Published January 31, 2010
The prompt at one of my writing workshops was to make a love poem using as few mushy hallmark words as possible, and I enjoyed the result, as did everyone else, so I figured I'd throw it up here and see what you guys think.
Every day that I enter
your dark and evil home,
I smell that pungent aroma
of feet, and onions, and bones.
I endure your habits,
like torturing insects and nail biting,
and I remember each bruise
you supply while we're fighting.
You're cold as ice to touch,
bitter and sour to taste,
and you're strangely and bizzarely calm,
considering you kill whatever you face.
Your backstabbing ways
confuse and irritate me,
and your red glowing eyes alone
could even possibly kill sheep.
Everyone hates and fears you,
wondering why you were released,
but I still endure this suffering
to be the beauty to your beast.
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Hey there, Howler!
This is quite an interesting piece. I like it, for the tone of it is quite hallmark-ish, although the words of it are not as sweet as should be expected. Even if I'm receiving it opposite of intended effect, it's nice.
However! I think you should clean it up a little, because there are a few lines here that are creating ideas that do not make sense to me, and it's kind of giving me the impression that they were thrown in for the ride -- just, never worry about rhyme or any of those things firsthand. I always insist that writing your message in crystal language is by far more important than any of the other devices that poetry comes with, as they can always be incorporated later.
June
'Ullo Howler!
Well, this is, er, original. The reason why I have an unsurity is because although I think the concept is brilliant, I was a little confused with some of the lines. A bit like Dem mentioned.
I think that the fluency and pace of the poem are well devised so I have no problems with rhythm. I do think that the rhyme was a little forced in some areas and this might be to blame for my confusion. I think that you should work on giving me everything implicitly and scratch the rhyme scheme. Give us some rebellion.
Hope this helps,
Ben
Hey Howler!
I love this idea. Sometimes it can be a challenge to write about love, but you seem to have done pretty well with this!
Much like Dems, my main problem with this was the rhyming and rhythm. I wasn't too bothered about the rhyme; although it was patchy in places it was pretty much ok. But the rhythm really did sound off a lot, so I think that that's something you should definitely work on with this.
I loved the last stanza, it was great. Some part of me thinks it would be an awesome idea to write a mirroring poem to this from the point of view of the beast. But that's the crazy part.
Lovely!
~Amy
Hey, Howler!
Well, I quite liked the extraordinary point of view, and I'm glad you were given that prompt. The biggest problems I had with this were the occasionally uneven rhythm and the rhyming, which sounded forced at times.
The word choice here confuses me -- whatever do bones smell like? The context doesn't make it seem like a metaphor, so I'm just assuming you chose that word because you couldn't come up with anything else to rhyme with "home." You shouldn't do this, it's quite noticeable. If you have to take the short-cut to rhyme, don't rhyme at all or then change the original word, which would be "home" in this case.
Long lines like these break the rhythm.
Same thing here; also, it's spelled "bizarrely"
"Could even possibly" sounds weird, and I'm sorry, but me and sheep... not the best rhyming couplet.
I like the last stanza -- how it collects everything together. Note that you use the word "endure" twice... might want to replace one of them? Overall, this is a decent read in its simplicity, and keep writing!
Demeter
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