you are sweet at first,
filled with honey encouragement
and divine arrogance.
do you really need sleep tonight?
bathe in my creative haze, no drugs, just misaligned receptors and unbarred passion floating out of the world you are above it putting together puzzle pieces that were never meant to fit just fly fly fly
the world goes to molasses we spit out the keys to nirvana in sixty-fourth notes they say slow down, slow down
with you the music is prophecy and the psychadelic is real here in god's orb. he speaks to us and only us
who needs the cardboard men with their straitjackets?
we see fluorescent lights shine as the sun
colors shout in ecstasy we are free we must be free
but misfit puzzles collapse.
lightbulbs scream.
cardboard men stop our singing.
god did not make prophets from dead stars.
you are scrambled neurons and poisoned ambrosia;
i will not drink and die again.
i will sleep tonight.
A/N: Revised from here. Still not sure about changing POV so thoughts would be nice. Formatting/punctuation is intentional.
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I think for the most part the change in point of view is good. You have a few lines that could use some work since the point of view changed, but otherwise I think it worked out nicely because we don't have the feeling of negative animosity that the first poem contained.
I think the reason you need to work on this section is because we lose the fluorescent lights so when "light bulbs[space] scream" in the next stanza, we have no idea where they came from. I missed it a few times when I read the poem and I think part of the reason is because you're taking this from the last poem, but it transferred poorly with the change into lines. I think there might need to be a longer transition between the sections that are just paragraphs and sections that are stanzas. It could help if you broke up the last paragraph to highlight the light bulbs better since the straight jackets are separate from the fluorescent bulbs in the long run.There are some things that don't make sense in this poem. Please forgive me for being direct, but I think you went a little too quickly with some of your metaphors in the edit, and the change of line structure between easy lines to paragraph makes this feel more than disjointed. It makes it a little too hard to read. The section I think you need to most work on is
Overall the poem works really well keeping the reader on their toes with what is going to come up, and I like the way you used your punctuation to emphasize speed and syncopation for the reader.
I'd say a little more work needs to be done to make the ending clearer. The ending of the original poem was a little clearer, and I think you should lean away from "drink and die again" and more towards something tangible. At that point in the poem, it feels like we should be coming back to reality back to somewhere safe and secure, somewhere familiar, but that line is like a last bid for the wild unruly nature of beforehand. It makes "I will sleep tonight." uneasy because people used to think that when we fell asleep we were dying. The parallels there are sort of unfavorable for a sound mind.
I'm sorry it's not much of a review. This is a hard one for me to nitpick because it's supposed to sort of be all over the place and it manages that well. I'd reign in a little more before you go into the lines, or perhaps a little less, and put "but misfit.../...our singing" more in a paragraph, like half a paragraph. A really long line! Maybe play with placement on the page, like shove some of the text right aligned and others centered. The more you fiddle with this, the better it will get. It's not quite spectacular yet, but it is good.
Thanks for the review!
About the ending-I changed it because I thought "these capsules are my true saviors" made me sound like a pill addict. I see what you mean about "I will not drink and die again" being kinda lame, although I thought it was pretty darn tangible (crazy too much booze=bad idea).
As for the transition from long to short lines, the abruptness is very intentional. That passage is a reference to being hospitalized, which is an abrupt and scary thing. I think it would definitely lose something in paragraph form.
About the fluorescent lights thing--I may break it up a bit. I see what you mean. I'll go edit it now.
Thanks again for the review!
Hey!
And it also... Sort of shows.. The narrators frustration? That might be what I'm trying to pick at.
Rurouni here from the May 2014 Poetry Exchange!
May I just say this is.... Interesting? Very interesting, but also very nice and... yeah. Interesting!
This is very unique. I'm not sure if I've read anything quiet like this.
This made me believe its... About insomnia.
It almost made me mad, not as in angry mad, but mad as a hatter reading it. And that is a good think
Do believe me when I say its unique. Very, very unique. (I know I'm probably stressing that, but how can I not?)
I really like the ending stanza, and also the first stanza. I think you finished off nicely.
I don't have anything to nitpick, so if you were looking for that.. I do apologize XD. Its just very complete.
It does seem a bit random at times, but it adds to my theory of this being about insomnia, where you just keep thinking and thinking. I love your word choice, it gives a bit of an image in my mind, and it only adds to the interest in the poem.
Well... This one must wander off to other poems to review!
This was a wonderful read!
From the May Poetry Exchange 2014...
Always,
Shad~
...Did I not get notified about this?
Anyway, thanks for the review! It's actually about mania, but insomnia's a pretty big symptom of that, so you were pretty close!
Happy review day!
As you requested, I'm going to ignore capitalization, especially since the lack of it is intentional, and review content.
I had to read this several times, only to maybe halfway understand what you're trying to say. I'm not the greatest at interpreting poetry, but I still think you could make your point a little bit clearer. I think that this poem describes somebody trying to give up alcohol or drugs, but I'm not one hundred percent certain. I also didn't understand the point you were trying to convey with the cardboard men.
Apart from that, the way you use words is absolutely stunning. I like how it's told from the point of view of the person who's trying to give up alcohol/drugs (I think), and you should definitely keep it that way. The metaphor with the misfit puzzles is perfect. The poem has a triumphant but dark tone, which is difficult to achieve, but you've pulled it off very well here.
Overall, it's a very nice poem, but I think that you could tone down the figurative language just a tad for the sake of clarity.
Fantastic work. Keep on writing!
Thanks for the review!
It's actually about my struggles with bipolar disorder and fighting the tendency to go manic, which doesn't usually end well (the cardboard men was describing how other people seem when you're manic but then you end up in the hospital and it goes to hell. Thanks again!
Wooow, niteowl, this is great!
I love this line. The images jump, but you know it-- slow down, slow down-- it stops the jumble of thoughts in the confusion about paradise. Gosh, it's great.I looked at the original, and this is an improvement. I didn't see the italics as switching POV as much as the narrator hearing what the other person was saying, and it worked pretty well even though I didn't quite see it as you intended.
I totally know people like this in real life, the people that are like, "come on, and I'll show you what it's really all about," and you portray it quite well.
Even though the narrator has already told us that the other person is filled with "divine arrogance," "bathe in my creative haze" sounds a bit too arrogant. Perhaps replace my with the? It would not sound quite as pompous if the other did not claim the haze as hers/his.
I get that the cardboard men are the real people, but not real because everthing is so fantastic, but I think that cardboard has been used too many times to properly be effective anymore. I'd find a different thing to describe the men as that conveys the same idea, but also makes the reader go, "Oh, cool! I never thought of that!"
I really like this concept, and I would like to see more of it in the poem. Perhaps mention it earlier, as the lines before were mentioned previously in the poem. I know that it's a new stanza, so you don't have to mention it previously, but it's a delicious concept, and I would like to see something like the other person believing that the two of them are prophets, and thus made of dead/dying stars. Like, that's so fab.
I love "i will not drink and die again." Great line.
Altogether, this is super fabulous, and reminds me of a certain psychedelic summer I spent with someone who was exactly like this other person. Mmm, this poem is tasty. Anyway, I hope that this review was helpful! Happy poeting!
Thanks for the review!!!!
). I do think I could do more with it though, and I like your suggestion.
Okay, I think it might have been stated in the NaPo thread, but this isn't about another person at all, but my bipolar mania and how I was fighting to avoid full-blown mania/psychosis (because that doesn't end well). I thought about stating that more explicitly in the poem, but I guess I went for cryptic. Hence I think "my creative haze" fits, as I think it's easy to attribute the creativity of bipolar people to the illness itself (which is kind of dangerous, for obvious reasons).
I see your other points though. Cardboard is pretty common--I'll have to think about something else. As for the dead stars line, that was me going for cryptic over too-personal...l get sort of an obsession with dead rock stars when I'm full-blown (you have no idea how hard it was to not throw a "Bohemian Rhapsody" line in this
Thanks again! I really appreciate it!
Ah! Okay. I thought it was a different person. ^_^ Thanks for clearing it up for me!
Hi, niteowl. I am your reviewer, pinkie. I like to do a review on this poem.
I love this poem. It is very good and engrossing. This poem is very memorable! I really enjoyed it very much! However, there are few errors on here. Some of the sentences need to be capitalize.
For example,
" i will not drink and die again.
i will sleep tonight."
You need to capitalize the "i". You also capitalize the "I".
Anyway, I enjoyed the poem.
Awesome job!
This was your reviewer, pinkie. And these were your review.
Good poem but God needs to be capitalized also, the lines should be like
line...
line...
So on and so forth. Also, you might want to capitalize I. I is always capitalized. You seem to be missing capitalization. Also, don't put in Italics. But other than that you did a good job.
Thanks for commenting! Something to keep in mind for the future: with poetry, the first rule is there are no rules. The long lines and no caps are meant to evoke a state of mind and italics are a perfectly appropriate way to emphasize things.