In My Field Of Dead And Dying Apple Cores...

Hmmm. I'm not sure where to form an opinion on this one though I can answer the question about rating for you easily enough - anything with the word 'cum' gets you an immediate R rating.

Okay, let me see. I think you have some strong imagery in places and you have some ability to evoke emotion but there isn't a clear story or purpose behind it. You need to be aiming for more than a feeling of revulsion in your readers and it doesn't mix well with that of confusion. Your words led me to reading and re-reading your piece, trying to find a meaning until the words lost their power and I'm neutral and oblivious towards the horror and disgust of the piece. I don't know if it's just me but I like to understand a poem, I like there to be more depth than mere emotion.

I'll try a line by line to give you a few ideas of my thoughts but I can't do much more than that. You'll have to consider how you wanted your reader to feel and if my reaction matches that -

Eat My Flaws Like They're Putrid Delicacies
You are the fly of my body- [I'm not sure that fly is the best choice of animal. I would have thought a parasite would make more sense or if you're trying to give the impression that she's dead, that needs to be stronger. You need to consider all five of the senses if you want to make this a piece with real atmosphere. You've covered touch and sight well but what about smell? Can you smell decaying flesh and garbage? Can you hear the slosh of liquids in the body as they search for an exit now their purpose is filled? Or can you hear the crunching of bones, the scrape of flesh as it's pulled back or falls to the floor? And taste. How do his lips taste on hers or ow does she taste to him?]
munching and crunching away at the dusty
must within my folds. [This lacks description. You're asking the reader's imagination to work too hard. You say must but what does must look like? Is their hairy mould against the side, green turning to purple as it grows and decays. Are there insects caught in the spider webs with their bodies squashed, droplets of red splashed across the threads? I'm sure you can write better than this. You need to show your reader how it looks, draw them into the description.]
The dirt and grime in my crevices
cakes like old cum
on the edges of a cobweb-covered
vagina. [Okay so the first stanza is pretty clear and not a bad introduction but it's not all that poetic. It could almost be the first few lines of a story because it lacks imagery and technique.]

I am the main course
handed to you on a silver garbage lid; [This is worded so simply. The idea of it is good but you could expand here, describe how the garbage lid isn't really silver, it's just a shade of grey. And that's all silver really is any way - another shade of grey. Give your reader some idea of setting now. So there's this woman and this man but where are they, where is this taking place? The side of the pavement? In a bedroom? Go beyond the characters and give the poem depth.]
Your molding dinner
is my rotten-apple core, protruding
from my heaving chest
like intestines
painted six shades of patina
and insecurity.
(I'm weak with [your] sickness). [Try to be realistic in your imagery. There's a difference between symbolically and metaphorically descriptive and completely random. Make apple core plural. Write as if you're describing her breasts perhaps. And I like the part in brackets, it gives the persona more of a voice.]

Trying to make yourself a man,
you peel skin from my body,
shedding my deadly sins-
lively apple peelings
strewn about the floor recklessly.
I cater to your feverish gluttony
by just not moving.
I've never felt such cracked lips like
the ones searching
for lost seeds across your dinner plate. [I like this section, it's good imagery but why seeds? Is there a purpose to that?]
There's nothing left of me
to devour,
but you lick the platter clean. [Don't stop this line there. If there's nothing left to devour, what is he licking the platter clean of? Of all the grime and dirt in her pores? All the cracks and old stains across the plate, transferring them from one body to the next.]

While I become transparent [I don't think this is quite the right word. Maybe describe her as shrinking instead or you could say that she's shrivelling and describe that as a process.]
you grow plump, swollen
like a lump of lard-
hard blubber against my fingers.
(You are the cleansing agent in me),
only lingering in my heart
to digest and rest your weary teeth
in a vampire's feast of my
dreary mood.

Even if your eyes could see the true colors
of hope in a new sunrise-
shades of maturity and knowledge
bounding over the horizon-
it would be in vain.
Children are ignorant
of the subtle differences between
dead (and browning) apple peelings,
lying peacefully beneath last week's
spoiled milk. [This is a very vague, unclear ending which is what has left me rather confused. The whole stanza is much lighter and doesn't feel as if it fits with the others and the random mention of children and everything just doesn't add up.]

_________________
Sorry if I was rather critical. I do think this has the potential for the style of poetry it fulfils but it's not the type I usually read and I found that it lacked purpose. I hope this helps a little, feel free to pm me with comments or questions,

Heather xx

First of all, thank you for the crit, even though it's not your strong point. At least you attempted. ^.^ Second of all, the more you crit it, and the more you look at it, the better you'll get, anyways, so just keep practicing!

chocoholic wrote:

You are the maggot of my body-
munching and crunching away at the dusty
must within my folds.

So, poetry isn't my strong point, but I don't like how you have must on the next line. At firsy I thought you accidently put y on the end of dusty, but then I kept reading.

Again, poetry isn't my thing, so ignore me if you want.

the point there was to make you think I was going one place,
and then to go somewhere else with it. I guess it worked.

cum

Probably just my ignorance, but I've never heard this word.

Hm... well, to put it bluntly, it's pussy juices. Does that give you an even more nasty image there now that you know the meaning? Lol

I am the main coarse

course

(like intestines
painted green with insecurity).

Why is this in brackets?

it's kind of like an afterthought.

like a lump of lard-
hard tin against my fingers.

Lard is soft, and tin is hard. You could say, like a lump of lard, or tin against my fingers, but they are both different.

i've thought about that, but i'm not quite sure what to put there. i'm keeping the lard part. i just need to replace tin with something not so hard. the point there was to go for exaggeration, to try and make the lard seem harder than it really is. i'll go to a thesaurus and see what i can cook up.

Very nice. I like your descriptions, you have the ability to provoke images in my head, Images I'd rather not have, I think.

well, i'd hope you'd rather not have them. that's why i give 'em to you, anyways. ;P when you'd rather not have 'em and i can force you to have 'em, that's when i know i did my job. ^.^

Thank you, thank you, and I shall look this over with your suggestions.

For not having a strong-point in poetry, you didn't do that bad of a crit. ;P You pointed out things some people who ARE used to poetry defiantly missed.

Me, I'm a lost cause looking over my own poems. I read and re-read 'em, and by that time, I'm just not sure where to go anymore 'cause I've read it too many times. Lol

Thank you, again.

You are the maggot of my body-
munching and crunching away at the dusty
must within my folds.

cum

I am the main coarse

(like intestines
painted green with insecurity).

like a lump of lard-
hard tin against my fingers.

Suzanne wrote:I changed the rating of this poem to R.

Please, you don't have to rate things all of the time, but especially if it is R content, rate your work!

I changed the rating of this poem to R.

Please, you don't have to rate things all of the time, but especially if it is R content, rate your work!