Murder Sonnet

by Catalyn

Published November 18, 2017

E - Everyone

In Poetry

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There are fears I can't face,

Shadows in my mind.

Darkness every place,

Not the facing kind.

There's hatred in my head,

And anger in my heart.

On this chase I was lead,

but from it I will soon depart.

The man who killed me in the dark,

Beware-for you are now my mark.

Comments & reviews · 5
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PastelSlushie
Review
PastelSlushie wrote a review Review · Nov 27, 2017

Hiya there. Pastel here for a hopefully helpful review full of rambling!

As I'm a B I G fan of anything in the mysterious or horror genre, I obviously had to read this, and I wasn't disappointed a bit. Your use of words is quite nice, and your writing style combined with this really captivates me. I actually reread this a couple times because I enjoyed it that much.

My favorite part of this poem was the rhyming scheme. It's smooth, and seems very natural and not forced in the slightest. The scheme is very simple - A, B, A, B. Didn't have to look for it at all.

There was one line that confused me with the play of words:

"Not the facing kind."

As TheBlueCat said, what does facing kind mean? Was it just a rushed line to keep up the rhyming, or does it mean something deeper that needs explaining?

Well, that's the end of my review. Hopefully, it was helpful, and my apologies if you didn't enjoy it! Cheers!
- Pastel

User avatar
TheBlueCat
Review
TheBlueCat wrote a review Review · Nov 26, 2017

Hullo Catalyn! Cat here to review this mysterious poem in the spirit of review day! Okay then, here we go! :D

First, let's go through your poem together (Anything in bold is my comments/suggestions/grammar help):

Spoiler
There are fears I can't face,

Shadows in my mind.

Darkness every place,

Not the facing kind. (Start a new stanza here, also, facing kind?)

There's hatred in my head,

And anger in my heart. (I feel like this should be the other way around with 'anger in my head and hatred in my heart'.)

On this chase I was lead,

but from it I will soon depart.

The man who killed me in the dark,

Beware-for you are now my mark.


What I liked: Oh boy! I don't usually like horror type anything, but this was simply great!

What to fix grammar/spelling wise: Nothing I could see! :D

Plot holes/confusing stuff: Not really anything here!

Other random comments: One a couple lines, your flow is a bit off, so I would recommend reading it out loud to help see where that is.

Well anyways, great poem! Good job and keep writing! :D

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LittleLee
Review
LittleLee wrote a review Review · Nov 26, 2017

Hey, LittleLee is here for a review!
Alright, starting off, the poem is expressed very nicely, I like your use of words to captivate the reader's mind. I'll say that this is written from the point of view of a ghost, am I right? If so, why would a ghost be scared of something? I mean, of darkness and shadows and all that.

I read what you said about keeping the third line line as is, so I'm not going to be commenting on that.
The exact same goes for the fourth line, but I HAVE to say that its just too abstract. "Not the facing kind"?? I think, frankly speaking, you shouldn't have added that line. It's just too weird, and doesn't go with the flow, if you get what I mean.

"There's hatred in my head
and anger in my heart " nope, stop. Firstly, most of the time it's the other way around. Hatred is usually described as being of the heart. And anger is what makes your head swell, technically speaking, of course. And even if you change it, I don't really see the difference. The overall meaning remains pure and doesn't particularly change, now, does it? This may seem small, but it casts a slight pall on the poem.
"On this chase I was lead" "Led", not "lead". Even so, led by whom? I think you should have expressed that little bit more clearly.

The last two lines rhyme with each other immediately. That isn't the case in the rest of the poem, so don't change something like that so abruptly. It isn't proper.
The last line - there should be a space between the "-" and the other letters, right?
By the way, I love the last two lines. SO dramatic! I love vengeance.
Overall, I rather liked the poem, but you need to fine-tune it.
Bye!

User avatar
Radrook
Review
Radrook wrote a review Review · Nov 18, 2017

I have felt that way many times. Then I think of prison which is a huge problem and death which is a disagreeable concept and the falling into a murderer category which is degrading and I refrain. As for the poem, I can't say that it doesn't express what it intended-murderous hatred. As for emotional reaction from me as a reader, well, I feel concern for the writer's mental stability. Fear that he might carry this out. Feel as if he's being led by demonic forces towards his own ruin. Feel like advising him to forgive and let the hatred go. So if that's the reaction that the poem was intended to elicit, it succeeded in my case.

Thanks! I'm pretty sure that's the reaction I was trying to get. This poem came from a dark sonnet competition between me and my friends, so it was written for that purpose.

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Murphy2493
Review
Murphy2493 wrote a review Review · Nov 18, 2017

I think this is a great piece! I love the name you gave it because it caught my attention immediately and it's unique. If I can anything I don't like it would be the phrases "Darkness every place" and "Not the facing kind". I feel like it would flow better if it said "Darkness in every place". "Not the facing kind" that just confused me but I get why it's there. Overall I really liked reading it. The end took me by surprise.

Thanks for the feedback. I think I'm going to keep 'darkness every place' just because it fits the rhythm better-it has the same number of syllables right now as the line before and after it. I would like to change the 'Not the facing kind' line because I've already used the word face in that stanza, but I'm not quite sure what to change it to without it no longer being a sonnet.

I thought that was the case with 'darkness every place'. As for the ' not the facing kind'... I've been sitting for a few minutes trying to come up with something and the only thing I could come up it was 'Beings that are not kind'. Sorry if I'm not being helpful.

Sonnets are difficult to change when they've already been written. The easiest way to change that line would be for me just to rewrite the first stanza, but I really don't want to do that.

Understood haha it is beautiful either way.



On some days, my will to write disappears faster than a donut at a police station.
— Arcticus