We always skipped by the farms and valleys;
where tall reeds of muck swayed like scarecrows.
Where the sun was a lambent, obscured nightlight
that hid in fear from the passing swelled clouds.
Hand by hand, we visited tombstones of dust and old
running our foreign fingers over the husks
of something. That was once so human.
She always said to me in a quiet, drawn whisper,
I wanna leave, I wanna leave. I wanna go;
but she never specified where or when or what...
I turned to her, with an innocent smile on my face,
and I told my friend with childlike kindness,
get out of the country! It will do you good, I promise!
Her physcedelic eyes watered and glistened,
and she put her back to me, and waited for a little light
to strike its rays into her life. It never came.
I honor her to this day; decorating her scarecrow
with wilting flowers. She scares the darkness away.
Tethered to this unholy ground, her soul stuck
in the gurgling, chortling mud. But a true friend
would pull her out and let her go.
I am no friend.
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,798 Reviews
Hello! DragonNoir here for a review!
I think this is very deep and effective, but I'm really confused about the message. I know implicit messages show one's great ability to write, but if something is made too implicit then the reader has no idea of what's going on. You go from a quite cheerful, memory-like scene, to something extremely deep in the space of a few lines, which I like, but all I can really make out is that someone who the narrator held close to their heart died, but the narrator doesn't seem to like them anymore.
Also, I managed to notice a small error:
"of something. That was once human." If this was used for effect, I understand this, but I'd use a comma instead, or I'd just not put anything there in the first place. You essentially split a sentence in half and, in my opinion, it doesn't help the poems flow.
On a more positive note, your vocabulary is very impressive and gives the reader a lot to think about, for example when you say: "our foreign fingers".
Overall, a good poem, but the message seems too implicit (at least I think so).
Ah okay, someone actually told me to do that little "of something. That was once so human" in the review before nik's lol i was kinda unsure about it.
ill try to make the message clearer, thanks
This is Nikayla here dropping in for another review on Review Day.
I don't even need an introduction anymore really. I see that this poem is composed into two stanzas for the most part. This reminds me of the last one that I reviewed in a way. The tone is similar though there's less of a narrative aspect of this poem. What I did find is that your love of adjective shows here, similar to one of the other poems that I reviewed earlier, and I have the same thing to say about it here.
The excessive amount of adjectives isn't needed here, and in this case, there are a couple of words that are misspelled, such as psychedelic or nightlight--the latter I believe to be two words. I see that you've categorized this in the horror genre of poetry, which is something that I don't see being done too often. We see that the speaker of this poem is the aspect of the poem that's horror.
Or, they're the one that's the actual antagonist, leaving their friend in the mud, which seems to be a scarecrow, but I'm not sure. Some of the sentence structure here isn't that strong and I have to suggest reworking those aspects. I'll go ahead and point out some of these instances that I found could have been improved or fixed for a more effective impact.
Here's a couple of lines that I thought could have been made stronger. The semicolon isn't used that appropriately seeing that the semicolon could be replaced with a comma for a better effect since you use 'but' in the third line here.
Here you use too many adjectives and that's what I think makes these lines fail. The gurgling, chortling, unholy--these words are what make these lines ineffective at making the reader really feel anything. I want more nouns and verbs instead of adjectives to add to the atmosphere.
If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask. I hope I helped and have a great day.
thanks nikayla
I wouldn't put any ; after dust and old. I'd just leave it blank.
I would say, for dramatic impact: "of something that was once. So human.
Alien-like doesn't really fit the flow well. but if you meant it to sound foriegn to the body of text, then keep.
gurgling is strong, but laughing was weak mud. Perhaps pick a new adjective?
If you're not a friend, are you, too... A ScarCrow??? ? ? (you could let us know with one more line if you wanted.
thanks for the help! I'll change those things.
the speaker isn't a scarecrow but feels kind of guilty for using her to scare her own darkness away metaphorically after the scarecrow girl's death
say what? I couldn't follow your explanation of the meaning, there. I have a feeling this is a very weird story. Is it a true one?
well basically the speaker is a normal girl, happy and nice. she is too innocent to understand her friend has a bad life. after her friend dies she basically uses the scarecrow girl(aka her friend) to scare away the darkness that is now invading into the speaker's life like scaring away the crows from the crops.
nah it isn't true
Ohhh. yeah, i got only about 1/3rd of that from reading the poem itself. You didn't tell us enough about her friend. That's the vital information I think which was missing in there
yea i just didnt want my poem to be too long so i condensed it
probably 4 more lines might be just enough room to fit the friends personality in there? up to you