The Boy Who Cried Wolf

The Boy Who Cried Wolf


He lies.
He is made of lies.
He is made of lies and nothing more.
Lies that, through their filthy existence,
Becomes a subtle melody chiming sweetly from ear to ear
As they are being shamelessly told


I listen.
I always listen.
I live to hear him speak.
Speeches that, though dripping with dulcet richness,
Reek of filth, unfaithfulness and doubt
As his piercing words are carelessly chosen


He smiles.
He smiles, proud and true.
He knows I am aware
Of a betrayal which carves into the crevices of my shallow being;
All naïveté lost in playful games of swindling ardor.


The cards have been dealt.


I shatter, bit by bit.
His words sink heavily, one by one, into my hollow chest.
Only the sweetness of his deceit remains,
Gentle lullabies that I longed to hear once more
However unjust or listless they may have been.


...Words.
I ache for his words.
I can no longer speak, nor think, nor feel.
I wish to be cherished by him yet again.
The filth of his untruthfulness had been washed away
With tears that have flown from his sullen heart to my own.


Lies...
His lies...
Or had he spoken of the truth? I wonder;
I strain to hear him speak,
But I can no longer hear his voice.
His time slips away from his hands –
He is consumed by his own phantasms.


He dies.
He dies, though not for me.
He dies because of me, and nothing more.
His likeness fades from recollection.
Uncertainty besieges me.
The tepid warmth of his words lingers still.


“Come rest your head on my lap, dearly beloved...”
...there is another who sits on your knees.

“Let me lull you to sleep...”
...there is another who sleeps on your bed.


A liar will not be believed even when he speaks the truth.


I let him be devoured...

...The boy who cried "wolf".

I really like this alot. It gives a new meaning to the boy who cried wolf. The only thing I don't really get is you say that you died, and then he wants to lull you to sleep? Is that possible. Anyway I do like this and think you should write more!

-Flower-

Wow.

I'm no good at reviewing, really. So I'm just going to say that this was an amazing poem and I certainly hope to see more of your work.

Really, really great job.

+Joy.

Great job!

I love the repetition in this! I did see one grammar mistake though, but it's just a quick edit. Your lines:

"Speeches that, though dripping with dulcet richness,
Reeks of filth, unfaithfulness and sheer doubt"

It should be Reek not Reeks

Other than that there's nothing that I can see! I loved it! It was a very creative away of using the boy who cried wolf. I can't wait to see more of your writing.

It was a realy good poem , giving a diffrent meaning and atmosphere in the words seriously it was great and all i can say is:
Go on!
Dont give up!!
And carry on!!!

Wow, I must say, this is a very creative piece! Keep working on it, and you could get it easily published.

There were ton of stylistic devices in here: repetition, parallel structure...it was amazing.

I like how you took an I'm-going-to-be-like-e.-e.-cumming-and-do-things-my-own-way style. You have your own epic style and form, I really liked that and in this poem, it really came out.

Your word choice was powerful. xD

Plus, you made great use with those italics, too. xP I find many forget we can bold and italicize.

And I agree, reeks should very much be reek. Otherwise, I didn't see any grammar errors or problems.

Good job, feel free to PM with questions or help or something to review. X_X

I see you are new, but every member must have two reviews per post (of your work). It's not that bad of a rule, Nate has told us that some sites have a rule with ten reviews per post (of your work).
-Colt

It went on for a while and towards the middle seemed to drone a bit.

It surprised me, it continually re-engaged my interest throughout, with creative images and word usage that made me re-think how certain things sounded once you had used them.

Very intricate story playing out in a precise pattern that seems chaotic but is really headed towards a climax.

Well done, definately a star.

Exe's and Oh's,
Eraqio.

Hi, Black Rabbit! June here!

I really, really like this poem. It's interesting and nicely written, but I do have some [harsh] nitpicks about the repetitive scheme that dances in here.

See here:

He lies.

He is made of lies.

He is made of lies, and nothing more.

He lives to tell me lies.

Lies that, through their filthy existence,

Becomes a subtle melody chiming sweetly from ear to ear

As they are being shamelessly told

To sum this up, he's a liar.

So, I don't mind the "He -- lies" repetition so much, but the second and third lines are simply redundant, dear.

This wouldn't be an issue if the surrounding lines weren't based so heavily on this same idea (which, by the way, I love how you stay focused on one idea for a whole stanza. Brilliant. ).

As I came to the end of this stanza, I felt like you kind of lost the rhythm; at first you had a complete thought per line, and then you have complete thought per three lines.

It's not a bad thing! I just wanted to throw that out there-- since you follow this pattern throughout the later stanzas, and bring up parallel structure.

SO! I said all of that rambling to say, that even though you achieve a good message at the end of the poem, I think it's too much reading just to get us there. It's like, playing suspenseful music for too long in the movie (you just want to grab a remote and fast forward, but you can't).



The end of this is my favorite. I love the fact that he was devoured, and no, I am not morbid at all. I've always wanted a definite answer to what happens to him.


I truly did enjoy this poem, but like I mentioned above, I think it carries a lot of dead weight; words that are not giving us much to relate to and such.


I'm just picky, trust me. It's a wonderful poem.

Keep writing, dear. Thanks for the great read.

June

Hi Black Rabbit,

Black Rabbit wrote:He lies.
He is made of lies.
He is made of lies, and nothing more.
He lives to tell me lies.
Lies that, through their filthy existence,
Becomes a subtle melody chiming sweetly from ear to ear
As they are being shamelessly told

People have already mentioned the useless repetition, so I'll skip to something that annoyed me.

What's so filthy about their existence? You throw at the reader half-cooked images and descriptions but never follow up; indeed, sometimes you go in the opposite direction, causing nothing but confusion. Something that's filthy in one line, subtle and sweet in the next, and shameless (a description that's supposed to be ugly) in the third is obviously nuanced and deserves to be treated that way. Don't hand out one-liners and sound bites. Go more into the complexity of their nature, preferably in this stanza.

I listen.
I always listen.
I always listen, and so he goes on with his show.
I live to hear him speak.
Speeches that, though dripping with dulcet richness,
Reek of filth, unfaithfulness and sheer doubt
As his piercing words are carelessly chosen

Again, reeking of filth is a strong image and it begs the question: how do you know this? It must be tangible in some way and the beautiful thing about poetry is that one can actually turn it into a metaphor or personification and hold true to the plot and literary ideal. Do so with the "show" that you talk about.

Also, if something is careless, "chosen" is not a good description, because that implies interest and care. Find another word.

He smiles.
He smiles proud and true.
He smiles, and he turns away.
He knows I am aware.
Aware –
Of a betrayal which carves into the crevices of my shallow being;
All naïveté lost in playful games of swindling ardour.

How can he smile proud and true if he's...lying? That makes no sense.

You repeat yourself too often. Yes, we get it. By now, you've emptied the allowed use of saying words over and over again. Don't do it for the remainder of the poem, and delete every instance of it after this line that you can find.

The rest of this is quite good, something I have not seen from one your age in a while. I am going to take a leap here and assume that you're not a master of poetry already and are still learning the techniques, because I do find many errors. I will list the most egregious one, but rest assured, the parts of your poetry that I have not addressed do deal with the problems of imagery, description, and repetition. Comb over the whole poem and apply what I have instructed in the opening stanzas to the whole piece.

Cry me a river and I shall be able to forgive.

Don't kid yourself. "Cry me a river" is cliched and has no place here, no matter what you intended. Take it out.

You reap what you sow.

Again, cliched. Cross this line out.

...The boy who cried “Wolf”.

No. Please, no. Remove this line immediately, as it undoes all of the tension and story that you have built up throughout the piece, and feels like you ended the poem on a cheesy afterthought just to relate to the title.

Overall...this was likable, and while not lovable, demonstrated that you can get your point across poetically. It stands a little above the rest of the "poetry" spewed out on this forum (recently, anyway), and for that, congratulations. Please do improve this piece, for it has potential.

Hope that helped.

Wow, do I love this poem! Really, amazing job! (this is my first critique, so forgive me if I rant on)

One thing I loved was the repetition, how it would start with just one word and move on to a sentance (I hope that just made sense)

Keep it up!

*caitlin!

Wow!

I usually hate repetition in poems, but this poem is an exception. I loved this poem, it gives a completely new meaning to the original "The boy who cried wolf". I must be honest though, I passed this poem by many of times before thinking I should give it a try, and I'm happy to say, I'm glad I did!! I liked this poem a lot!

Good job!! Keep it up! Can't wait to read more from you.


~*Hailey,<3