Writers' Crusade (Against Typo Demons)

The typo demons are a-prowling
as the writers begin their howling
at every foiled attempt to write
without mistakes, so they smite
down characters left and right.

Soon the writers find to their despair
the pool of characters dwindled. Where
once an endless supply was, there
are no victims left to bear
their fury, and so they glare

at the typo demons—"Hey! New prey!"
"We will wipe them out so that today
won't have been (another) waste." "Say,
what're we waiting for? Let's slay
those demons!" "Yes!" "Let's!" "Hooray!"

And so the writers take up their pens,
styli, keyboards, et cetera... then
off they waltz on vengeance's way
to righteously maul all they
who would wreak word ruin. Yea,

the writers now march on their rampage,
virtuous and sure in their crusade.
But the typo fiends, they've caught sight
of the mob, and it's quite fright-
'ning as they prepare to fight

for they arm themselves with eye fatigue
and sleep deprivation, with the league
named something so unspellable
it is hardly yellable
and much less impellable,

which is prob'ly why the demons lost,
though winning wasn't without cost
on the writers' side. Many heads
imploded, and frustrated
writers often up and fled—

"To fight another day," they said,
"for not all typo fiends are dead.
We'll fight this war again someday,
but until then, we shall delay
and bide our time 'til the next crusade—
and maybe invent some Typo Raid."

You'll be glad to know I didn't find any typos in this . This is a very creative poem and topic to write about, I like it.

And so the writers take up their pens,
styli, keyboards, et cetera... then
off they waltz on vengeance's way
to righteously maul all they
who would wreak word ruin. Yea,

I don't think you really need the "yea" at the end of this stanza. It just seems out of place.

the writers now march on their rampage,
virtuous and sure in their crusade.
But the typo fiends, they've caught sight
of the mob, and it's quite fright-
'ning as they prepare to fight

They way "fright-'ning" is split between two lines really makes your rhyming sound forced. But "sight" and "fight" still rhyme, so you don't really need to split "fright-'ning" between two lines.

for they arm themselves with eye fatigue
and sleep deprivation, with the league
named something so unspellable
it is hardly yellable
and much less impellable,

I really like this stanza, it's very creative.

Good work!

There were parts of it that just felt kinda off, but all the same I thought this was a really fun and creative poem! The only problems came from the sometimes-forced rhyme scheme, which the writer before me did a good job of pointing out. Still, I think the subject was really cool.
Keep writing,
StoryWeaver

Hey Kyllorac -

Fitting that you should post this just as I was childishly falling in love with an old favourite rhyming poem. I will tell you this first off - as a general rule, I do not like rhyming poetry; too constrictive, the rhymes all sort of are the same, there's only so many words one can use so the idea is dictated by the mediocre word choice etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But! If there is one type of rhyming poem I do enjoy, it is the utterly nonsensical kind, the one that pokes fun at itself and society, the one that realises it is worthless and makes a joke out of its own pointlessness. So. I like a good laugh, obviously. And the nature of this poem - like it's sitting on its knees, hilariously worshipping the readers' feet, kissing the dust on the ground, marvelling at every handful of dirt - is what puts it in the likeable category. Not loveable. No - for that, you would have to be much more eloquent, intense.

Nevertheless, it suffers from some blatant deformities of which you are already aware. The rhythm is off. You know this. Good flow would make this better; bad flow makes it like a shoddy craftsman's work that was designed for the second-hand shop in the first place. I can see good jokes in here that are told badly - or rather, not properly. As any class clown is well aware, timing is everything. Let's take a look at this:

The typo demons are a-prowling

^ / ^ / ^ / ^ / ^ Nice iambic meter here.

as the writers begin their howling

/ ^ / ^ ^^^ / ^ Notice how it's ruined in one fell swoop?

And so on it continues. I don't need to put the incomprehensible meter marks there for you. Read it aloud - several times - and correct yourself. Replace words, use the thesaurus, change the lines around.

In general, I liked it when your rhymes didn't end on the end of a sentence:

won't have been (another) waste." "Say,
what're we waiting for? Let's slay
those demons!" "Yes!" "Let's!" "Hooray!"

It added an interesting touch to it; not original by any means, but at least it took it out of the realm of the usual mundane rhyming poetry cluttering these forums that tries too hard to be neat and precise and comes across as half-baked.

At a quick first read / glance, your rhyme scheme seems...nonexistent. Do you have one? Why does it look like the poem follows an AABBB CCCCC DDDDD EEDDD FFBBB GGHHH etc kind of 'pattern' (i.e. no pattern)? This clumsiness, I suppose is partly forgivable - it makes the poem seem helplessly lost, droopy-eared, the right sort of effect. The rhythm, however, should be fixed so that it is at least properly funny and not halfway-there, awkwardly funny.

Anyway. You're more than capable of fixing this up.

Navi