Last one died, critique thread. Post your poems, short stories, or the like.
>>7379123
I remember reading an explication/critique of this poem once that was based entirely on the premise that the speaker was a closet homosexual and insecure about it. The speaker, the writer of this critique argued, was so insecure about his masculinity that he projected it on to everything: the scene, the objects, the language - heck, he even imagines his own horse thinks he is gay!
To be quite honest family I seriously could not believe what that nigger was saying. All I could do was shake my head.
Is a brisk wind-
but the stirrer of leaves?
Is a sighing bough-
Evermore sighing
For none but a wren?
Or can the wind not pillage at will-
Rip the tongues off trees,
Bounce on their breathing boughs,
And chase the fleeting wren?
A man is not bound by his role
He is not a Grocer-
He is a Man-
He can howl or whistle-
He can dance freely-
Or raise his outstretched arms
To catch the silver moonlight
Little lost lambda, strayed from your home
Brave new worldly shits awaits
Dumping out from clamoring bowels
Verses of brown streak quilted northern sheets
Lid, oh lots lame, cover yourself with
Righteous dignity, though your wife,
A salted hand unmoving,
Still glistens with sinful glow
Lilting lowest l'amour, from within thighs
Send stiff impulses pressing
Denim inseams seamless meaning
To cover twinless tower erected
Lit, allots lamps, hoping to shine
Though unspilled fuel lacks fire
Lax wires link us in mutual curse
Curs despise and caress together
During the calmest hours of summers twilight it can feel like the sun rests on the horizon for an immeasurable time, existing in stillness and content. Those who have fallen in love will know how this time feels; for the spring of love is tranquil, yet have they discovered the fevered excitement in their mental affection that teeters on madness. Surely enough, much in the same way as the sun falls from its suspension in an unsuspecting blink of an eye, the penny of love drops with a clatter. Often people don't notice subtle changes. Have you ever strolled through a park and wondered, "When on Earth did the leaves become green?" Have you ever noticed the first leaf of autumn drop? Yet not notice any others until they splatter their colour across the floor in their hundreds, ready to rot? As mortal beings it seems we are attuned to the beginning and the end, we barely pay attention to the process that exists in the space between. So caught up in trying to exist in the present by trying to recreate an image of past long passed, we don't even realise our contribution to the impending decay, and rarely do we realise when it's too late. Such as love's flower blossoms on the drop of a penny, the fall of the sun, the unsuspected flourish of green.
Often when the first petal falls it does not go unnoticed, with haste lovers will try and repair, but they are mistaken in trying to reattach the same petal, instead of blooming anew. When the second petal drops, the novelty of the argument, the passion and the desire for a perfect bond has already been lost, the flower lives on without it; but the flower itself does not know it is losing beauty. This repeats as the relationship is stripped of everything that made it unique. Perhaps in this instance the petals may be replaced by artificial ones, the lovers are compelled to adore a reproduction of their past as they no longer have faith in the moment. These cannot stand alone and eventually lovers realise just how bare their flower is, only then does an attempt towards drastic change take place. Frantically they will pick up the pieces, the petals; they do not realise there is no time to reattach them, without them the flower spirals into a withering state.
>>7379132
>stops by a deserted roadside to think about another man
>darkest evening of the year to conceal his shame
>dresses his horse up in bells
>lovely dark and deep
>sleep
>sleep
Sounds gay as fuck to me, anon.
>>7379135
Solid meh. The first stanza is okay but unremarkable. The second verges on redundant. The last is corny as fuck, I feel embarrassed for your sake.
>>7379260
Can you elaborate?
>>7379260
Also, this is my first poem
>>7379283
i agree with him, the last stanza is too didactic
there are other ways of making your point
Unfinished short story by David D. Davidson. Let me know what you think /lit/
(1/3)
Phoenician Demise
It’s supposed to be like the adjective form of phoenix, not like the ancient civilization. Can’t stop. Won’t stop. If you just keep writing you might be able to escape your pretentious self-awareness, because that sort of thing is so original. Write like therapy. One day Nememiah—how do you spell that name? I’ve heard it said before and that seems close phonetically, but looks off. Nehemiah? Is that right? Well spellcheck didn’t lose its shit over that one, so I guess that’s it. What a waste of time? Why what other pressing appointment do you have? You won’t get anything original out of this. That’s for sure. Plato did all of our thinking for us a couple millennia ago. If there was anything left after that, Nietzsche and Goethe did a fine enough job of eating those scraps up. So don’t even try. Or do. I’m not your dad. Dads rule the universe, as we know. Literally, they make sure our cosmological constants stay in order. What the fuck is wrong with you? So yeah, no originality here. Just a waste of time.—went to the underground circus, because town, markets and other places are too mainstream. What’s an underground circus? It’s like a regular circus, but there is a lot of dirt and rock surrounding the small hollow area where the circus is. Y’know, because it is under the ground. And also Nehemiah had (or still has I guess, nothing happens to her, except for the inevitable death that awaits us all, but something about tense or something.) a mom. His mom said to him before he left, “Plot device – meta humor” and thus her son left on his journey. Before he (Nehemiah) had arrived at the circus he met someone sexually ambiguous, like maybe a man but also probably a woman like they could be either, I don’t know exactly so don’t pester me with such bigoted cis-gendered ideology of straightforward gender identity dude. And the androgynous manwoman said to him (Nehemiah) “Like be careful because shit is gonna be different than your cozy life at home and you will have problems and then like things might be good for a second, but you need to press on to get some super awesome treasure or elixir or something and you have to bring it back to help your mom or village or place where things are messed up or something. Also here, take this magic bottle of vodka. It’s magic because when you drink it, it gets you magically drunk.” And the little asian-hispanic boy took the bottle of vodka that was magical and continued on to the circus. I mean circus, the one that was underground.
So he then came across—and by the way I’m still talking about Nehemiah here, I hope that that’s a given but you know aliens could be reading this (I mean like you could be an alien) and then you wouldn’t understand how to read this, because maybe you don’t understand antecedents, or English.—a turtle and the turtle asked the boy where he was going and the boy said he was going to the underground circus. “Oh” said the turtle, kind of douchebaggy, like one of those bellringer people who are in front of walmart collecting money for charity. Yeah the turtle said “Oh” just like those guys, or girls. I guess humans with vaginas can ring bells too, I’m not trying to oppress an entire gender by being lazy, yeesh. CALM THE FUCK DOWN “FEMINISTS”. I put feminists in quotes because their ideology is shit. And then the turtle was all like “They are underground, like the circus is. Like there is a lot of rock and dirt between you and the circus. So you have to like get that stuff out of the way if you want to reach the circus there, the one that is underground.” And the boy was all sad because he was like, well dang, how am I gonna move all that rock and dirt and stuff? That’s what he was thinking. Turtle was like here “here’s a shovel” you can dig with a shovel. That’s what I’ve heard, or seen in cartoons or something. Y’know I think I missed an opportunity to reference Don Quixote here somewhere. It would be a really good way to be passive aggressive in the same way that Cervantes was in his introduction, where he’s all like “How am I gonna show people that I’m actually smart as fuck if I don’t like do a dissertation on all these great Ancient Greek philosophers and show people that I actually can read and write latin.” So hopefully casually mentioning Don Quixote out of context will achieve the same thing. Because I’ve never actually had to shovel anything in my life because I’m a goddamn millennial and I am lazy and entitled. But in theory, that’s how shovels work. They dig.
Probably more like (2/4)
Yeah (3/4)
The singing was drawing him in. This is an allusion to the sirens, but only half-heartedly in the superficial like ‘attractive-female-singing-and-luring-a-guy-in’ kind of way. So Nehemiah was drawn closer to the clown. Then she ate him. Yeah, she like Hannibal lecter’d that mother fucker, but also more like in a comical way so that he was eaten whole instead of cut up into pieces. Think more like Jonah and the whale, where Jonah was in the whale’s stomach completely whole. Because Nehemiah can’t die because plot armor. So, while he was in the stomach, Nehemiah poured out the bottle of vodka that was also magical which the tranny who wasn’t really a tranny he-she was just one of the genders just in a not incredibly obvious kind of way where you’d be like “Oh yeah, he’s definitely a guy” or like “I’d totally bang her because she’s a hot chick and absolutely not a dude.” And then the clown got magically trashed and vomited up the boy. She was all slurring her speech too. Then she said to the boy “Oh my god, we should totally fuck!” because she was a trashy whore and super way intoxicated, but still very much capable of reasoning so that she could give consent and their copulation would not in any way be considered as rape.
(4/4)
I mean the boy was still like 10 or 12 years old, or something. I haven’t really said specifically, but I think we all kind of assume he has to be young, because like 22 year old guys don’t go on epic metaphorical journeys, right? So it could technically be statutory rape, but actually not because only girls can be statutorily raped. Is statutorily a word? Well it is now. They say Shakespeare made up like 10 thousand words or something. I’m fucking Shakespeare bitch! But then she was like “Actually, before we have sex you have to do some stuff that’s like difficult for you to do, but if you do them all then we’ll have sex and also I’ll tell you where to find the Jewel Orb Treasure of Ma’arana Higgledypiggeldy Forsoothington Amanidor-puvibwa Town” It’s like a super rare item… Like rare candy if you aren’t playing Pokemon on a emulator, is rare candy even really that rare? Ok, then like a shiny pokemon. Those are rare right? I ask because I’m not sure, I kind of stopped playing pokemon after like the red and blue versions. That kind of reminded me of Kanye West. Not the pokemon stuff, but the “I ask ‘cuz I’m not sure” shit. Though maybe Kanye West does play pokemon. Who knows. It’s an enjoyable game. Maybe if he has down time, I’m sure he might enjoy leveling up a bulbasaur or squirtle or arcanine. Ha, yeah, fuck you charmander. Not really though, apparently he’s really quite powerful in the first games or something.
Quest, is what Nehemiah began. He began his quest. How many sentences in all of history begin with a ‘Q’? Quick, count them all! Quite honestly, I don’t care. Quail eggs are delicious. After the clown had told him what his tasks were. And those tasks were:
1. Find a bug with a green spot and an orange spot on it
2. Conquer the Formindecor that was guarding the elvish fountain of dreams
3. Get change for a dollar, like four quarters is fine, but maybe some dimes and nickels too. No pennies. Fucking hate pennies. You know pennies actually cost more to make then they are worth? Yeah, it’s true. It cost more than one cent to actually create a cent. WE ARE LOSING MONEY BY MAKING MONEY! That is outrageous… we should stop that. We should stop doing that.
Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Concerns?
Oh shit, I think I missed a section
(3/5)
Dig was exactly what he (‘he’ being Nehemiah, not the turtle) did. He dug a tunnel. DAE remember that ‘dig a tunnel’ song from Lion King 1 ½, Oh man Disney is a money grubbing devil that churns out mediocre shit to pad multi-millionaires pockets with even more money. Our entire culture is contrived formulaic bullshit that appeals to stupid people with money. And the tunnel reached all the way down to China where a Chinese guy was like “Oh, wittle gwasshoppa, you dug too fah. You hab no reached the underground circus rike you wanted too” because racism. So Nehemiah dug back down until he had reached the surface. I mean the circus. Wow, word brain things happening. There was a clown. The clown started singing. The clown was beautiful. The clown was a beautiful singer. The clown was a girl. You don’t see too many female clowns. In fact, I’ve never in my entire life seen a girl clown. But here was one. And she was a beautiful singer. Like she looked good and was singing. Her voice was awful. She’s a bad singer, but a beautiful singer. Like as a person she is a singer, and an attribute of herself is that she is beautiful but like you wouldn’t describe her singing voice as beautiful, because she sung badly. Nehemiah saw the clown on a pedestal, because men are always putting women on a pedestal, in this case not figuratively. The ringmaster literally had picked the clown up, the girl clown, and put her on the pedestal that was in the middle of the circus ring area, where they perform.
Please let me know what you think.
I know it's not great
I know the punctuation is messed up
>>7379279
I can, but please make an effort to return the favor to other posters. Nothing kills these threads faster than people who post their shit and do nothing but wait for replies.
The whole thing reads like poetry that wants to sound like poetry. Nothing strikes me as emotionally resonant or novel, and at worst it's emotionless and trite. I can't really think of specific ways to improve it, but spend less effort trying to be poetic and more on honing your natural voice and creating meaningful observations. Hope that helps.
>>7379355
I love it. Simple, good writing, interesting premise. Good work.
>>7379329
I'm not reading all this shit. You're not as clever as you think you are and even if I pretended to go along with the idea that your overwrought narration is ironic, it still reeks of earnest self-obsession.
>>7379135
>>7379135
>Is a brisk wind-
>but the stirrer of leaves?
You've come right off the bat with your central thesis here, touching upon purpose and identity.
>Is a sighing bough-
>Evermore sighing
>For none but a wren?
Some nice musicality and you've reemphasized the central point establishing a rhythm
>Or can the wind not pillage at will-
>Rip the tongues off trees,
>Bounce on their breathing boughs,
>And chase the fleeting wren?
Here's where things start to feel clunky. Which isn't the death of things, so long as your departure from the rhythm of the first stanza is returned to at or near the end. Also, the repetition of "bough" and "wren" adds no musicality and just feels forced and self-conscious, as if you just recently discovered these words and over-excited to use them.
>A man is not bound by his role
>He is not a Grocer-
>He is a Man-
>He can howl or whistle-
>He can dance freely-
>Or raise his outstretched arms
>To catch the silver moonlight
Despite being clearly, thematically connected, this entire stanza feels almost completely removed from your first two. Initially, you had me in a meadow somewhere, looking at a tree and a bird, possibly. Then--suddenly--at the end I'm whiplashed between a lecture hall and a hillside. What I mean by that is best explained by referring to OP's pic. Frost keeps you in one place. I imagine a serene woodsy area with a small dirt path during the winter time. Then he invites you into the mind and heart of the man riding the horse, gives you a glimpse and then ends things without giving away too much. You could get a lot out of emulating some of this from Frost. You don't have to be so direct with your point. You can give the wind a sort of spirit and then show (with your words) that the wind typically does one thing (stirs leaves) but has a desire to do another (pillage, bounce, chase, etc.). Readers will pick up on this conflict of identity and purpose without you being so rhetorical and didactic about it.
>>7379453
Thanks for the critique!
>>7379355
Not bad. I'd get rid of the Important Capitalization, reword "sigh a practiced sigh," and replace the quotes in the "After a while" sentence with something that flows better (not quotes).
How bad is this guys, dont hold back;
To perfrorm an autopsy on a misfortunate junkies brain one will need the following; the biggest bag of smack one can acquire in these sad sad times. One heart, kind, understanding, judgemental and sadistic. Will stronger than one of the most battle hardened soldier. Patience worthy of a special ed teacher and a soul worthy of said junkies love and hate. But a question arises, why would one waste his time and poison his good being with such meaningless task as to trying to understand the mentality of the lowest and most hated party of lost souls trying to silence whatever might have cursed them. An answer even more so not wanted, one will not willingly forsake all of his worth to gain knowledge on such a god forsaken topic. God wont ever hear out our sad calls for help, for our hearts drag our screams straight to the underworld, to transform into an unholy symphony for the devil.
Reaching crescendo as the gunshot echoes, tires screech and voices die down.
>>7379496
Well, your second word is a typo, so there's that.
>>7379135
first two lines should just be their own poem imo
Refreshing endless but still parched
The well only watered by us
Toward bumped blue mirage we marched
Ignoring our own oasis
>>7379455
Thank you very much for your criticism! So are you saying I should I just abandon the whole 3rd stanza and stick to the nature metaphor? Anyway your critique was very useful and I look forward to revising the second stanza with it!
When the day is over
and you are alone in bed
imagine yourself in a rocket
fleeing the earth of its last troubles
think of all you fear, and all you see
and stare blankly as they fade like dying trees
and the only thing that remains is her halo
and the ivory contours of her face
remember this face
and know these times will haunt you forever
for there is no more beautiful a thing
than when she would dance and sing
and keep her picture in a place clean and free from sin
because you'll never see anything like her again
