Young Writers Society

Something out of nothing
Is the mantra I keep
Don’t close your soul
Faith may miss the leap

Asking for signs
When your asking is it
Makes seeds start to wither
And stomachs to pit

Chorus
I don’t feel anything
My Redeemer and King
What is wrong with me
That I feel so empty

There’s no revelation
Not a slight sensation
Just a simple dryness
From the Messiah in the Highest


Quiet as a pretzel
Brave as a robot
Walking on a straight line
Wondering what everyone else’s got

Thin spirit on my tongue
Tell me what I’ve done wrong
Don’t be dormant here now
Give me a signal, give me a song

Make me better than I am
Turn my rot into skin
Stronger men have seen you
But stronger men don’t sin

I can still see people
And you are in us all
Sliding into abysses
Embracing every fall

Down sour human throats
Starch into the light
The flesh is one in all but sin
So nothing yet is right

The rhyming here gives this a singsong-y feeling, which isn't good, even in a song. I liked the first verse, but after that the constant rhyming got annoying. In the future, try a different rhyme scheme.

Quiet as a pretzel
Brave as a robot
Walking on a straight line
Wondering what everyone else’s got

Quiet as a pretzel? What? It doesn't make sense at all. Neither does "brave as a robot".

Well, actually, it does make sense, perhaps not to you. The poem is written about, among other things, Holy Communion as celebrated in the Catholic Church. One of the ways to receive commnion is to fold your arms over your chest, often referred to as a "pretzel." The mechanical aspect to then ritual is what the word robot represents.

Please tell me why this has a "singsong-y feeling, which isn't good, even in a song." Also, what would be a better rhyme scheme? The curent rhyme scheme is ABCB, which is standard quatrain form? Why does that annoy you?

Thanks for your input.

I know what Gib means, about the singsong-y thing. I don't what makes it like that, but it does have it and it's pretty irritating.

i do like the pretzel/robot thing, though it means something different to me.

The first verse rhyming seemed really forced to me. The rest wasn't too bad, though. And I liked the chorus.

Well, this is bad when viewed on its own, but as a commentary on the communion I suppose it starts to make sense. Which is kind of a bad thing. I mean, you want a poem to stand on its own, you know? You really ought to make sure the reader understands what you're saying in the actual poem (or song) itself without having to tell them, cause that kind of defeats the purpose.

Anyway. I'm going to put the lines where the rhyme is strained in bold, OK?

Something out of nothing
Is the mantra I keep
Don’t close your soul
Faith may miss the leap

Where on earth do these lines come from? You have a suspended sentence in line two -- "is the mantra I keep" where??? Or are you trying to say you KEEP keep it (as in keep it by living it or whatever)? In this case, you really need a comma or some punctuation to make your meaning clear.

Asking for signs
When your asking is it
Makes seeds start to wither
And stomachs to pit

This makes no discernable sense to me. I ASSUME that you're trying to say (in the first two lines) that the very act of asking for a sign is a sign. But you really need to be clearer about what is going on here. And how is this related to seeds and stomachs???? I do appreciate the linking of "seeds" and "pit" (if deliberate) - very clever. But these lines still seem almost entirely random I'm afraid.

Chorus
I don’t feel anything
My Redeemer and King
What is wrong with me
That I feel so empty

There’s no revelation
Not a slight sensation
Just a simple dryness
From the Messiah in the Highest

I agree with the others about the sing-songy feel. I think it's more the rhythm than the rhyme scheme, although rhyming does tend to lend itself to uniformity and sing-songness, I reckon. Still, I think you need to vary your stresses and lines a bit, as at present it reads like a bad nursery rhyme.

Quiet as a pretzel
Brave as a robot
Walking on a straight line
Wondering what everyone else’s got

Thin spirit on my tongue
Tell me what I’ve done wrong
Don’t be dormant here now
Give me a signal, give me a song

In the context, "thin spirit" is quite cool. But I need to know the context FROM THE SONG not from your description of the song. So there needs to be some more...background here. It needs to be grounded for me, rather than a random collection of words which seem vaguely connected at best.

Make me better than I am
Turn my rot into skin
Stronger men have seen you
But stronger men don’t sin

I can still see people
And you are in us all
Sliding into abysses
Embracing every fall

Down sour human throats
Starch into the light
The flesh is one in all but sin
So nothing yet is right

Overall, a creditable effort and some nice images but ultimately it's unconnected. You need to smooth this out, experiment with some different sentence structures and rhymes, some deeper and stronger ideas, and connect each verse so it reads like a coherent insight into a specific event rather than a collection of impulses which lead nowhere. I'm not so good with songs, I guess, but as a poem (or as anything rhyming and stanza-ed LOL) it doesnt work for me.

Regards,
~bubbles

Thanks for your advice. I see your point about the rhythm, and I suppose that's the problem with posting lyrics, as muh of the song informs the rhythm, and si quite different from how you read it on the page. But it would be worthless to go through and notate the rhythm the way it comes about in the song.

Your point about their not being enough information in the song to understand it is a good one, but I felt that the chorus gave at least enough information to decipher it. I attempted to talk about the subject without explicitly stating it.

Don’t close your soul
Faith may miss the leap

You are right, these lines are a bit forced, so I will revise.

"Give me a signal, give me a song" I don't understand why this is confusing. We often look for signals from God. Perhaps it is the song part? I'll have to work that over.

"Sliding into abysses" This line has a double meaing, abysses being our stomachs and also the abyss of evil. In the Bible in Revelations, the 'dragon' which represents Satan is finally thrown into the abyss. The abyss symbolizes the emptiness of sin. When we sin, we create an abyss within ourselves. The 'thin spirit' fills the abyss.

I don't know why I just explained that, but oh well.