Antithetic Love

*Left now*

Yep, the structure was a bit confusing but since you admit this yourself, I wouldn't be so bothered about it.

Hmm... What else could I say? Well, it was long. Okay, now I'm getting nowhere. I startled at the word "pissed" in the second stanza, but it was actually pretty funny.

"Oh how it glows!
Oh how it shines!"

I liked these lines, although I think you should add commas after the "oh"s.

I have to say I find it always a little difficult to review your work, but no can do. Keep on.

Demeter

I agree, 'pissed' is pretty funny. But also very real, and raw- like what true love in the real world is like. There's not hearts and roses, there's frustration, long distances and constantly feeling like you're either annoying or accidentily stepping on the others heart in your haste to get to them.

Cells. Opposite cells. Great metaphore that serves as the backbone for the poem. The imagery...I liked it and I didn't.

Liked:

Dark, empty and confined,
in a lightless, dirty room.

(Good begining)

Just as light all but dies,
the flame leaps to life.
Coal and tinder ignite--
bursting forth and erupting,
desires and longing.

(Very powerfull. It had real guts)

Didn't like:

Brimstone and sparks,
anger fuels the furnace.
The Elemental of fire,
a fury filled being.

(I felt instead of building tenison you gave too much away. It's a problem because often when writers do this it comes across as overdramatic.)

Other than that, I liked it. The structure was strange, but in a good way. I really felt the anger and deep passion. You wrote this from the heart. It shows. Favourite lines, just like D:

Oh how it glows!
Oh how it shines!

For some reason, those stood out for me even though if it was in another poem I would cringe. I think you created a suitable background for them.

Well done, V!

Ami

Well, you already know I like this XD So let's see...nitpicking time!

Dark, empty and confined, [no comma]
in a lightless, dirty room. [no full stop - the sentence carries on]
Within a thousand screaming [comma here - you want a pause after screaming to make the semi-rhyme of room & tombs more audible] listless,
tombs. In this soulless hell,
two cells stand away from each other.

[You switch rather quickly between describing the surroundings and describing the Water. I think you need more build-up so it doesn't seem so abrupt. Perhaps specifically allocate the Water to one cell]

Soft, calm, true and divine.
A wash says it all the Elemental of
Water feels no more.

The heat [no comma], scours,
royally pissed and raging [full stop], [not sure if pissed is the right word - too comical?]
the heat the intensity [comma]. [repetition of "heat" diminishes the impact]
Brimstone and sparks,
anger fuels the furnace. [this sentence is a fragment. Perhaps try to make it more active? You're dealing with fire after all, you want it to have some punch]
The Elemental of fire,
a fury[hyphen]filled being.

Both in these cages,
one cries out, sloshing,
swirling in vain to dissolve
the metal. The other ]no comma],
instead growls furiously,
setting aflame, spreading
to melt the cell.

The tide ceases and
flame flickers. Both prisoners
consider/ending it all [I dont think that / is meant to be there XD]

Rising high and mighty
the water Elemental,
gurgles in shock.
The lava and magma,
Reflecting the impossible.
Such beauty]comma] such prime...[not sure this is the correct use of "prime"?]
Oh how it glows!
Oh how it shines!
Such beauty, so refine! [refined -- past tense]

Just as light all but dies,
the flame leaps to life.
Coal and tinder ignite--
bursting forth and erupting,
desires and longing.

[I still love that verse]

Swash, waves and crashing,
burning and alighting--
the cage moves.

[And that one]

They both stand-- [perhaps an over-use of dashes?]
a unknown feeling
burling in one another.
Not stopping they push
heads together.
Fire...Water... [commas might be better here?]
Rusting and melting
Prisons end--

A kiss... (a lick of flame slips in)
Passion burns, longing soaks,
a kiss...(wetness envelopes)
Love ensues.

Melding together. In love and
Breaking rules and preconceived notions.
Doubt? Banished, bringing on
A new life of dreams, freedom --
Shackling down, as glass shards
To form a new, unique love.

Like a hearth warms, the water [no comma],
feels temperature rise,
while the other groans, [full stop?]
steam coalesces.

Staying solid, they
keep on. Their bodies-- [not sure dashes appropriate here]
antithesis not. Eruptions
and cascades. Water exposes
and gives self to fire fully--
Torrid heat, eroding and mixing
Peals of pleasure and gasps.
Sharp crackling gasps.
Climatic hissing is heard
as dripping embers fall
over their bodies.

[Evocative imagery ]

From that meeting they form
a unique and metamorphic
offspring. Of fire and water,
lest it not destroy,
lest not water drown.
Instead a love formed

[not sure that last bit "of fire and water...a love formed" doesn't go too far towards telling rather than showing...might want to scale it back a bit, and it detracts from the ending.]

A baby boy
came when
they were one.

[And I love the ending Kudos!]

It was good..it took me a while to actually understand it but I'm slow so don't take it personally. You did a good job I just had a hard time actually getting through it when I read it. I'm in chemistry and a lot of the words you used made me think of reactions and erruptions and I thought that was good for the image I would guess you were trying to put across. You definatly have a very unique style...DONT LOSE IT! It's great that your different.
Keep writing =]

Dark, empty and confined
in a lightless, dirty room
within a thousand screaming,[comma] listless[s],[/s][no comma] -when you're listing two descriptions, you need commas between them, but not after the last one.
tombs. In this soulless hell,
two cells stand away from each other. I don't get this part... it doesn't make sense to me.
Soft, calm, true and divine. Imprisoned;
a wash says it all the Elemental of
Water feels no more. I don't get this either... you've got your plurals mixed up or something...

The heat, scours,
royally pissed and raging,
the life the intensity,
brimstone and sparks,
ire stir the furnace.
The Elemental of fire,
a fury-filled being. Nice.

Both in these cages,
one cries out, sloshing,
swirling in vain to dissolve
the metal. The other Sloshing in metal? Again, I don't get it... but maybe I'm not suppoed to.
instead growls furiously,
setting aflame, spreading
to melt the cell.

The tide ceases and
flame flickers. Both prisoners
consider ending it all.[period?]

Rising high and mighty
the water Elemental,
gurgles in shock.
The lava and magma,
Reflecting the impossible.
Such beauty such radiance...
Oh how it glows!
Oh how it shines!
Such beauty, so refined!

Just as light all but dies,
the flame leaps to life.
Coal and tinder ignite--
bursting forth and erupting,
desires and longing. Good.

Swash, waves and crashing,
burning and alighting--
the cage moves.

They both stand--
a unknown feeling
burling in one another.
Not stopping they push
heads together.
Fire... Water,
Rusting and melting
Prisons end--

A kiss... (a lick of flame slips in)
Passion burns, longing soaks,
a kiss...(wetness envelopes)
Love ensues.

Melding together. In love and
Breaking rules and preconceived notions.
Doubt? Banished, bringing on
A new life of dreams, freedom --
Shackling down, as glass shards
To form a new, unique love. This stanza is a big jumbled mess, I dunno if there's a way you could make it a little smoother, but if there is, that'd be nice.

Like a hearth warms, the water
feels temperature rise,
while the other groans,
steam coalesces. Is that spelled right? Love this stanza though. ^_^

Staying solid, they
keep on. Their bodies
antithesis not. Eruptions
and cascades. Water exposes
and gives self to fire fully--
Torrid heat, eroding and mixing
Peals of pleasure and gasps.
Sharp crackling gasps.
Climatic hissing is heard
as dripping embers fall
over their bodies. Niiiice. Great descriptions here.

From that meeting they form
a unique and metamorphic
offspring. Of notions
and acceptance of bond:
lest it not destroy,
lest it not drown.
Instead a love formed

A baby boy
came when
they were one.


Cute! My overall impressions, was it's kind of cunfusing in the beginning, and poorly organized. It gets better at the end, but it's just really hard to understand at first. Good luck!

~Yoyo

Experiencing bugs. All the posts are stretching away endlessly to the right and the Post Reply link refused to open. But this isn't the place for that. To the critique then. I'll do a stanza by stanza and then an overall>>>>

"Dark, empty and confined

in a lightless, dirty room

within a thousand screaming listless,

tombs. In this soulless hell,

two cells stand away from each other.

Soft, calm, true and divine. Imprisoned;

a wash says it all the Elemental of

Water feels no more."

Just a few grammatical checks- you said "Dark, empty and confined in a lightless....", which would effectively mean that you are saying that the subjects of the play are dark and empty themselves. I think what you were trying to say was- "Confined in a dark, empty, listless room..." Now it's upto you how you want your poem to sound like. It can either be raw or silently shouting. If you choose the latter, it would be better to leave out the word "thousand". Using such loud words in the beginning can hurt. "Two cells" is a very unique way of putting things. Cell, as in batteries or as in the things people and pigeons are made of or prison cells? It was great word usage, and you could have done better by working on it more. Anyway.....what is "a wash"?

"The heat, scours,

royally pissed and raging,

the life the intensity,

brimstone and sparks,

ire stir the furnace.

The Elemental of fire,

a fury-filled being."

Ok this was a good stanza in its contrast with the first, but you spoiled it by using "royally pissed". I have nothing against slanging off a whole poem as long as you can take something from it. Why couldn't you use a comparison like cell to make it sound smooth? "Brimstone and sparks" sounded great. Try not to go full on and bang your head on the reader, even if that was what the stanza was supposed to do. Muhammad Ali rarely everr went full on in boxing. Fencers are always careful as to who makes the first move. So why should a poet go out of his way to show the reader everything in caps. Don't attack the reader first, let the reader come to you. And watch your grammar. If you've read James Joyce, why in the world can't you write like James Joyce? Don't go out of your way to tell the reader that fire is a person. Try to stay off words like "Elemental", which work best in fantasies, but don't give much beauty to poetry. And sorry if I sound like I'm doing an English lecture.

"Both in these cages,

one cries out, sloshing,

swirling in vain to dissolve

the metal. The other

instead growls furiously,

setting aflame, spreading

to melt the cell."

Okay, so now I understood what the cell was. And you've done a good job in displacing the reader to another dimension. The charectarisation is classic throughout the poem but keep it on a lower tone when you're talking about Mr. Fire. You're taking the poor fellow and showing him as a monster who gets cooled off eventually. I'm not sure how impressive it is but it works well enough. Again watch out for what exactly you're saying- "....growls furiously, setting aflame,.....". Setting aflame what? If you put an "and" instead of a comma after "aflame", it would be grammatically correct.

"The tide ceases and

flame flickers. Both prisoners

consider ending it all"

Okay we have the first definite crisis, where the flame and water, trying to escape from their confinements, think about giving up. I like the way you're putting it but you could have said where this crisis started out from. I'm just saying whatever comes to my mind, so forget anything that you think doesn't fit with what you want the poem to be for the reader, because that's what matters most.

"Rising high and mighty

the water Elemental,

gurgles in shock.

The lava and magma,

Reflecting the impossible.

Such beauty such radiance...

Oh how it glows!

Oh how it shines!

Such beauty, so refined!"

This stanza didn't fit. It was kinda like what they say in those old Adidas ads where you knew exactly which word was going to come after the one you just read. Be unexpected. And not unexpected as in "Oh how it glows"....it doesn't match with the tone of the poem. Think about how it'll effect the rest of you're poem. The good parts will be let down. And why is the water in "shock"?

"Just as light all but dies,

the flame leaps to life.

Coal and tinder ignite--

bursting forth and erupting,

desires and longing."

You did well in giving feminine and masculine charectaristics to the water and fire and even though it was easy to realise in my first read itself that it was about love, you could have tried to make it less apparent, hmmm? The last three lines of this poem are some of the best....because the poem feels like its moving somewhere now.

"Swash, waves and crashing,

burning and alighting--

the cage moves."


They both stand--

a unknown feeling

burling in one another.

Not stopping they push

heads together.

Fire... Water,

Rusting and melting

Prisons end--"

It's "an unknown feeling". This stanza was better, but I'm tired by now. You could say this with much fewer words and be surprised by how it could sound.

"A kiss... (a lick of flame slips in)

Passion burns, longing soaks,

a kiss...(wetness envelopes)

Love ensues."

Oh you give the reader such an easy time. Don't let him or her survive your poem. Kill them, but softly.

"Melding together. In love and

Breaking rules and preconceived notions.

Doubt? Banished, bringing on

A new life of dreams, freedom --

Shackling down, as glass shards

To form a new, unique love."

"Preconceived notions"? It sounds unpoetic. Keep those kinds of words to a minimum. But the poem is opening up very well. I think the basic flow of ideas in the poem was good but you didn't quite put it right.

"Like a hearth warms, the water

feels temperature rise,

while the other groans,

steam coalesces."

Oh, better and better.

"Staying solid, they

keep on. Their bodies

antithesis not. Eruptions

and cascades. Water exposes

and gives self to fire fully--

Torrid heat, eroding and mixing

Peals of pleasure and gasps.

Sharp crackling gasps.

Climatic hissing is heard

as dripping embers fall

over their bodies."

"Water exposes and gives self to fire freely". I'm sorry, but that sounded like something from a Chemistry book- "Sodium dissolves and gives a clear blue precipitate of ...." But this stanza had much better word usage. "Their bodies antithesis not"- this is one of the most important lines in the poem but I'm not sure that antithesis is the right word to use.

"From that meeting they form

a unique and metamorphic

offspring. Of notions

and acceptance of bond:

lest it not destroy,

lest it not drown.

Instead a love formed"

"A baby boy

came when

they were one."

Why? Why a "boy"? What in the name of the holy Mary, mother of Nazareth, the Mata Devi, Mother Teresa, Joan of Arc and Hillary Clinton is wrong with a baby girl, ah?
Anyway, I think you could do things with some parts of the poem. Just remember not to stretch things out too much in poetry or anything. Thanks for the read....

In the beginning the poem seems empty. And kind of unneeded like you could take off some of it. And the idea of two people being fire and water is good. It elevates the act of touching. Its pretty good for the first sexual thing you've wrote. At least it wasn't all nasty all grimy like most people would imagine a sexual poem. Yours had more of a clean good feeling. Like it was meant to be no matter what rules you were breaking, because they didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was them. But the only thing that bugged me was the ( ) thing. If you took out the parenthesis and found another way to put that it would be great.

Yeah The structure messes up the flow completely.The beginning doesn't sound as dark as its trying to be. If you fix the structure and throw in some new adjectives, you got your self a pretty good poem.

I really liked it, you just maybe had a few minor errors:

Dark, empty and confined
in a lightless, dirty room
within a thousand screaming listless,<comma not needed, and tombs should be on the same line
tombs. In this soulless hell,
two cells stand away from each other.
Soft, calm, true and divine. Imprisoned;
a wash says it all the Elemental of
Water feels no more. I didn't really get this part. What are you trying to say?

The heat,<comma not needed scours,
royally pissed and raging,
the life, the intensity,
brimstone and sparks,
ire<what? stir the furnace.
The Elemental of fire,
a fury-filled being.

Both in these cages,
one cries out, sloshing,
swirling in vain to dissolve
the metal. The other
instead growls furiously,
setting aflame, spreading
to melt the cell.

The tide ceases and
flame flickers.<put it on top line Both prisoners
consider ending it all.

Rising high and mighty
the water Elemental,
gurgles in shock.
The lava and magma,
Reflecting the impossible.
Such beauty such radiance...
Oh how it glows!
Oh how it shines!
Such beauty, so refined!

Just as light all but dies,
the flame leaps to life.
Coal and tinder ignite--
bursting forth and erupting,
desires and longing.

Swash, waves and crashing,
burning and alighting--
the cage moves.

They both stand--
a unknown feeling
burling in one another.
Not stopping they push
heads together.
Fire... Water, I didn't quite get what was going on until about here...
Rusting and melting
Prisons end--

A kiss... (a lick of flame slips in)
Passion burns, longing soaks,
a kiss...(wetness envelopes)
Love ensues.

Melding together.<period not needed In love and
Breaking rules and preconceived notions.
Doubt? Banished, bringing on
A new life of dreams, freedom --
Shackling down, as glass shards
To form a new, unique love.

Like a hearth warms, the water
feels temperature rise,
while the other groans,
steam coalesces.

Staying solid, they
keep on. Their bodies
antithesis not. Eruptions
and cascades. Water exposes
and gives self to fire fully--
Torrid heat, eroding and mixing
Peals of pleasure and gasps.
Sharp crackling gasps.
Climatic hissing is heard
as dripping embers fall
over their bodies.

From that meeting they form
a unique and metamorphic
offspring. Of notions
and acceptance of bond:
lest it not destroy,
lest it not drown.
Instead a love formed

A baby boy
came when
they were one.

Other than what I found, I liked it a lot! keep up the good work!

whoah. I am not sure where to start here.

Um... first of all, that was a really incredible poem.

The structure could have been clearer, and the way that you were vague went over mysterious writing and into confusing.

I loved the choice of words and I loved that you made different clashes of events to tie together the feel of the story.

Loved the creativity!! Keep writing!!

--KK<'3

Be warned: I read no other comments before this.

I do like this poem. And yet there is something about it that itches me. I think it is the tone. It passes between grand, and almost amazingly un-grand. Both are fine, and both can be extremely powerful. But here the juxtaposition deflates the poem a little, and saps some of its energy.

"The tide ceases and
flame flickers. Both prisoners
consider ending it all."

"Both prisoners consider ending it all" doesn't quite meet the rhythm of the poem at that point. It also lacks a certain vitality of what came before it and what follows. It does have the benefit of being swift and heavy, but I'm not sure that works right there. "Royally pissed" also has that sort of "de"-granding about it that makes it unsavory. There are several examples of this throughout the poem. I think what you need to decide is whether you want this poem to reflect more the feeling of the act, as it does towards the end, speeding towards a climax, or the tone of its grandeur. The use of "Elemental" seems too big for its britches up against royally pissed. This poem's quality leaves no room for cleverness, which is a good thing. But I feel at least three different perspectives in this poem, which can only lend itself to one. The use of "Doubt?" is not justified by any of them though, and should be deleted. I think you devoted most of the poem to that quickening feel, those sudden breaks and swoops that are an analogy for what it describes. But even in that regard, I think the use of punctuation in some areas is a bit too blunt. More subtle use of line breaks and commas and dashes, etc., may be more effective. This is certainly an example of where punctuation becomes tantamount to the meaning and feeling of a poem. So kudos.

Towards the end, the tone of the poem begins racing, but the line breaks do not indicate that, and instead made me feel somewhat asthmatic, as my eyes tried to keep up with what I felt to be the intensity of the words.

Mostly, I think a bit more subtlety and a clearer voice would make this poem truly grand.