Little Death

Little Death


Remind me of something

That is worth reminiscing

Something worthwhile,

Something interesting;

About something,

Just something,

That doesn't remind me of her.


She came prancing about

Into my sickroom one day,

Holding tightly in her arms

A basketful of macabre


I froze in her ominous presence

And she smiles at me mockingly;

Her nails dig at my flesh as she says,

"Play with me, play with me!"


She sings melodious lullabies

Inflicting a pang of bitter pain

But her intent is as clearly noticed

As teardrops in a pool of rain


All is lost in the lilt of her step

As the lights slowly dims ‘round,

Effervescent moments fade

Softly, softly; I fall to the ground.


She came prancing to the sickroom,

Singing a song she sang before

And she lays down on my deathbed

A basketful of ache and gore


She says, "Sleep well, dear sir,

Don't upset yourself, I implore,

For tonight is your last night,

And you shall wake up again... nevermore."


So please,

Tell me about something,

That is worth it to tell;

About something,

Just something,

That doesn't remind me of Hell...

Hi Sugar, KL here, at your service~


First off...


"Little Death"? Good, eye-catching title. Now...

Remind me of something

That is worth reminiscing

Something worthwhile,

Something interesting;

About something,

Just something,

That doesn't remind me of her.

I do think the lines starting at "about something" should be in a different stanza. Easy fix.

She came prancing about

Into my sickroom one day,

Holding tightly in her arms

A basketful of macabre

Hm... a bit inconsistent in rhythm, albeit use of rhyme is slightly adept... Kudos to you for that. Some writers only rhyme for the sake of rhyming, but you were different. I applaud you. Plus, imagery is a bit creepy... I LIKE IT. 8D

I froze in her ominous presence

And she smiles at me mockingly;

Her nails dig at my flesh as she says,

"Play with me, play with me!"

Okay, rhyme is still good... The creep factor is still there... In fact, I'm impressed that you were able to hold that 'creep factor' all throughout the poem while building suspense at the same time, slowly revealing the plot as you go on. A definite way to hold attention; by catching the reader's curiosity. Well done.

She sings melodious lullabies

Inflicting a pang of bitter pain

But her intent is as clearly noticed

As teardrops in a pool of rain

This I didn't get at first. What intent? Why does her singing inflict pain to the persona if they were pleasant? After a bit of pittering and pondering, I guessed that the persona felt pain because the ominous girl was singing lullabies, and said ominous presence of the girl will make the lullaby ominous, too, as if she were lulling him/her to his death... is that it? The title is "Little Death", after all... also, it was not made clear who the persona really was. And why Little Death? Why did you choose to make the image of a little girl represent the force called Death? Is it because of the unexpectedness of its arrival, like the arrival of the little girl in the sickroom to visit him/her? And this is where I remembered the part 'carrying a basketful of macabre'. What's it for? Is it to indicate the little girl's purpose in visiting? In order to bring death? I would be glad to assume that the answer is yes; if not, why?


Ahem... it seems like I'm thoroughly getting carried away. Off to the next one, chop-chop!

All is lost in the lilt of her step

As the lights slowly dims ‘round,

Effervescent moments fade

Softly, softly; I fall to the ground.

And so here is where the persona dies, I assume. How does he/she die? It was not made clear. It just goes on like this: little girl visits sick man in the sickroom, carrying "a basket of macabre", she digs into his skin and makes him play with her, and then she starts to 'dance' (I concluded this because of the word "lilt"), and the lights dim around him, and he's dead. I repeat; how did he die? Did the sickness get the best of him? Was the girl a hallucination his sickness brought? A messenger of his grim fate? I place my bet on the latter, please correct me if I'm wrong. Rhythm: still a bit inconsistent, but is okay. Rhyming: abab. Still good.

She came prancing to the sickroom,

Singing a song she sang before

And she lays down on my deathbed

A basketful of ache and gore

I think that 'to' should be changed to 'around', or something like that. So he dies a bloody death? "Ache and gore"? How the chicken did that happen?


Ahem. Please excuse my inappropriate language if you can...

She says, "Sleep well, dear sir,

Don't upset yourself, I implore,

For tonight is your last night,

And you shall wake up again... nevermore."

Ah, my bet turns out to be right. She is some kind of grim messenger of death. Rhyme doesn't work out too well for me, and rhythm had gone slightly wayward. Try omitting unnecessary syllables/words, if you may.

So please,

Tell me about something,

That is worth it to tell;

About something,

Just something,

That doesn't remind me of Hell...

Ah... so this man is a sinful man. No wonder a messenger had come to him and tormented him to his death. And then she sent him to Hell. Stanza is nice, all in all. No nitpicks.


So...


The whole plot revolves around a man wanting someone to tell stories to him that will divert his mind from the suffering he had experienced and currently is experiencing ((in Hell)). The messenger that came to him was in the form of a little girl who torments him, no wonder the title "Little Death". But still; why a little girl? It could have been the old traditional skeleton clad in a black cloak holding a crescent scythe, now, couldn't it? I assume that maybe this little girl was someone he murdered or something, and that some higher force had sent this girl to raise verdict on this man who had sinned against her... Ah, I sound like a prayer. But still! Nothing was made clear too well... it's all murky and whatnot. It's like looking through a blurry telescope and you're dying to see more of the other side, but you can't, because there's only one special telescope to view it with, and this blurry one is all you have... this poem kinda feels like that.

BUT!

Grammar: Very GOOD!
Imagery: Very Nice!
Rhyme: Good
Rhythm: OK
Creep Factor: Bone-chilling, duuude! 8D For that, I star you!



There's my verdict. Just PM me if you need to clarify anything, mmkay?



Lotsalove,


KL.



Ciao~!!

Hey there!

Wow, ok. I actually really liked this. It's a sort of strange, yet original, subject choice that totally draws the reader in. I'm still not entirely sure what the full picture is here, but I don't know if that's because it's the morning or because I'm not supposed to know in the poem. I quite like the vagueness, though. It leaves everything up to the reader to interpret.

Your speaker's point of view is nice too. You keep the same feeling throughout, and your poem feels pretty consistent. The rhyme scheme flows pretty smoothly, as does the rhythm. You've kept on subject and you haven't forced any lines/rhymes which is wonderful. I also liked the way that you changed the stanza size both at the beginning and the end.

One thing I would say is that your grammar seems inconsistent sometimes. There are some stanzas without any punctuation. I don't know if that was deliberate, but it feels strange to have some stanzas fully punctuated and some not. If you're going for the run on sentence effect, I don't think that's the way to do it.

Hope I helped! And lovely work.

~Amy

Thank you for the reviews. They're greatly appreciated.


@Black Rabbit - You really are in depth of the poem, hm... that's very nice; and most of your assumptions are correct. About the murder bit, well... I never really thought of that too much, but the part with the messenger of grim fate is astoundingly accurate. Wow. You sure do know how to read minds. Anyway, your review was of great help, and I do hope that in the future versions of this poem you will come to like it even more.

PS: You are by far the most hyper reviewer I have ever gotten. Ahaha. ((big grin))

@Aquamarine - Inconsistency? Ah, yes. One of my worse habits. I don't think I meant it to be vague, but it seems like it had turned out that way (due to lack of details *andcoughcoughcreativejuicescough*) I'm glad the poem is to your liking. But can you point out in which parts I lack punctuation? That would really help out greatly.

Once again, thank you for the fantastic reviews.

Now, who wants cookies?! ((throws confetti))

Hi there.

Well, I'm a little torn over this poem. The idea is really great but the way you did it was forced (the rhyme).

You have a good use of language but it seems stuff. Like you had one inflexible idea that HAD to be worded one way. Really poetry shouldn't work like that, you want to twist the language too be stretched seamlessly over your idea. mold it to your needs, don't make it one way, the best thing is to experiment with language.

You're rhyme isn't very natural, when I read it out loud there are points where I was forced to hesitate because it just didn't work. Read it out loud to yourself, it allows you to notice your own errors.

Kamas

I honestly love this piece. I love this sort of death-child thing you have going, and the fact that you use the word something so much makes it seem very child-like, which works perfectly for this piece. There's just one thing I'd change...

sugarxsnow wrote:Little Death

Holding tightly in her arms

A basketful of macabre

The word macabre is a little bit advanced. Not a lot of people will understand what it means. I'd recommend you try and think of something different to put in her arms. It doesn't do well for the average reader.

Aside from that, it's great. It made me think of this web-comic about a young death; here's a link http://grim.snafu-comics.com/?comic_id=0. It's a really good read!

@Howler - I can't thank you enough for showing me that wonderful comic. It gave me new ideas, see, and I loved it to pieces... but not as much as I loved you for showing me that link! This site is amazing! Thanks, dude! I'll be sure to show you my next work; of course, inspired by Grim. Ahaha. Thanks again!

Whoa. This is absolutely great. I loved, loved, loved this times twenty. It was new, different, and something out of the ordinary! And it was awesome! Really spectacular. I was so absorbed in the poem, I couldn't find any critiques. It's good others did
This is really good! Please keep writing. The poem is great, because the idea is new, fresh, and unique.
Tata! Have fun writing more poems!
-Mizzle

@Kamas - Well, yes... come to think of it, it is a bit stiff. I'll edit as soon as I can.


@RainingSunshine - No critiques? I'm flattered. Do expect I will keep writing more. I'm glad this is to your liking.

I like this, I think it was stronger in the beginning first though. I think if you made the end better I would like it even more.

@flowerchild - I will surely try to.

Hello there!

So, I have to admit that my mind is in the gutter. I saw the title of this poem, "Little Death," and remembered from Comp II "La petite mort," which is the French translation. In literature it is a metaphor for..."sexual release," to be family-friendly. Hah! I'm sorry. But at first I tried reading it like that. It worked but only for a bit. Just thought I'd let you know in case you were interested. Hope you're not offended or anything. But even from that, in a broader sense, it can mean the spiritual uplift you feel from reading a particularly good bit of literature.

All gutter-living aside, I thought it was a pretty awesome work.

I liked your use of "nevermore..." (I'm a Poe fan.)

I love the light rhyming and verse you use; it fits perfectly with the description of a little, playful Death with a love for song.

There are a few bits where you switch from present tense to past (especially "She came..." and then "I froze..." followed directly by "she smiles...") but it doesn't happen too much.

I really don't have too many gripes. I can't be much more critical because anything else I saw has been pointed out, so I'm not going to beat a dead horse.

Star for you, thanks for posting, and keep up the good work!

@Vanadis - Kan I has the link of that French poem, if you do has dem? Kate would like to reed dem nao.


And Kate thanks you for the review. Kate gives you a plateful of virtual cookies in gratitude.