The first strike knocks me down.
I choke, tasting blood as it froths in my mouth--
even the clouds blur together, shuddering as another blow comes
and rattles my bones; I am numb and I feel like I cannot
Feel and this terrifies me more than the pain ever will.
Reconstruct it she hisses as she watches me fall.
In her hands are the necessary tools:
the cleaver, the rope, the ax, the gun;
she beckons me closer.
Take it she whispers.
No, I cannot, and I regret it at once because chemicals
choke me and I fall deeper into the flask
hydrogen fluoride cutting my marrow until
I dissolve and the only part left is the
chunks of my flesh, clinging desperately to the
roots of my hair
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139,448 Literary Works • 672,565 Reviews
This kinda scared me. And I thought about death and violence the whole thing. I don't know if you were aiming for that, or what... but I kinda liked it. Nice work.
Nice poem, scared me XD lols But its still amazing and cannot wait for more ^^ Good luck and Happy Writing!!!!!!!!
Soulkana<3
Oh goodness! First off, I flipped to this after catching your name in something that I was reading. Snoink. haha. Well anyway, when I first read it I instantly thought about Edgar Allen Poe, the morbidness of it was fantastic. I like the set up a lot and the word flow, the descriptions are great. I like it mostly because of the imagery. You're really good.
This was creepy. I LOVE IT! Based on the narrative, I'm guessing it's suicide by Drain O'?
Thi is brimming with violent awesomeness. When i saw the "reconstruct it" and "take it" in italics i thought off hissing. I saw shadows when i read this poem, a looming threat. Brilliant. I just wish i was smart enough to figure it out.
This poem strikes me as really sad and depressing. To me. I don't usually review these types of poems, but this one is good. Because it is descriptive and I like my poems descriptive. And I love the last part about chunks of flesh, and was the girl in this poem death? Because thats what I imagined her as death. but I may be wrong.
Hi Snoink!
First, I was drawn to this poem by the intriguing title. I mean, who wouldn't want to read something titled 'A Lesson in Dying'? (XD) Yet I found much more than I had expected. The imagery in this poem is so vivid it's almost alarming, and you do a fabulous job at creating the dark setting.
Nitpicks:
Besides those two tiny things, I absolutely loved it. Bravo.
~BTM
the piece is rather short i don't particularly get anything from it because the title does say instructions and i don't see any. We must be very careful when choosing title for these more delicate pieces because of the title the poem should have been a little longer the poem was very short and therefore it does not paint a clear picture. It does not teach me anything about dying. Although, i must say it was nice for a small piece kind of gruesome.
Snoink, I just wanted to say I really enjoyed this. The wording, the imagery, everything. My review is unneeded here, especially because...well, look above at all the other thorough reviews, and so I'll leave this as a fan comment. (SNOINK I LOVE YOU SIGN MY FOREHEAD?!! I kid!)
First off, can I say how much I love getting a point of view like this? I do. I love it. There's nothing wrong with a good poem that has a classic point of view, but take a good poem and give it interesting perspective, and you've really got something. In this, there's more than just an image of what's happening -- there's an image of whom it's happening to, and that makes a huge difference. The fact that you were able to fit that into such a short, concise poem is fantastic.
This, for example, serves that purpose. It's minor, and it's quite subtle, but there's still this overwhelming feeling of pure humanity behind these two lines. Where the surface of the poem is all physical pain, you've suddenly suggested another level. That's especially important in a poem that relies heavily upon reader interpretation; there's a story in here, somewhere, but it's not necessarily up to you to tell it. There's mystery in the implied dialogue, and in the introduction of the second character. It allows for room to consider a history unmentioned in the actual text.
As far as formatting, I think those two lines are also the best example. Read straight through, the line breaks really add to the mood. Choppy, but not to the point where it detracts from what's actually going on. And, the punctuation! I could hug you! I haven't exactly reviewed a ton of poetry, but I've consistently suggested the use of more punctuation. I think it's one of your strongest tools in poetry, because it's so versatile, so I loved that fact that you broke things up and changed the flow by using semicolons and hyphens. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but they're my best friends.
Well, that was . . . lengthy. In the end, though, I adored this. Really. Great job!
Hi,
Good work.
I really liked your poem because it had a good use of description, especially when you describe the blood as 'froth' - i thought that was very clever.
Hi Snoink, CaptianRandom here
i didn't like this poem, i thought it was to depressing, to many remarks about dieing, even though that's the theme of the poem i thought you could have put some positive things in it. i hope some of your other work is better sorry.
-CaptianRandom
Hey Snoink! Thanks for the review on my last poem.
As you know could probably tell, I don't know much about poetry (just an aspiring writer.) So, here is what I though
"and rattles my bones; I am numb and I feel like I cannot
Feel and this terrifies me more than the pain ever will."
I love how you used the capital F. First time through when I read it I stumbled. I found this weird, but when I went back and read it again I kind of like it.
I loved the imagery that you provided, and the kind of gory feeling it gave me.
Thank you, and have a good day.
Wait! Typo? Where???
And yeah... I write poetry sometimes. XD
I didn't know you wrote poetry, Snoink.
If the point of this poem was to make me feel a) terrified, b) violent and c) violently terrified, you did the perfect job. As too taking things away from the poem, well, I don't think you necessarily need to take anything away but the feeling that you just read a good piece of poetry.
I LOVE THESE LINES. When you read them out loud you can feel the pace speeding up and slowing down in certain parts so it creates a sort of synchopatic half-rhyme and oh.... amazing.
Yeah, you spelled a word wrong and you didn't write poetry that wanted to make us save the Amzon rainforest but dang! That wazzz good.
pure pleasure to review
*bows*
Hey, so obviously you use imagery well here. There are a few technical points I thought might be helpful to point out, though. Mostly, the two stanzas feel disjointed, there's little flow from the first to the second, they almost feel like they could be different poems. Two different good poems, but still two poems. Some parts can be a bit confusing, mostly in what does the character need to reconstruct, it's not clear, and how does the character go from being unable to drink the chemicals to drinking them. Basically, I think you could make this a great poem if you left less backstory to your reader and clarified a few points.
ps- "axe" not "ax"
=]
Yikes,kind of a sick one if you ask me. I have but one question: Have you ever been had a "Lesson in Dying"? It was well written though, looking forward to your next piece!
Tyler
The first words that popped into my head when I finished reading this were "ew" and "oh my god." I thought this was terrible and great, and greatly terrible. It made me nauseous, which means that it was a wonderfully dark poem. It scared the heck out of me, and I loved it. I think you definitely got the feel you might have wanted, and the description was good, too.
Um, so, I guess it's a good poem. +_+
-Nutty
Nice.Honestly,this put a gruesome little picture in my head but thats a good thing.
Oh, very graphic, very amazing.
There is a lot of anger and strength in this piece, the event is captured very well
There are a couple of things that could be improved, though.
This could be more lyrical, add some more adjectives and descriptions.
This focuses on playing out a scene, I recommend saying why this is happening, or use a flash back effect.
Why do you want to make us stumble on a word? As I said this piece is very graphic and making it go smothley would help it.
I sense that there is a lot of frustration in this piece, was that intentional or am I imagining things?
I think that you should describe the setting more, to add another layer.
You could turn this into a short story. Just an idea.
You might want to turn this into a series.
Does the person actually die, It's unclear.
Beside that I think you done a brilliant job.
Keep writing like you mean it
Vera
Hi
Great poem with lovely violent images but needs some simplification.
Honestly,here is something that I could really not understand:
Have the amazingly well constructed horrific images been added just for fun?
What really was the lesson learned?Only thing talked about was excruciating pain(unless that was the lesson intended).
Could this be made simpler for amateur writers to understand?
If the whole purpose of the poem was supposed to be unconventional and a little vague than the poem is really great.
Holy guacamole dude, that's far from ehhhh, that's some awesome stuff.
I love death stuff.
Alright to be honest this was really good despite what some of the others might have said but they were right about some of the things in your work..
But i loved it. You are an amazing writer. And i am going to be honest i think that with your creativity and your exact detail, You could probably make it some where as a writer or as a poet.
You have great structure in your writing. And by the tone of your writing you sound confident in what you are writing and you have a great way of emphasizing the tone in this.
I am hoping to see more from you ok and good luck.
This is really, really good.
But I'm not quite sure I get what it means.
Your writing style is amazing.
I'm going to read more of your work now!
The "f" is capitalized to deliberately make you stumble on the word.
SNOINK SUCKS.
Anyway. I get really violent feelings when I read this poem, and nothing more. I don't really take anything away from this short of piece. There were only a few things that left me wondering about, and Evi pointed it out.
Obviously, this capital F isn't a typo, because you suck too much to make a type on a tiny poem like this one. So now I'm wondering why you capitalized it. If we take a further glance backwards:
I notice that Feel isn't one of the major words in this sentence. If I read the second sentence normally, "I am numb and I feel like I cannot Feel and this terrifies me more than the pain ever will," Feel isn't one of the words that I would capitalize. So why would you capitalize this random word? Obviously, this poem is about feeling, after all. Feeling pain, feeling abuse. Feeling that we must all reconstruct our lives. Or something like that. I'm not too great on understanding poetry.
I mentioned it, but I should make it a point that I didn't take anything away from this poem. It wasn't anything absolutely amazing. It has a simple message, and that's about it.
Oh, yeah. And violent images.
Sooooooooo.
Yeah.
-Jared
Hey Snoink! So, I think you should know that I am absolutely and undeniably terrified to review this. ^^ Just throwing that out there. I'm quaking in fear over here, in fact.
Aren't you proud of me?
But, alas, I'm going to do it anyway.
The majority of the poem is punctuated and capitalized exactly as prose would be, with the exception of this one line. The 'F' in 'Feel' is capitalized...why? For emphasis? That might not stick out so much to me if it wasn't the only case of this random capitalization in the poem. But, it is.
Love this line. At first, I was torn between insisting that blood doesn't froth, but I decided against it. Instead, I'll just tell you that the image came across vividly.
If there are numerous chunks, should 'part' not be plural? It sounds odd in my mind to read something singular (part + is) and then attach it to the plural word 'chunks'. Not entirely sure about that, though. there are most certainly exceptions to this crazy English language that I have not yet learned.
But then, I wonder where these strikes are coming from. Are they coming from this 'she' that is mentioned? Or another source entirely? What exactly happens to the narrator? She dissolves, apparently. Does this signify something deeper?
And them, I thought I wasn't taking it literally enough.
And, so, my point? I think this poem can have a lot of meanings. Perhaps none of the ones that came to my mind are close to the one you were trying to convey, but still, I think the words were ambiguous enough not to be trapped into a single meaning, but clear enough that the readers could make some sense of the poem. In other words, you weren't simply tossing around pretty words to sound insightful or anguished.
~Evi