Orange Peel and Apple Pips

There must be more to life than this:
a winter wind and withered kiss
upon these frozen, sun-parched lips;
just orange peel and apple pips.

We're living on remains of death
with bottle caps, recycled breath,
and feeble rays of advent light
illuminate brash Beauty's blight.

There's less to love than fragile Rose
who blooms in seldom summer prose.
We're nothing more than drops and blips;
just orange peel and apple pips.

______________________________________

I don't like this as it stands at the moment but I think it has some potential and I'd love a little help with it.

Well, personally, I don't like rhymes, they annoy me, but maybe I can help you with other aspects of your poem. First off, think about your beats, syllables, whatever you call them. Count them out and stuff. I feel like that was a bit off, but don't worry, it's easy to fix. And why was Beauty capitalized? It made me think of Belle from Beauty and the Beast. And then Rose, too, made me think of Briar Rose (aka Sleeping Beauty, or so I think). Though that may add something fragile and childlike too it. It is kind of a wistful piece, so it's like your remembering childhood when everything was perfect and happy and all smiles. If you fell, someone was always there to hold your hand and kiss your knee, you never had to worry. Some of your lines were rather spectacular, though. And . . . "blip?" It kind of sounds funny, but whatever floats your boat.

Rofl!
I loved this!
It carried so much meaning, yet is was whimsical and funny.
4 out of 5 stars.
The only "nitpicks" i really had were some punctutation and capitalization errors, which I corrected below.
Keep it coming.



There must be more to life than this:

A winter wind and withered kiss

upon these frozen, sun-parched lips.

Just orange peel and apple pips.



We're living on remains of death,

With bottle caps, recycled breath,

And feeble rays of advent light

Illuminate brash Beauty's blight.



There's less to love than fragile rose,

who blooms in seldom summer prose.

We're nothing more than drops and blips;

Just orange peel and apple pips.

I think whimsical is the word to describe this:) Or at least... the most prominent word. Other words that come to mind are excellent, lovely, and intriguing.

"a winter wind and withered kiss" This is my favorite line in the entire piece; such a good image.


"and feeble rays of advent light
illuminate brash Beauty's blight." I'm trying to decide whether your alliteration does a good thing for the piece or not... because on the one hand, it seems to stick out from the rest quite extremely; it contrasts the whimsicalness of the rest of it. On the other hand, the fact that it does sort of illustrates the words themselves "illuminate brash Beauty's blight." It sort of illuminates the words. So I can't really decide, just thought I'd give you my thoughts on it.

"We're nothing more than drops and blips" I don't know, something about the word choice here makes the line seem less musical and flowing than the rest of the piece. Particularily the word "blips." The word itself, it's meaning anyway, fits like a puzzle piece (weird analogy I know), but the sort of... harshness of it's sound makes it stick out... it's the same thing I meant with your "brash Beauty's blight." But again, it's up to you.

Apart from that, absolutely excellent:) Your word choice and language in general was perfect:)


*adna*

Thanks for the critiques all! It's lovely to have so many responses already =)

White Velvet: There's eight syllables for each line but I know what you mean about it feeling out in places and yet... it's not? I suppose it could be the punctuation, I'll have to consider that. And I'm amazed you noticed the fairytale references, that was more of a private joke than anything else, haha. And there were other reasons for the capitalisation: to pick those words out as important. Blip was a rather instinctive choice, I wanted the light hearted feel but at the same time I wanted to make a serious point, I wanted something about the poem to stand out... anyway, thanks for the advice =)

Nolan: Thanks for the punctuation advice! Though I have to admit I'm rather picky about my punctuation but I'll have a think about that =) And I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Adnamarine: I know what you're saying, it really does stand out and even though that was intentional, I don't know if it fits with the poem but it's good to see that it's at least noticed. Thank you so much for the compliments, they're very encouraging.

Aha, I love this.
The rhymes and flow make it easy to read.
I really liked the way you added humor.
Great job!

just orange peel and apple pips

I adore this!

Awesome job!!!!!

Becca

Thank you, I'm glad you liked it =)

I loved this poem. It was great, and I definately think it is whimsical. I love the imagery and meaning of the poem, and the greatness of it. rofl...
Anyways, the opening stanza grabbed me right away, and so I give this poem snaps.
Favorite part:

We're living on remains of death,

With bottle caps, recycled breath,

And feeble rays of advent light

Illuminate brash Beauty's blight.

This part was just beautiful. Nice going.
-Buggs

I love this! The rhythm is spot-on and I'm a fan of rhyming so, structurally, it's perfect. Also, well done on the image! I'd never thought of dry lips like that before but they look like where the pips are in an apple.

I'm sorry, I know you said you wanted help with this poem, but I can only shower it with compliments! The only section I had to read over a couple of times was the following stanza:

We're living on remains of death
with bottle caps, recycled breath
and feeble rays of advent light
illuminate brash Beauty's blight.

First I read it as:

We're living on remains of death with bottle caps, recycled breath and feeble rays of advent light

with the three items in a list then with the appearance of 'illuminate', I got confused. Then I read it like this:

We're living on remains of death with bottle caps, recycled breath / and feeble rays of advent light illuminate brash Beauty's blight.

I think this is the way you mean, so it needs a comma after 'breath'. Eek, long explanation for simple statement.

Aside from my moment of confusion, I just found the poem to be really sweet. I think the last stanza was my favourite.

This is wonderful! I don't think the rhythm is off much at all really. At least it sounds perfect to me. But I am terrible with that sort of thing. This is really good though, you have a lot of talent. This very sweet.

<3

I really like the first two lines; they just fit together so well. Additionally, this just became my favourite example of a rhyming poem ^_^

We're living on remains of death

with bottle caps, recycled breath

and feeble rays of advent light

illuminate brash Beauty's blight.

And then there's this stanza, which seems like it should be so delicate, with the breathy, lilting sounds and light and illumination imagery, but talks about something so opposite; it's really nice!

As a whole, the third stanza is enjoyable. It's the same sort of whimsical (to use someone else's word ^_^) kind of sounds as before, with all the nice things of summer like prose and flowers and fruit and all kinds of lovely things. I'm just not so sure if it follows the preceding stanzas as well as it could. At the beginning, you talked about a sort of dissatisfaction, "there must be more to life than this", and now there seems to be more of a discontented acceptance, as if "we're nothing more than drops and blips" is something that may not be desirable, but there's nothing that can be changed about it. It's a tricky line to walk, ending a poem like that, a sort of unresolved resolution (the concept of which I am very fond of). I think that the feeling could have been made clearer though (if I've read it right, that is, and there's nothing to say that I have!)

This has more potential than a sea full of fish (I think that metaphor works? haha)! What are you unsure of about it?

Buggs: Thank you! It's so nice to be getting so much encouragement, I'm glad you liked it =)

Sapphire: That's okay, compliments are great too and even just that little comment on where the comma needs to go was helpful so really you helped and you complimented and now who's rambling XD Thanks.

Sinking: Thanks for reading and thank you for the compliments, it's so nice of you!

Leja: You flatter me, dear. I could point you in the direction of some much better rhyming poetry but thank you, that means a lot to me. And yes, the potential is there but something just doesn't feel right. I think it's missing a stanza or something and like you say, the third doesn't run smoothly from the second and parts of it sound a little... over dramatic perhaps? Unoriginal? I honestly don't know, I never could critique my own poetry. But thank you.

Thanks for all the help everyone. And the stars. I don't think any of my pieces have ever had so much attention =)

Heather.

I really liked this.

I think my main problem with it is that the images sometimes seem a little...careless. Like you needed something to put but didn't spend a long time thinking about it. I love the way the poem feels and the way it sounds--I can't write rhyming poetry this well and I envy those who can--but I'm stuck on the less-than-impressive imagery.

upon these frozen, sun-parched lips

This one in particular I thought about a lot. On the one hand, it is strong in that I know the feeling of lips being both frozen and sun-parched, but it annoyed me because I've never felt both, though I'm sure it's possible for it to happen. The problem for me is that the two contrast, cold and warm, and I'm not sure I like the juxtaposition.

We're living on remains of death
with bottle caps, recycled breath

This image just wasn't impressive. Bottle caps? They don't really strike a chord with me, and I think you could find much stronger things to embody "remains of death".

There's less to love than fragile Rose
who blooms in seldom summer prose.
We're nothing more than drops and blips;
just orange peel and apple pips.

Best stanza. *thumbs up*

-Colleen

That's some great advice, Colly! Thank you, I'll see if I can make some of those lines a little stronger. I think I've got some real solid ideas on how to improve this now.

Thanks everyone =) More criticism and compliments are always welcome and I'll see if I can get a revised version up soon.

WOW, i really like it. It sounds very chic (if a poem can sound like that). It really sounds like a little romantic-struck girl singing this song while walking down a dusty road in the sunshine, or something. So cute! just one thing...

There's less to love than fragile Rose
who blooms in seldom summer prose.
We're nothing more than drops and blips;
just orange peel and apple pips.

Very good stanza, but what the heck is an apple pip???