sensual narcotics

sensual narcotics

I live on a vicodin life-style and
my soul is a psychotic thing;
sensual, erotic, a pubescent void.

My emotions swing on a pendulum of fine fire;
beautifully defined in a white-linen kind of way.
Each feeling is a figure of profanity; disgusting,
clear, with each line placed perfectly, and
it shocks my audience with a fresh face of disturbance.

My soul is a bridge of broken corpses.
The bodies of my past make the fetuses of my future.
I waft away the weak-minded,
attract the neurotic.

I am the world as you see it,
I say the words that line your face like cocaine,
my mouth is fetid with your unsaid things,
and my heart is blackened with the tar you spit.

Hey, Medusa!

Welcome to YWS. ^_^ I really enjoyed your take on things in this poem--you definitely have a unique perspective and a unique voice, and I look forward to seeing more work from you in the future. (For reals, homeslice.)

I could ramble for days, but. I shall get to the heart of things.

1) ME, MYSELF, AND I

As a general rule, I tend to shy away from "I/Me/My" poetry because, like first person in fiction, it tends to creep in on angst and navel-gazing. This was not so much the case with this poem, but there still comes the intrinsic issue of, "Why do I care about you, exactly?"

It's the basic reason why my next-door neighbor does not have a best-selling autobiography on the shelves at Barnes & Noble. She's not famous or well-known for anything remarkable, nice woman as she is, and so people simply don't care. Within fiction and poetry, readers know that you're not getting something that actually happened, but rather an expression of the things that could be possible. However, without that "star power", your audience remains pretty much passive for the duration.

How to avoid this? You can write in first person, but in the future, try to keep the focus away from within yourself and instead zoom in on your interaction with the outside world. Simply shifting focus can mean all the difference between borderline-navel-gazing and some really amazing, heart-wrenching first-person.

2) THE CURSE OF AND

One of the things that kind of threw me off in this poem was the combination of sentence clauses that didn't quite seem to go together. Though not a hard and fast rule, people tend to expect that when you start a new sentence or paragraph you're starting a new idea, and when things do not go as planned it makes for awkward reading.

If the two clauses you connect with 'and' are sequential events, it's all right to use two different ideas. But in the case of sentences like these:

I live on a vicodin life-style and
my soul is a psychotic thing;

I'm not entirely certain whether your psychotic soul is a result of your vicodin life-style, if they're completely unrelated, or what. Both of them are ideas that need explanation, and with and you get little more than confusion. Split them up, or use a different conjunction so that your readers get a better picture of where you're going with your lines.

3) MIXED-UP METAPHORS

Another thing that got me was the use of metaphors that, like the sentence above, seemed kind of inconsequential.

beautifully defined in a white-linen kind of way.

The verbs and the metaphor [object? subject? what? I don't know XD] don't match up--that is, defined and white-linen. They don't go together. Pressed and white linen might go together, or dry-cleaned and white linen, but certainly not 'defined'. It's okay to get a little abstract with your metaphors--actually, it's really cool. You do need to be careful that they make sense, however. Pretty words don't have pretty meanings without rationality.

___

Thanks for the read, Medusa. Feel free to PM/IM/generally prod if you have any questions or want me to take a look at something else. ^_^

I like how you expressed your feelings in the poem. Very well done!

Thank you for your feedback! I was worried about the overusage of personal pronouns...and that metaphor IS a bit odd...second try?

sensual narcotics

I live on a vicodin life-style,
my soul is a psychotic thing;
sensual, erotic, a pubescent void.

These emotions swing on a pendulum of fine fire;
beautifully pressed in a white-linen kind of way.
Each feeling is a figure of profanity; disgusting,
clear, with each line placed perfectly,
it shocks the audience with a fresh face of disturbance.

This soul is a bridge of broken corpses.
The bodies of past make the fetuses of future.
Wafting away the weak-minded,
attracting the neurotic.

I am the world as you see it,
saying the words that line faces like cocaine,
mouth fetid with unsaid things,
heart blackened with the tar that is spit.

A little short but I liek it still.

I think this poem is very completely awesome. Yeah, great grammar, right? I think it's easy to relate to, but uses nice vocabulary. It portrays emotion very well.

Thank you very much! I tried to put it on a level-headed base :]

Liked it Medusa and love your name.

Why, thank you.