man: the Badger mascot);
the procedural brushing of teeth, popped zits;
my first, second, fourth romances
(I don't like to talk about the third);
the quarks in the atoms composing my body;
the food I eat, the gas I breath, liquid steam;
my parents, siblings, friends, white-washed genes;
Captain Ahab, Eric Cartman, Omar Little, Hamlet;
a catalogue of my memories, benign experiences;
the letters in the words in these listless (and lingering) lines;
or my first cry or my last breath or my loudest laugh;
oh, and also the name attached to my face–
I'm not that either.
>>6373484
I like this a lot. Reminds me of my current state. Confused, frustrated, young, learned, and trying very hard to be optimistic.
Would purchase book/10. Would share with qt 3.14 I like and discuss. Please share this more.
>>6373484
i dig it. Really shows the eclecticism that is our generation and the confusion/anxiety that comes with it. A coming of age in a time in which we understand ourselves as biological beings and long to be more.
well that's what i got out of it. good read. i enjoyed it.
>>6373516
We're all like the same, brother. He and I are on the same waves, dig?
>>6373484
Your style is EXACTLY the same as Vian's
either plagiafag of you fucked up
>>6368067
I really like your style. The dialogue was snappy, entertaining, and I could hear it all in my head as I read. Don't care enough to do alot of deep criticism or analysis, but I definitely think you should keep writing
Is there a /lit/ skypegroup?
I noticed other creative boards like /ic/ and /co/ have them but idk if /lit/ does, I think it'd be cool.
>>6373411
Finally! Content (abstract and oblique as it is) I can engage with.
I'm def a beginner, and would love to learn about the meaning of the terms you just used.
>Contingent
>Answer to a necessity
How do I learn what poetry is? Is there a book or reference or anything scholarly regarding those terms or are they your own?
>>6373484
I do not know much about poetry but it read very well
>>6368067
better than tarantino but still crap. OK for uni.
>>6373551
Never read Vian (until just now when I googled him) but I'll take that as a compliment, so thank you
>not having beautiful cursive to match your beautiful prose
get on my level plebs
Dream Journal, 29th March-2nd April 2015
-Sand falls through a hole in the ceiling
-An airplane crashes into a mountain; spiders spring from the plane and engulf the mountainside
-A lively party on the shores of the Dead Sea
-The largest Hawaiian island is actually a colossus. It has risen and is lurching toward California.
-One warm summer night a meteor hits the moon, which then flickers and goes out. An immense sound of shattering glass.
>>6373574
Contingency is the quality of something that is not necessary; it means that wether it is present or not in the final product, it's essence will remain the same. It will often be gratuitous and of little influence. In poetry, we try to include as much as we can into what is necessary (What cannot be in an other way than it is) and as little as we can into contingency (For example, required grammatical usage).
It is important that every element of your writing is an attempt at joining the essence, the soul of your poem. First so it can convey it's meaning clearly; poems are a higher form of communication. Secondly for aestheticals purposes. And finally for the nobility of your style.
Here is an example of a poem that is emptied from all of it's contingency:
>Your absence has gone through me
>Like thread through a needle.
>Everything I do is stitched with its color.
Seperation by W.S. Merwin
Every element of this poem is closely riveted to it's meaning and intention. If the emotion that the poet is trying to convey could be distilled and put in liquid form; this poem would be a very impressive attempt at doint so.
Contigents elements are much like parasites, impurities one must try to eliminate, except if one's intent is precisely to put contingency at the center of his poem (wich happens almost never for it is of a very peculiar and niche, cliche interest).
Here is an example of a splendidly compressed meaning;
>Pomegranates sliced in half spill out
>their blood-red seeds, while those uncut
>conceal their trove in darkness: great
>discoveries yet to be made.
>But if the red-gold skin appears
>desirable, look to the rind:
>pale pulp that bears our deepest fears,
>the architecture of the mind—
>What is mere flesh compared to this?
>A fleeting glance, the briefest kiss….
>Still, someone must admit the sun
>that ripens them…. Their rubies bleed—
>A gentle knife-thrust spills the seed
>revealed, at last, to everyone.
This is translated from French, but it's soul survives trough the alteration of language, because it escapes contingency. Be advise that a strong body does not necessarily mean a high density of style.
The poem you posted is almost exclusively contingency and fortuity: it cleverly uses literary devices to convey a blurry, hazy emotion, but it would be almost impossible to transvase and bottle it.
>Answer to a necessity
In poetry, you're trying to express something beyond the words themselves. You are trying to make the reader feel a precise emotion that you, the poet, are feeling. It might go a bit beyond that: you might want to, simply, make the reader feel something. But poetry is the highest form of communication, ex aequo with music for it supposedly transcends language.
Thus, it answers a necessity, a need to express yourself
1/2
>>6373619
>Torture is a torturer's torture. Torture a torture torture torture in torture. Torture and torture also torture.
Lazy shock writing, reads like a softer 50 Shades
I’ve reached past the sea, where the old home drifted,
to this land of rich soil and bursting green.
Each step is a sweetness, each breath a jolt,
Yet I can only feast my eyes, passing
in silence, leaving no track or whisper.
Others are here, and we cross with the same
agreement - only a glance. This land is
for the fierce and hardy, who step fast and clear,
marching their own ways for the brilliant chance.
Only the end walks with us.
So to each we are but kindly dust, though
our love is shared and bursting. How blessed
we are - and in our small crossings a light
shines, worlds are born, and we dwell for a time.
Truly, there is nothing I shall call my own,
but what I carry by virtue of life.
Blessed, the nomad who has found his place,
for wherever he steps, he is never lost.
>>6373238
are you a lady or homosexual?
>>6373654
>I don't know how to use enjambment effectively
>>6373629
You are going to feel a very precise, very complex emotion composed of many elements. Then you will try to express it. You can even synthetize this emotion, this feeling, this souvenir if you can. I don't believe in ex nihilo, but if you do, or if you are a soldier of fortuity, you might try to alchimy a feeling up in poetry.
This would be the work of happenstances and a very particular setting.
If you have nothing to say, then there is no reason for you to write poetry. This is more important than you think. Some people spend lives writing music and poetry, but yet have nothing to say and their works are nothing but the vague product of luck and measly interpretation.
On the contrary; a good poem will make it's intentions clear and everyone will understand it. It shall transcend taste and touch everyone, for it is a clear communication attempt. It's objectivity must barely have to unravel itself, and only appeal to the reader education (barely ! a child must comprehend). A work wich, by luck, has many interpretations might have great intrinsic value but does a poor job of being a communication tool.
If you don't agree with this paradigm, you can also write for pure subjectivity wich is immensely harder for you must not only try to express something precise, but to resonate with signs wich are present in the readers (See Deleuze's works on Proust's prose for insight on this complex topic.)
You can read Rilke's correspondance with Kappus between 1902 and 1908 for valuable insight on the role of poetry in a man's life.
Here is a very strong quote from one of the letters :
>Things aren't all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsayable than all other things are works of art, those mysterious existences, whose life endures beside our own small, transitory life
>>6373654
this is exactly how your poem made me feel
>>6373663
gee thanks, anyone could read that does?
>>6373619
what a waste of fucking paper
you write like a god damn 2 year old elephant
>>6373675
thats insulting to elephants
>>6373673
In words how would you express that?
>>6373683
I’ve reached past the sea, where the old home drifted,
to this land of rich soil and bursting green.
Each step is a sweetness, each breath a jolt,
Yet I can only feast my eyes, passing
in silence, leaving no track or whisper.
Others are here, and we cross with the same
agreement - only a glance. This land is
for the fierce and hardy, who step fast and clear,
marching their own ways for the brilliant chance.
Only the end walks with us.
So to each we are but kindly dust, though
our love is shared and bursting. How blessed
we are - and in our small crossings a light
shines, worlds are born, and we dwell for a time.
Truly, there is nothing I shall call my own,
but what I carry by virtue of life.
Blessed, the nomad who has found his place,
for wherever he steps, he is never lost.
>>6373687
cute, but i was looking for something more eh, tangible? Something I can work with.
>>6373619
>lovely as a snake
Are you fucking kidding me?
Flagitious. Wickedly shameful. The only words that could be used to describe what she had just done. Having come to her senses, her hands and clothes still covered in the ashes, eminating from the raving fire in front of her. What she had done to his lifelong dream may have been unforgivable, but so was what he had done to her. The hours of pure craftsmenship poured into this artwork from his very soul, destroyed and wasted forever. But this portrait of her was already tainted and scorned by him the minute he had taken another lover, having whispered promises of a scarlet love, and a yearning of what life was to be together. How he could have committed that horrendous act of near uxoricide on her heart remained a simple mystery, one that he was bound to commit time and time again. The same whispers and promises he made to that mistress were similar, if not identical, to those he made to her long ago. And thus lay the reason as to why she had committed this act of arson, a last and treasonous act, to finally send the foundations of their relationship crumbling down. The smell of burning canvas filled the air as she had watched her own face burn, soon to leave no trace of this now tarnished affinity, lest her future self reminisce for these past days.
I've just begun writing, any constructive criticism is much appreciated.
>>6373694
It made me feel like I was strolling trough a blue swamp, taking bites of a hot brick, my dick pointing to the horizon while the sun rises on another part of the world I need reach
>>6372027
its really bad
>>6373708
Well, that helps. Thank you.
>>6373665
Wow, anon, I'm really floored by the amount of detail here. It's so far beyond my experience of what writing poetry has been, I can barely take it all in. I screencapped it and will refer back to it many times, I'm sure.
Is there a name for this view of poetry, or is this generally accepted by all poets as the real stuff of poetry?
Esp. interested in the examples you gave - is there a textbook that looks at this aspect of poetry and provides examples?
Background question: Is this the sort of thing one would learn in a rigorous US MFA program in poetry? Where did you learn all this stuff from?
Constructive criticism HIGHLY encourage, I'm just getting into writing.
As The Traveler inhaled the air, his only thoughts were of isolation. Isolation and pain. Isolation of two kinds, of mind and body. Pain of knowing he is missing something, he must find something, but he does not know what. The feeling of knowing he has a purpose but not knowing what that purpose may be. Being in a world that he did not belong in, he languished for a time no longer existing, a place no longer standing, and a standing that no longer had a place. The Traveler had values and beliefs gone from his world like so many mountains and rivers that had been eroded away by time, the greatest enemy of all, and surely the greatest enemy of the Traveler.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend, but does an enemy to time exist? The Traveler thought.
Does time truly create and heal all wounds, as many men of wisdom speak? The Traveler continued his journey.
"As well as traversing all of land and space, as it feels I have." The Traveler says, shocking himself with the sound of voice not heard in many a fortnight. If time has caused my lament, than surely time will cure it, if only I had more.
The wind came in gentle gusts over hills of emerald green, rippling water bluer than the purest sapphire warmed by a Sun unceasing in it's existance, and yet The Traveler was unhappy.
The Traveler sought out the Priest, the Priest whom every man spoke of with great awe, fear, and wonder. The Traveler fought wind and cold and beast and men, over hills and mountains, through rivers and deserts, neverending in his quest to seek out The Priest, the one he heard of in his travels. The one they refused to call anything but The Priest, for none knew whence he came or what he was originally called. All they knew were rumors of a man who holds answers to any question a mortal might have, for The Priest was claimed to be immortal. After what felt to be many moons and countless storms, The Man saw what he hoped was the end of his quest. Leauges away he could see the tops of the trees he had heard of in his tales. The trees he could spend days walking around and still not see the other side. The trees whose golden canopies could shade the strides of men who walk for days with no hint of sun. Yet there was an opening he could discern, a hole betwixt two of the largest trees, with canopies of not just gold, but of gold and green and blue and every other color, even some The Traveler did not know. Between the trees lie a plain flatter than any The Traveler had ever seen, surrounded by the most beautiful flowers of every color and countless bushes bearing unnamed fruits being feasted upon by beasts which did not fear sight nor scent of him, if they sensed either.
>>6373665
man, thank you for taking the time to post that out. was very helpful.
>>6373659
lesbian
I'll tell you now about a pencil and a bird
The bird - malformed and barely resembling.
A beak like a kiwi, eyes like pearls
a body lacking - floating feeding face.
I made him that way, that's my bird.
>>6373719
If I have to remain intellectually honest here, no, this view isn't shared by all poets, because a very recessing idea of what poetry is keeps fighting mine day after day; the recurring ideaology known under the idea "everything can be poetry" (Wich is fallacious for a number of reasons)
It is, however, a very generally accepted vision. (Socrates shared it, for example.)
Like in all literature forms, poetry is subject to currents and movements wich own have their own intentions and specificities, but almost all of them recognize the guidelines I have described here.
If you are interested in those opposing paradigms, I suggest reading into the branch of philosophy of aesthetics that we call intentionalism, it is however extremely complex.
I don't have any examples of textbooks here, I took those from my memories, but just as in everything, the best way to build a culture and knowledge is to practice and read.
In a general fashion, reading the opinions of poets in things is always interesting. Correspondances like I shared are of immense value.
A lot of poets are scholars, and they have expressed their opinions not only in their works, but also in a textual way in conferences and books. Paul Valery who is one of my favorite poets, has, for example, given a passionate speech about the value of aesthetics.
But most of all, you must train your sensibility by reading a lot of poetry, and everytime, with every author, it will reach deeper into your soul, digging a trench, a wound you will be able to extract things of.
I have no idea regarding the quality of american education, but I mostly had negative feedback about these things. I learnt my precise opinion from philosophical studies on aesthetics and the theory of noble creation + a lot of reading and a passion for poetry. (I even wrote a very modest book)
as long as you are critical of yourself and other you will do great
but remember : emotional and intellectual honesty is key, and most people are full of shit, most people won't understand your work. not because it's special, but because the work isn't clear or because they're too obscure
>>6373719
>doesn't mention beauty at all
someone didn't study the philosophy of art
