Young Writers Society


A Road Without End

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A Road Without End

I walk along the path of sorrow
and the avenue of tears.
Laced with ribbons of vitality,
its stones don’t utter a sound.
A street where masks wear smiles,
but no joyful faces to be found.

Maggots infest the lost bread
my mind half-baked.
They move like a deadly virus,
waiting for its living meal.
Their infection clouds the discernment
of what’s fake and what’s real.

My mind shadows the wisdom
of great malevolent light.
I laugh and weep in shame
as I behold my shattered scheme.
Reality cracked the pavement
on the boulevard of broken dreams.

-
I'm not completely satisfied with this. I need some help getting rid of how disjointed it becomes in parts.
"If you love something, give it away"
~ Conor Oberst




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When I read the first stanza, I was like "Hey, this is like that Greenday song" and then that was your last line. So I take it you were trying to get the same idea across as in that song? Well I think you did that very well.

I wasn't sure if I liked it at first, the first few lines "path of sorrow," "avenue of tears," all seemed a bit cliche, but actually I've changed my mind. As a whole, it fits together well. The second stanza especially.

Ringo_rules987 wrote:Maggots infest the lost bread
my mind half-baked.
They move like a deadly virus,
waiting for its living meal.
Their infection clouds the discernment
of what’s fake and what’s real.

I LOVE the first two lines, my mind half-baked is just surprisingly profound. Less so the next two, they move like a deadly virus waiting for its living meal - i think the word "deadly" makes it seem too obvious. The last two though, back to being right I think =] very nice.

Ringo_rules987 wrote:I laugh and weep in shame
as I behold my shattered scheme

I'm not sure about this scheme. What scheme?

Ringo_rules987 wrote:Reality cracked the pavement
on the boulevard of broken dreams

Yeah, I like this line. You took the line from the song and made something new from it. Though you say it's disjointed I don't really see that myself.




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This was actually inspired by the Tony Bennett version of the song, I didn't actually know Green Day had done a version of the tune.

But anyway, thank you.
"If you love something, give it away"
~ Conor Oberst




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Ringo_rules987 wrote:This was actually inspired by the Tony Bennett version of the song, I didn't actually know Green Day had done a version of the tune.


Wow it's a cover? I'm so ignorant ^_~ I hate it when people assume a song is by the first person they hear it by *guilty* It's actually one of the only songs by Green Day I like...that's probably because it isn't by them lol.




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i agree 100 percent with andim...something something...

certain lines really stuck out and were perfectly written, while others were only okay.

i didn't actually recognize the take off of the song in the first lines...only the last--sort of obvious--line gave it away to me...
i don't really like the song by greenday...i don't know if the other versions different or what...i guess it doesn't really matter anyway...

so, hate the song, love the poem...

this was really great overall!
keep writing!

-GC10
"The difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug." -Mark Twain




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gamechanger10 wrote:i agree 100 percent with andim...something something...


Lol. At least copy and paste =[ now I feel unloved! And I'm Love Galore!




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Their infection clouds the discernment

of what’s fake and what’s real.


maybe the best line you had going there, by my standards anyhow.

They move like a deadly virus,
waiting for its living meal.

this line before it makes it roll off the tongue.


As for Boulevard of Broken dreams, I'm sure everyone has said it, but don't ever use words that are commonly known for something else. Then you become in laments terms, a copy cat, and we don't want that. Suprisingly though, you are the fifth poem I have read this morning and you have writen the best.
Except for that last line, that took away the whole thing. Re write with a new last line and you'll have a keeper in your books. Or completly reconstruct the poem with what you had going in the first verse. We can tell that you were feeling what you were writing more in the first verse before you lost the feeling and thought too much about the words carrying out the rest of the poem.




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Hey Ringo! I've been meaning to review your poetry for a while and haven't done so yet... well, here's my chance!

This was unbelievably good; a near classic. If only you hadn't resorted to a cliche in the last line this would have been great. If anything, twist the cliche, like this maybe:

Reality cracked the pavement
that leads only to broken dreams.

This nuances the allusion and makes it subtler, instead of spoonfeeding us with what is obviously a lift from Green Day. I do like the echo of the first two lines; I often use this 'mirroring' technique myself to give the piece a unity and sometimes a trapped feeling, but I think you could finish with a stronger image than the example I've given.

I think you could also lose some of the adjectives to pare down your ideas; while your piece is not a pile of adjectives, they can act like dead weight:

Maggots infest the bread
that my mind half-baked.
They move like a virus,
waiting for its living meal.
Their infection clouds the difference
between what’s fake or real.

As the 'living meal' image is at the centre of the stanza and a really powerful idea, I took away the other adjectives to heighten its effect. I also tweaked this verse to make it sound more natural: for instance, 'discernment' sounds like something you got from a dictionary or thesaurus. I always prefer natural language, but occasionally the odd unusual word well-chosen and well-placed can be very effective.

The other problem is that the middle stanza sits uneasily between the others. The piece is a bit disjointed, but that's okay. You can work on it.

Great effort! Very well done.

Gahks :D

9/10
"Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself." William Faulkner.

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I love the poem.
Its take on the Greenday song makes it easy to relate to and i actualy prefer the poem to the song, it feels much more melancholy and I, personally, think that it is a better way of putting across the solemn feel.
YOur imagery is great and i love lines such as 'laced with ribbons of vitality' and 'my mind half-baked.'
Think about using some other kinds of punctuation, vary it a little it's surprising how much punctuation can add to a poem.
Good luck!
Natalie




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Hey, Ringo! Haven't seen you in a while :)

I didn't have an idea of the song until I came to the last line, so let's leave it alone for now.


A street where masks wear smiles,

but no joyful faces to be found.


Ah. This is probably my favourite part of the poem.


OVERALL:

I love the melancholy style of yours. This isn't the best one I've read by you, but you still remain as one of my favourite poets in YWS.

(And I'm sorry for such a short review.)

See you around!

Demeter xx
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