Young Writers Society

Heyo!

I love twisted nursery rhymes. They seem to muffle an echoing void in me just a little-- you know the one that goes "this song, at a drop of a hat, could be the creepiest thing." I think you turned it around wonderfully.
I totally have had one stupid song stuck in my head for a longlonglonglong time and now this one's in my head oh golly, so I know where all this violence is coming from.

That said, this could use some work.
First thing's first.
I know this is a nursery rhyme, and not everything has to make sense, but-- and bear with me here-- isn't that why nursery rhymes are left in the nursery? Most... "adult" songs have some sort of meaning behind all of their words (OR AT LEAST THEY SHOULD! GRRRR MODERN MUSIC), and most kid's songs are nonsense, because kids don't really understand that the song has a meaning, so it doesn't really matter if it does or not.
Obviously, your parody of this is not meant for children-- it's meant for adults who, like me, find some twisted pleasure in seeing their childhood taken and turned dark. So, why not make this have some sort of deeper meaning? That's what I'm really getting at here. I'd love to see some sort of story. WHY is the castle bridge falling down? In what way does it fall? Why are we using body parts to build it up again?
I like the metaphorical possibilities of using body parts, but I didn't see the metaphor play out into something I could grasp. Perhaps you could let the falling down of the bridge be part of this metaphor too? I'd love to see that. Perhaps the bridge is some symbol for government, economy, environment, world relations, mental health etc. Those are the kind of poems that stick with the reader. As this is, I'm not sure what your point was.

Also, I'm not sure how the last three stanzas fit in. How does a man losing his heart build up the bridge? Also, what do you mean by "set?" Also, the penultimate stanza seems like a fragment. Suppose he SHOULD fly away. Then what? Also, how can he fly if his heart is gone? Like, I get that maybe you're not being literal, but let's look at the preconceived symbols:
Steal heart-- the heart is full of love (and blood), right? So if you take it away, that would mean that the man has no love, and is thus cold (probably because of his lack of blood).
Fly-- in my experience, flying always has good connotations. So if he's lacking his love-pumping heart, why is he doing this action that is connotative of good?
Anyway, that's just an example of where these persnickety little things can get you if you don't pay attention to them.
I know you might think that it doesn't matter, but if you want this to be a truly great poem, and not just something you did for fun (which is alright if that's what it is, but I reveiew things so they can one day be included in "best poems of the 21st century (jk like I know enough for that).), you need to think about the deeper side of things, and how the audience might interpret it. Right now, the audience is thinking this is just a silly poem, but I think it can be more than that.

Also, I agree 100% with Aley. Fingers and eyes don't fit the rhythm, nor do I think they are the best choice to have there anyway. Also, the sticks and bones' second stanza doesn't quite fit rhythmically either. And I suggest changing "the castle bridge" to just "castle bridge."

I'd like a better ending on this too. Do they ever find a way to rebuild the bridge? That's kind of important. When I finished the last stanza, I kind of looked around for more.

Anyway, I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions!
~fortis

I don't like this. It creeps me out. As Aley mentioned, the meter is off in spots. But really, who would think of taking a children's rhyme and twisting it like this? Lord almighty. Kinda awful, really.

Hey guys!

So reading this I know you tried to keep with the beat but a couple spots had too many syllables to work well for a child's nursery rhyme, which was unfortunate. It was amusing. I liked how you started with building things upon one another making a sequence of events, but after "Blood and Hair" you lost it. Fingers and eyes have no reason to be stolen away, all of those words have too many syllables, and they do not lead to using a man because men were already used. They were bones after all. "Use the dead" would have been better and made more sense than fingers and eyes since fingers and eyes are so small they would make crappy building supplies. Why just fingers anyway? Why not entire carcasses? It seems like they would be in better abundance.

So overall I think the idea is there, you have the tune clearly, but you should work on "fingers and eyes" and how that's going to connect to using men's hearts because again, doesn't quite seem like it's a big enough solution. You could go into a metaphor of the "lady" being a girl who's been invaded romantically, so using the man's heart would be to use his emotions for her against him, which would make sense if you had a transition between an actual castle with a lot of blood shed to a castle that's figurative...

Anyways <3
Good luck.

Does this count? Haha, but seriously now, when I read this in the feed pad, I couldn't help but chuckle.