Bleached

Inside the envelope there is nothing.
Rippling words that flowed over paper
And dripped, tasty, from red lips have failed me.
The paper is stained horribly, white, empty,
Bland and salty, and smelling of pale decay.
It leaves a foul taste on the lips, that stays
And evokes lust for something more than hard tack.

These words are worthless, so I erase
And address the envelope empty,
To carry my fractured whispers home.

Spoiler

Something I wrote in April. Not sure about the title.

I do not quite understand it but I like it. It flows nicely.

Keep Writing,
~FW~

A poem is a collective mass of many fine threads darting in at all angles and joining together. This is the background, if you will. A variety of components that make your poem. Good poetry usually shows this mass of fine threads as a whole, including the angled fine threads, where they came from from. This is background information. Some poetry can succeed in only hinting at background information, either because it's enough to satiate the reader or because its implication rather than it being directly told of is more effective. But these fine threads - the background information - are the foundation of your poem. It is going to provide a believable basis for your narrator's emotion. Each tear your narrator sheds or each further advancing plunge into insanity, the reader is going to acknowledge your background information and understand why.

You haven't given me this. All you've shown me is the place where it's all happening, the centre of your poem if you will, its theme, its point. There isn't anything inherently wrong with this but it does severely limit what this poem is able to evoke in me, or the reader in general. Look at your poem as a cross stitch with many layers. With each layer down, the cross stitch gets denser. Your poem doesn't have the dense layers at the bottom so i'm looking through a loose and patchy cross stitch and i'm not seeing anything that could fill the gaps. Construct the poem properly. It's weaved with sadness that has no basis. Why is the narrator so sad? Why can't she send that letter? I'd like to know that.

Your execution. This poem is emotionally average. A lot of poets' poetry ends up like this because they read poetry that tackles trite subjects the only way they know how, and that is to act on the emotional normality of the topic. What I mean is, to these poets if your mother has died then that equates to being sad. If you've just gotten married, then that's cause for celebration. At least to these poets. They don't consider any secondary emotion that makes poetry human. Because that is why you're able to relate. A friend of mine, his mother was dying and he said that he was angry at his mother for dying when he was fifteen. That might not have a logical foundation but they were his feelings and they existed just as you or I exist. You exist as a separate human being and so your emotions are individual to you.

Assuming that you'd like to share something new and different with the world, you need to share that part of you. Because right now the language in this poem is boring. It is nothing I haven't seen before. And what happens then, when I've seen it all before? It ends up not doing anything for me. It ends up heaped in a pile of literary clichés that people cannot be bothered to read because they do not get anything from it. To 'carry your fractured whispers home'? This is all so familiar. There's nothing unique about it. Why not compare your whispers to broken bones instead and the jagged marrow acts as a gag on your tongue? Experiencing something new requires execution that is new. Try something different.

Inside the envelope there is nothing.

That caught my attention. Congrats on that. 'Pale decay' - probably my favourite small part. It has strong connotations.

The length of this poem might contribute to some of its downfalls. You aren't giving room for much. And so what is happening is that the beginning, middle and ending are being compressed until but only a mere few lines are devoted to them. Rushed emotion. A poem can take a while to evoke unless you are a small poet and so your principle only allows a bear minimum to effect your audience. If it takes a while to evoke because of the drawing of the landscape, the result of that is that something is felt only at the end and even that emotion is weak and limp. Create a dense beginning that thins out content wise into the centre of the poem. Then that will thin out - quite sadly and reluctant like the transition of summer to autumn - into the ending in which the majority of the poem's emotional impact should reside.

The execution and the background of this poem were the two main glitches I saw. If you manage to fix them, the rest will fall into place. I hoped this helped, somewhat, and excuse the rambling.

All right, I know poetry isn't supposed to make sence - but really.
It was good, but either I'm stupid (which as far as I know isn't the case) or that was some personal experience no one is really supposed to understand. Here's a few nipticks - That's what they call them right?

Inside the envelope there is nothing.
Rippling words that flowed over paper - Ok, I even searched up the meaning of rippling. It makes no sence here.
And dripped, tasty, from red lips have failed me. - From red lips that have failed me? God knows how.
The paper is stained horribly, white, empty, - Stained, but white? That makes no sence.
Bland and salty, and smelling of pale decay. - pale decay? Soothing and tear-smeared, and decaying? Ok,descriptive, but nonsensical.

It leaves a foul taste on the lips, that stays - you tasted it? And evokes lust for something more than hard tack. - a tack is a doornail.

These words are worthless, so I erase - there are words now? I thought it's empty.
And address the envelope empty, - to who?
To carry my fractured whispers home. - fractured? Maybe severed? Distressed?

I've no clue what happened. I suggest cleaning it up a bit.
And I didn't mean to be harsh if tht's how you took it.

Masquerade wrote:And dripped, tasty, from red lips have failed me. What? That makes no sense, whatsoever.

Okay, what I think I have gathered from this is that you wrote a letter home with a meaningless message, so you erased it and sent home the empty envelope. Am I right? The only part that really makes sense is the second, three-line stanza. It could be better if you didn't make it seem like you were eating the letter. Because that's what I imagine. If you're talking about speaking the words, it still doesn't make sense, because you're writing a letter. Anyway. Sorry this is such a short review. Hope I helped!

>>Annie<<

Ok...

So, this was an interesting poem and I saw no grammatical problems with it.
I don't really know what it's supposed to be about, though, and the flow is not the greatest.
The words of it are very well put together but really, you need to be able to tell the story a bit better. Also there seems to be not too much emotion except for the last line - I think.
It's an ok poem but it could use some work

Keep writing,
Alzora

Inside the envelope there is nothing. Nice opening line. It hooked me right away.
Rippling words that flowed over paper
And dripped, tasty, from red lips have failed me. This sentence doesn't really make sense to me. I don't feel like it flows right, and I had to stare at it for a while for I got it.
The paper is stained horribly, white, empty,
Bland and salty, and smelling of pale decay. Can decay be pale? I would take out the 'pale'. I think it would sound more powerful
It leaves a foul taste on the lips, that stays I like the imagery here, though I would change 'the' to 'my' but that's just me.
And evokes lust for something more than hard tack.

These words are worthless, so I erase
And address the envelope empty,
To carry my fractured whispers home I love this ending. So much. I love how haunting and beautiful it is.

Overall, I think this is a very well written poem. Great use of vocabulary and imagery and even if it didn't always flow smoothly.
Sparkles,
Sierra

Your poem is quite good although needs some work in the following areas;
-You should find the meaning of words before you use them.
-The pace of this poem isn't even which can be unattractive in a poem.

Other than that i did enjoy it.

The writing is good. It may not make sense to alot of the people reviewing it, but it makes sense to me.

Hello there! I came across your poem while browsing and I have to say it's quite... unusual. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I do think that there a handful of improvements to be made:

First of all, I found your piece rather confusing. I can see you what you were trying to get at, but I am sorry to say that you didn't quite make it there. Your vocabulary - while it is unique and intriguing - seems to complicate the message that you are trying to put across to the reader. Perhaps you should concentrate more on the point of your piece and less on the descriptive words. I understand that your intention was likely to impress, but it seems you have missed the mark and crossed over into 'overwhelming' territory.

Secondly, I found that your poem goes a very long way without really going anywhere at all, if you understand what I am trying to say. Remember, simple pieces that get their point across straight away without much messing around are often the best.

Alrighty then...

Inside the envelope there is nothing.
Rippling words that flowed over paper 'Rippling' doesn't seem to be the right word to use here. Perhaps you should consider something like Scrawled or Quaking or even Writhing?
And dripped, tasty, from red lips have failed me. You lost me here.
The paper is stained horribly, white, empty,
Bland and salty, and smelling of pale decay. Decay is generally described as a sickly sweet odour, rather than bland and salty. Just thought I'd let you know.
It leaves a foul taste on the lips, that stays
And evokes lust for something more than hard tack. This line and the three before it confused me. You just told us that the words were 'tasty' and now you're saying they are 'foul', 'bland' and smell of decay? Contradictory points can often be intriguing and can be used to great effect, but these just didn't work that way. And 'tack'? Perhaps 'deviation' or 'procedure' or even 'deflection' would be better words to use - unless you meant 'tack' as in pin or nail. If that is the case, it makes no sense whatsoever. Lust for a type of staple? I don't think so.

These words are worthless, so I erase You told us in the very first line that there was nothing on the paper and now there is? Another ineffective use of contradictory points.
And address the envelope empty,
To carry my fractured whispers home. I'm not quite sure that 'fractured' is the right word to use here. Perhaps, as PinkPather said, 'distressed' would be better.

Forgive me if I come across as harsh - that is not how I intend to be taken.
I hope my advice is of help to you.