The Apostate

Thanks to the Melvins and Lustmord for their Pigs of the Roman Empire collaboration album. It's been a while since I've written something this dark. I won't rate this, but I warn anyone interested before reading, that this piece is about what happens to man when his desperation gets the better of him. It's not a pretty picture:

I will not falter, and thus I retake
what was originally mine, your blood left in my wake.
Hard to feel sorry for you, though you couldn’t see
the truth as it hit you in the face without glee.
And so we begin the march through hell,
pagan critters striking the bells,
our thoughts strong-arming us forward in restraints.
It’s fairly obvious no one is a saint,
nor could we have ever been such.
no matter how hard we clutch
we always find ourselves reduced to a single dose,
an animal instinct that makes me draw you close
as I tear through you with this knife,
removing the light in the candle that was your life.
Where is your reality now, or your power?
Can you see how you’ve stumbled into this hour?
We both tread slowly, the smoke billowing on the rise,
being watched now, by Lu’s boys in disguise.
As it has always been, we tread on thin lids of glass,
hoping somehow to find a way to pass
through the world safely, without losing the edge.
But my actions against you reveal it all: We have gone off the ledge.

Hey there krupp!

Well, I really liked this. I'm a sucker for dark things because I think that people tend to write too many happy stories and poems too much and this is reality. It's rare when I read a poem on YWS whose message is devoured by rhymes so I'm happy to see that you really put a lot of thought into this and everything just really flowed. The way you formatted this was good too, so thumbs up for this!

Ta,

~Angel

I happen to like dark poetry; it's not often that I come across it. Choosing a rarer form certainly helps ensure you're originality.

You did a good job bringing out the sort of eeriness, but I'd try to make it even more sinister, more disturbing. There are individual words that have a kind of evil taint to them; find words like that, and use them.

as I tear through you with this knife,

I really wanted you to continue further with this line, to go into more detail, and talk more about the actual event taking place here.


I didn't like your rhyme scheme. Some of the rhymes were alright, but a good many of them were forced, and none of them sounded completely natural. They felt like you chose those words only because they rhymed; sometimes we have to do that, true, but to succeed in rhyme it can't eve feel that way to the reader. Rhymes have to happen.

the truth as it hit you in the face without glee.
And so we begin the march through hell,

This was one rhyme which really stood out to me; ask yourself if, if you didn't need the rhyme, you would have used the exact phrase "without glee". Somehow, I don't think you would; it sounds terribly strained and fake. If you change nothing else about your rhyme scheme, I would change that rhyme.


I'll end with a couple small nitpicks:

no matter how hard we clutch

"No" should be capitalized. I'm sure it was a typo.

It’s fairly obvious no one is a saint,
nor could we have ever been such.

The tense in the second line is off; it should be "nor could we ever be such."

Any other grammar problems I'll leave for others to pick up.

Good job, and good luck!


-Adna