Oathbroken

Oathbroken

When wheeleth had the falcon high
And soundeth had the raptor’s cry
-Did you hear what hear did I?
When scurry doth the hare to die
Willing neath the talons- fie;
Now do you see what see do I?

When fallen hath the stars from sky
And fadeth hath the moon from eye,
Then will you know what know will I?

That all that’s left is failed try,
Half-broken truths, and scripted lie,
Written as the falcons flew, round
Oaths revoked and what was true,
But violent, broken, torn in shame,
Words now blooded,
The hare, that claim.


Sorry bout the rather thick language and metaphor, but....
would someone please tell me how the heck to fix this thing?
I feel like it just jumps in but I can't for the life of me figure out an intro that doesn't screw over the metaphor too badly...
Help?!?!

No reviews yet?!??!
That's WAY too unfair. I shall fix this.


The first thing that leapt out at me was the continuous "aye" rhyming scheme.
:/twitch:
A continuous rhyme (defined by the same rhyme for most lines) is almost always a definite NO-NO. :wags finger sternly:
Most people can't pull off something like that without using forced rhyme. Another UBER No-no.

"When wheeleth had the falcon high
And soundeth had the raptor’s cry
-Did you hear what hear did I?"

You're using the tenses in the wrong places, here, and while I use that occasionally, I don't recommend it because it can confuse the readers very easily.

(Something about this poem reminds me of the Wizard of Oz song, "Jitterbug". Heard it?)
Re-write the entire first stanza.
It's all forced rhyming, and that is MUCHO BADDO. :smacks sworddance lightly on shoulder with pamphlet that says, "Down with forced rhyming!":

Last line on second stanza is better, but it's still so FORCED.

Aside from tossing it and starting afresh, I am totally at a loss on how to tell you how to improve it
Then again, I'm a totally crappy poetry 'tiquer.
Post a story so I won't feel guilty, k?

So, yeah, keep the idea, toss the text.
And that's about all I can tell you.


Gambatte!
~Sumi

I'm like Ink hear. I wish I could give you some pointers, but I suck at poetry. Sorry, but I liked it.

The rhyme scheme is majorly limiting this, especially since the first 11 lines have the same rhyme, and the rhymes are all simple and one-syllable. It is really bloody hard to write convincingly in rhyming couplets [without being sing-song or silly] and even harder to rhyme almost all the way through like this. If you must rhyme: pick a scheme. It could be interlocking, like terza rima [a-b-a, b-c-b, c-d-c, d-e-d, e-e], or just a-b-a-b in simple quatrains. Or you could make your own pattern, but stick to it. Consistency is important. There's little more jarring than expecting one sort of rhyme out of a poem and then getting some totally different scheme in the next stanza.

Again - I'd advise against archaic english. It's difficult to use, and doesn't have a lot of currency in modern writing. If you want to characterize this like an old poem, okay. But archiac language doesn't automatically make something poetic.

The image of the falcon is a good one. Go back to it. Find out some things that are associated with falcons - hunting, sight, cliffs, the hood, the nobility, the eye of Horus all come to mind. Try writing a poem in paragraph form that connects the broken oath to falcons. Then break it into lines, take out unnecessary words, and see what kind of poem you've got. If you want to rhyme, then rewrite the poem and see where it goes with the rhyme. This is just a suggestion of a way to help you get writing again - some people find it useful, some don't. Hope this helps.

Erm... I'm sorry but I wasn't really sure what you were supposed to be saying. There seems to be a lot of older words in there, so maybe that's why.

I think that archaic language can be powerful when used correctly but it doesn't fit the rather modern structure of this poem. Rhyming couplets yes but a different rhyme each time otherwise you're going to find it hard to write and the reader is certainly going to find it hard to read. The imagery in this piece is good and I can put up with the odd rephrasing to fit a rhyme scheme but you use it just about every other line in this poem.

If you want a different way to start this why not begin with the making of the oath. That seems like a sensible place to start and it might make it a little easier to understand.

Sorry I couldn't be too helpful with this piece. Your imagery is good and if you can find a better structure I'm sure it will be an amazing poem.

hey...what is up with the -th? that is the first thing that caught me. soundeth and ya anyway I thought it was pretty good. Keep it up!

ML,
Oregongirl

The constant -th -th -th was very annoying and detrcted from the poem. Forcing something to sound like old English doesn't make it good, just phoney and stiffled sounding. Let go of the rhyme, not all poems have to ryhme! To me this doesn't discribe a broken oath at all, more a hunt or duel. The oath seems pushed in in the last verse.

The forced, backwards structure and the archaic language is too much. It forces the reader to stop and think and try to figure what the heck you're talking about--which you don't want to happen. You want the reader to get through it smoothly and then have time to digest it. Start-stop the whole way through is bad.

Yeseth, the rhymeth schemeth was distractingeth, aseth waseth the archaiceth languageth.

("Am I righteth in thinketh that thou art the Counteth Duckula of Transylvania-eth?")

But nixeth thateth, and the generaleth ideaeth waseth goodeth. Sorryeth....sorry, I like archaic in its proper place-eth, but I think poetry should be poetry-eth.

The main point of it was good, and I liked the picture of the falcons and all. However, I can't tell you how to make it better. Still, 'tothers did that, so you don't need to take a Vogon's advice.

-T

Gosh the [eth] confused me a little, but to be honest, that doesn't take much. I'm not sure how I feel about this poem, all I know is that I don't dislike it, but I don't like it all to much either.

It flowed well in places and sometimes, I kinda got used to the [eth] but others, I was like.. Wah? Sometimes the rhyming is a bit.. forced and strange, but altogether, I have mixed feelings about this.

You decide whether that's good or bad.

sworddance wrote:Did you hear what hear did I?

... try saying that out loud. It makes no sense. I had to say it, like, ten times to figure out what it meant.

sworddance wrote:Half[s]-broken[/s] truths, and scripted lies

I like this line, with a little fixing up.

I'm not sure out the "-eth" thing works, you might want to look it up somewhere, just for the sake of accuracy. I fail at rhyming poetry, so I can't really comment on that, but I actually kind of liked this. It wasn't perfect, not by a long shot, but I think it evoked something - I got a very "sword and sorcery" feel from it, which may have even been what you were going for.

With a little work, I think this could be pretty good.