Murder of the Mind

I am a poetry virgin who always said poetry was not her forte (but I decided to write one to see what the result would be). Also, part of me is not sure if this even qualifies as a poem; I am aware it is in a bit of a mess but please, bare with me... This is a first (never posted my work on YWS before).
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a blade as sharp as the welder’s mind,
plunging into the soft tissues of her heart
that once beat in a frantic rhythm alongside her own,
as if one, but two voices in inside of her head,
and two personalities, two minds, so different
so alike
to be free of the war inside of her head,
so beautiful the blood, now the emotions of hatred
that spill from her body

to be normal like once before, she shifts the knife
and carves through the dark restraints
that binds the other to her
and finally a lapse of time sees her struggle abandoned in vain
as swift winds of the night descend upon the lone girl,
again life is ignited deep with her companion’s ebony shell,
awake and ready to torture her once more,

she rises upwards unwilling to be erased from such a fascinating mind
slicing through the night, is a scream that erupts from
the girl, slumped to the floor clutching her hair
so delicate, the brain within
a billion cells all united to work as one
and to create such an intelligent specimen
who cannot figure out that it is impossible to kill
a mere figment of the imagination
is a mystery to me

Wow, I can't believe that this is the very first work that you've posted on YWS!
Anyway, you had a rather good start! A few main points:

Reading your poem, I got the impression that I was reading a different one each stanza! They seemed only loosely connected, like I was reading a book of short stories that all came together at the end.

I couldn't really tell what this about. Your title is 'murder of the mind' which seems to make since in your first couple of stanzas, but then you have the knife which makes me think that she is debating whether to go out an actually commit a murder. It's very clear that girl is suffering from schizophrenia, and the title alone justifies that. You don't need to have any kind of literal murder!

Other then that, great job, and I hope you post more literary works on YWS in the future.

Hi,

Congrats on your first poem! I really enjoyed it and hope to read more of you.

The first line is really gripping and really draws the reader in. I'd change "heart" but this is just personal taste really. I think you could use stronger imagery instead of;
"and two personalities, two minds, so different
so alike
to be free of the war inside of her head,
so beautiful the blood, now the emotions of hatred".
I'd try instead to focus on something more concrete, like what she does to try and resolve both aspects of herself, and how this looks on the outside.

I'd cut "once" before "before"as I think it would make the line more smooth. I love;
"and finally a lapse of time sees her struggle abandoned in vain".

I'd change "she rises upwards unwilling to be erased from such a fascinating mind" to something shorter.

"slumped to the floor clutching her hair" is a great image.

I think the last three lines are very effective.

Thanks for an interesting read. Hope this helps,

Jas

OxfordandOnyx wrote:a blade as sharp as the welder’s mind,
plunging into the soft tissues of her heart
that once beat in a frantic rhythm alongside her own,
as if one, but two voices in inside of her head, Maybe change to inside her head/on the inside of her head?
and two personalities, two minds, so different
so alike
to be free of the war inside of her head,
so beautiful the blood, now the emotions of hatred
that spill from her body

to be normal like once before, she shifts the knife
and carves through the dark restraints
that binds the other to her
and finally a lapse of time sees her struggle abandoned in vain
as swift winds of the night descend upon the lone girl,
again life is ignited deep with her companion’s ebony shell,
awake and ready to torture her once more,

she rises upwards unwilling to be erased from such a fascinating mind
slicing through the night, is a scream that erupts from
the girl, slumped to the floor clutching her hair
so delicate, the brain within
a billion cells all united to work as one
and to create such an intelligent specimen
who cannot figure out that it is impossible to kill
a mere figment of the imagination
is a mystery to me

That was only one nit-pick. Well done.
Also, maybe just for better presentation, you could have each sentence start with a capital letter, each line end with a comma and each verse end with a comma/full stop.
*
Sorry for the unhelpful review.

*Starred*
*
~Luciano

Hey, Onxy, it’s Santa.
Okay, first off, you’re not the only one who has ever felt like a poetry virgin. I’ve maybe only ever written two poems and in my own opinion, I think they are both terrible no matter what people have said. So do NOT feel glum.

a blade as sharp as the welder’s mind,

There’s something about this that confuses me, mostly because of the welder thing. Welders, you know, weld. Are you trying to talk about the guy who crafted the sword? Because if that’s the case, I would just say ‘the craftsman’s hopes/mind/intent’. (just suggestions of course.)

as if one, but two voices in inside of her head,
and two personalities, two minds, so different

“As if one” doesn’t seem to say what I think you’re trying to say. What about, “not as one,” which says the same thing.
Also, ‘two,’ is so repetitive here and I think that with some thought, there would probably be a way to say reduce the number of twos.

Okay, think there is definitely a lot of disconnection with verse one and verse two while there’s some better connection between two and three. I think that it has been mentioned before by Elinor, but I figured I would mention it with a little more detail. The problem with this disconnection comes from such a broad I idea, at least here. In idea, you’re trying to give us the three main points of a big subject when there are really about seven main subjects that, if written about together, would run more smoothly. (If that doesn’t make any sense, I’m always creeping around in the chat room or you can PM me.)

who cannot figure out that it is impossible to kill
a mere figment of the imagination
is a mystery to me

I liked this imagery here, most especially in that second line. It makes a very whimsical impact I think.

Probably one of my favorite poets ever is singer Emilie Autumn and my favorite of her poems is probably ‘Ghost’. You can listen to it here or read it here if you want. Your poem reminded me of hers a little, not so much in the way it’s written but the sad, kind of tragic feeling that you were trying to convey.

Also, don’t forget about our wonderful Knowledge Base that might be able to help you or the Poetry Database where you’ll almost undoubtably find a little inspiration.

See, there was no need to worry.
Hugs.
~lilymoore

Okay, now that's a really powerful poem. Let me do a little nit-picking before going to the overall part.

Mistakes

a blade as sharp as the welder’s mind,

I have to bring this up myself, because I don't think the 'welder's mind' qualifies as a simile to pronounce the sharpness of the blade. It just doesn't seem right to me. Although, I think what you are trying to say is the actual attentiveness of a welder in his task of welding, and I think it actually shows a meaning once you put it that way.

that once beat in a frantic rhythm alongside her own,

I thought you were talking about your own heart, or did I get it wrong?

as if one, but two voices in inside of her head,

You should try changing this to, "as if, not one, but two voices were inside her head,"

to be free of the war inside of her head,

I think this should be, "to be free from the war inside her head"

that spill from her body

You can try substituting 'spill' with 'flow'

again life is ignited deep with her companion’s ebony shell,

This should be, "Life was ignited"

And, this should be, "deep within her"

Overall

I have to repeat some of the things the other reviewers had already brought up. The three stanzas were not really connected, and to me, I would have preferred it if you haven't brought up the brain part into the poem also, because it seems irrelevant.

And I think the character in the poem wants to free herself from the bad side of her heart and soul. Also, I understood that you were trying to show the good and bad residing in the heart and brain of a person, the yin and yang, hot and cold, god and satan. This meaning made this a very powerful poem.

Suggestions for Improvement

(1) You should try not to add too much strong and powerful words/phrases/sentences, in a poem, because, for one, it makes understanding the poem, a difficult task for the reader. For second, it tends to loose the right meaning of the poem, but only sometimes, when the poet is careless.

(2) Try to add the right punctuations and capitalizations in the correct places.

(3) Have the stanzas connected in the same flow and meaning of the rest of the poem, so it becomes easier for the reader to understand.

(4) It's better to keep the meaning of the poem in mind, and make sentences, suiting that, or the poem will run off on its own.

Lastly, I have to congratulate you on your first poem, because it seemed as if you shown a really great effort in producing it. Well done.

And, Good luck

Congratulations on the first poem! I must tell you it was a really good first poem. Though, i didn't get the connection between the title Murder of the mind and the poem itself which seems to be focussing on a schizophrenic patient. I liked the line

life is ignited deep with her companion’s ebony shell

. Keep writing and you will surely improve.

Hey Oxford! I made it here! Okay, so I must warn you I'm very rusty in reviewing poetry, but I will try my best at your request. First of all, this is quite impressive for being new at poetry, and don't be ashamed at being new at something. It's exciting! But on to your poem...

This was a very interesting piece, and some of your lines were straight on and lovely. You have a lovely way with words. I'm going to agree with aforementioned comments that this seemed a bit jumbled. In poetry, you have a lot of freedom with wording, but I had a hard time making sense of what you were saying in a few lines. If I were to phrase some of the parts as sentences, they would be rambling, confusing sentences. To an extent, ambiguous wording and interesting word order is nice for poetry, but I feel like this was too much.

Yet again, I am a bit torn between what to say about this. On one hand, it was difficult to understand. On the other hand, I got the sense of your speaker deteriorating here and being slightly off her kilter, which makes me wonder if the jumbled structure and odd wordings are intentional to convey just how askew she is.

If it's the former, I think you need to go through this and read it aloud and work with some of that confusion. If it's the latter, I think we need more pattern. Jumbling things to convey madness is lots of fun, but there needs to be enough clarity that the reader knows what's happening. So think about what rhythms or progressions you could employ to convey that madness if that is your intent.

An example of here this confusion came about:

that once beat in a frantic rhythm alongside her own,
as if one, but two voices in inside of her head,
and two personalities, two minds, so different
so alike
to be free of the war inside of her head,
so beautiful the blood, now the emotions of hatred
that spill from her body

This stanza confused me a lot. As if one, but two? So different, so alike to be free of the war? Do you see how some of these phrases seem to spring off of each other with little basis? Creative phrases are great, but they need some sort of foundation with which to associate to make sense. You have some gorgeous wordings and ideas here; it just needs some more organization.

All in all, I enjoyed this! Please do keep writing! I would love to read more of your poetry and/or prose, so feel free to throw me a PM when you post more. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me!

i am surprised that this peom is your first! you had put so much emotion into this piece. yet i am confused. i get the topic, though with each stanza, it kind of transforms it into a million topics. do you know what i mean? aka it started out about something but then it was just jumbled. thats the only problem i have with it. i really love your word choice and emotion. i think you do have a talent for poetry!