Mentality of a dangerous mafia.

Outside his home they plant the mines we hear the hollers screams and cries

If they come outside people blow up like pure sodium and water without turpentine

It's all theirs they'll poison all like cobra bites

The gang's trigger finger is itching it feels a notch over lice

Destroy with the power of dragons call them liu kang

The arsenal's scientific theories and they nicknamed it the big bang

Breaking all glass they're shattering all the world's serenity

And they'll put more bullet holes in you than songs in an ipod's memory

Beasts inside of forests releasing the "animalities"

This will be "Mortal Kombat" by the way they cause fatalities

Then say they didn't do crimes like habitual liars

When they make you evacuate your homes like California's wildfires

They'll bomb like Osama keep it hot like the Bahamas

If you owe them money they'll drop you in a tank of piranhas

They'll blast acid on you and watch your skin peeling

and put 1000 needles in you like foreign style healing

If you have a death wish then it doesn't matter where you're at

Trust me because the Taliban will take care of that

Your fate has been decided since the day you were born

They'll take your wife and set you up like the children of the corn

They'll let the bodies hit the floor like drowning pool

And bury your face in the dirt like bullies do victims after school

But you can't give into them and suddenly bow low

Because after they kill everyone they'll fall back into the shadows

ooooooooooooooooohh deep. I like. But space it out a little more I guess. Anyway, nice poem keep it up! See you around school!

It almost could be a freestyle if you rearranged some of ending parts of a few lines...but that's what makes this piece so inspiring. Not sure if the long lines could've been shortened or not, but I guess it doesn't matter too much...

Guh. Guuuuuh. *droooool*

Let's get one thing straight. I am not a fan of rap music. I greatly dislike rap. But I loooove rap verses, and this sounds like a rap verse (even though that may not be your intention). Rap can actually be incredibly poetic, and comprise some of the most lyrically and structurally talented verses that can be found in music. Why? Because they -capitalize- on metric rhythm, phonetic stress, and rhyme. It's amazing. I honestly wish I was more skilled at it.

I don't know if you're familiar with terms like metric foot, phonetic stress, iamb, trochee, anapaest, dactyl, and all the other lovely terms used to describe poetic structure, so I'm just going to establish two things before I continue;

(a) One of the characteristics that separates a good poem from a not-so-good poem is the maintaining of a phonetic stress style throughout a verse. Generally, a good poem will be made up of lines that follow the same stress/syllabic pattern.

(b) A dash (-) refers to an unstressed syllable, and a slash (/) refers to a stressed syllable.

For example, the word carpet, which is pronounced like CARpet, would be represented by

/ - or (/,-) or (/-)

as the first syllable (car) is stressed, and the second syllable (pet) is not. You would not say carPET.

I hope that's enough of an explanation to make this crit make sense! Here we go!

I'm going to break down your first line.

Outside his home they plant the mines we hear the hollers screams and cries

- / - / - / - / - / - / - / - /

broken down:

Outside (-/) his (-) home (/) they (-) plant (/) the (-) mines (/) we (-) hear (/) the (-) hollers (/-) screams (/) and (-) cries (/)

Ah! It's iambic! Meaning that the stress pattern is unstressed-stressed (-/)

Next line:

If they come outside people blow up like pure sodium and water without turpentine

/ - / - / / - - / - / / - - - / - - / / - -

broken down:

If (/) they (-) come (/) outside (-/) people (/-) blow (-) up (/) like (-) pure (/) sodium (/--) and (-) water (/-) without (-/) turpentine (/--)

Ack! There's no rhythmic consistency to this! It doesn't flow.

Now, to be fair, sometimes words have more than one acceptable stress pattern (some people define 'outside' as being two stressed (//) syllables, and that's just as legitimate as (-/) for the syllables). Not only that, but sometimes rappers will change the pronounciation of a word to make the stress work with the rest of the verse (like they might say sodi-UM for the sake of their rap, or cheese burGER, or childREN, etc.).

Also, in order to count the beats in a line of a poem, you count the stresses (/). Your first line has eight stresses. Your second line has at least nine.

Generally, good poems have the same number of beats per line, or a beat pattern, like 6-6-4-4 or 6-4-6-4. Rap sometimes uses rhythmic patterns like 6-4-4-4-6, but you can see that the two lines of six beats are paired. It's not often that any one line doesn't share its beat pattern with another line relatively close by.

Lastly, does turpentine stop water and sodium from blowing up? Why would sodium and water act differently with turpentine present? Does that line make scientific sense?

They'll let the bodies hit the floor like drowning pool

I don't like 'drowning pool'-- maybe because I don't understand. A swimming pool made for drowining? Billiards with excessive water?

But you can't give into them and suddenly bow low

This line has seven stresses. Your last line has at least eight, depending on how you read it. To really give this poem a strong finish, I would match up the beats. Your last line is also not trochaic (/-) like the this line. Actually, the stresses in your last line are along the lines of the second line in your poem-- inconsistent.

I would try reworking the last line so it matches the flow of the previous line.

Though, if you add an extra beat to the previous line and cut a beat (or two) from the last line, you can salvage the last line;

But you can't give into them and then suddenly bow low
'Cause after they kill everyone they'll fall back in shadow

I feel like this flows more smoothly, no?

If you don't understand this crit, feel free to PM me. If you want me do dive even deeper into your piece and crit even more, PM me. If you want me to lavish you in praise and tell you just how much I truly, truly adore this, PM me. (I'm sorry if I said anything you already know-- I just always assume people aren't aware and cover all the bases to be safe.) My favorite lines are 5, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14 (PIRANHAS, WOOP WOOP!), and 16.

This is -so- good. I can't say it enough. Wow. Just. Wow.

drowning pool is a band...not really sure what genre they are, but i call them 'metal gone bad'...let the bodies hit the floor is their most popular song(it's certainly the best...but it's still terrible). that was what he was referring to.

as for the poem, it looked more like a bunch of lines written by a monkey on a keyboard that someone decided to call art. i'm sorry, but i really can't say i saw anything about that block of words that i liked. if you're going to rewrite this(and i think you should...it has some potential), i would make sure to hit these key things: 1)punctuation 2) rythm and 3) consistancy! your poem jumpes around, describing wildly different things about the mafia.

but i will say this: it got better towards the end.

I like this. I like that it's really deep. Try to put a space between each sentence though. And try to add commss inbetween words. Also, I think this needs an R rating. Add spaces, commas and an R rating for this piece. I hope this helps!

-Rick.

OblivionShadow,


This is hopeless doggerel. Is there an ounce of poetry employed in this piece? You hit an 'Enter' key, but aside from that, I'm left to wonder what you thought merited the name of "poetry."

The only "inspiring" thing about this piece is that, thankfully, it's over. A handful of trashy pop culture references, undisciplined meter, no original imagery of your own, and a title which only tangentially correlates back to the verse here does not a poem make--how, for instance, would anyone know you were talking about a mafia had it not been stated in the title? I mean, there are any number of different mafias--most of them don't operate in the way you've presented here--and there are probably even more depictions of / narratives about them (The Sopranos, Brotherhood, The Godfather, the list goes on...)--all of which were done with more taste and attention to detail than you have here.

What this piece does show is that you spend little, if any, time reading poetry of good quality on a regular basis. If you want to write poetry for an audience here (or any audience, for that matter), you need to develop a better ear for the craft.


Best,
Brad


PS Rick, everyone is aware of what you're responding to--no need to quote it back to us unless you have specific comments inline for the poet.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Good comparisons though, but extremely painful to read.
Space it out more.

This was very good


*keep rockin!*

-Meg

NNNEEEERRRRRR

thanks people except for the two that were 1) harsh and 2) said everything the first one said
constructive critique was never meant to heart warming, yet never meant to intentionally make one feel bad. much love to piranha and all those who loved it. I'll space it out as soon as possible.

Very nice poem. Much in-depth in it. Excellent job!