sedate the soul
with a piece of coal-
and a bitter smile
wait for the meanwhile.
the process of extolling
for there is another patrolling,
with tacit tactical strategy
for an alleged unclaimed progeny.
since the mind entered the grind-
with the bloody trail left behind
one by one, internal parts break from the confined.
had wagered and lost, could lose no more
could someone accept this ugly chore?
callously chiding with every last grasp,
just waiting to exhale a terminal gasp.
there was a time when all was a fight
a decaying spiral despite all my might-
no moment this carcass not filled with fraught
despite all the lessons the battles had taught.
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139,285 Literary Works • 672,524 Reviews
Hello Steggy! Here I am for my.... 300th review! I'm that that of a poetry whiz, but I'll truly try my best.
Let's get straight into it, shall we?
I have to second fortis claim that the rhyming wasn't necessary here at all, because it seemed quite a little bit forced and really took away from the meaning of the poem itself, the theme and message of it. I do think that it could be much more clear if you actually decided to drop it and reconfigure the words to make it more powerful.
Also, I usually put this out there, but in the future if you have any problems whatsoever at all in regards to formatting, or if you have problems with it(which is common btw) than I would refer you to this mega-helpful article> How to Format Poetry
Ok, so honestly I had to look up a lot of these words to actually understand what they are meaning. I wanted to tell you that in poetry, it's best to honestly use words that people can instantly understand the meaning to, because that makes the poem much more meaningful. Why would you want a reader-like me- have a Merriam-Webster Dictionary website open in a tab next to this? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of conveying the true meaning here?
I think that the repetition is quite a little bit awkward here, the reason being that you want the adjective "tactic" to describe "tactical" and it's all very just quite confused because they roll into one another a bit because of their similarity. I would just get rid of the first version for now.
This probably a structural/stylistic choice, but I personally think that this dash - is very inconsistent with the format of the rest of the poem. As you may have visually noticed, there is a dash on the second line of every other stanza. This -dash is on the first line of the third stanza, but it could be on the second line of the stanza, to make it look more uniform if you see what I mean.
I think that you could probably build one more stanza off of this one by one, by kind of making a list to describe what in your mind are the internal parts. You could get extra creative with this, but of course it would take some research of the brain... which may be a interesting venture on Google. xD
Next, I noticed that you have like tons of adjectives. Tons of them, because you have a tendency to put them in front of descriptive nouns. A wise writer once told me to use waaay more descriptive and precise verbs instead of more and more adjectives. Let me give you a quick example of what I mean to tell you:
I don't know if you've noticed but because of your word choice it kind of seems like you describe these internal problems as "battle" and "fight"-refer to the 3rd stanza,the reason being that you kind over-state of blow over the ideas of just problems to be way more serious an dangerous,etc. I just wanted to point that out because I wanted to know: Do you actually want to convey that idea?
That's all I have, and it was a true honor writing a poetry review as my 300th! I hope that this helps and if you have any questions than you know where to find me.
Thank you! It was a pleasure being your 300th review!
That was great! I really liked it, though some parts left me confused. But I could tell, even without the title, what the poem was about. I feel like the word choice made it difficult to keep up with at some points. But I could tell you put alot of thought into it. And the complicated word choice did match the complicated topic, so it worked well with the story. Other than that, I can't say it isn't perfect (Double negatives, why must you sneek into my writing so often?!). Keep up the good work!
-Kazuto Kirigaya
Hey Steg!
here to fulfill your WRFF request!
So, what you have here is very interesting. The theme, topic, and mood here is much to my liking, but there is one thing that is sort of ruining the mood and also the poem as a whole, in my opinion. Rhyming. I'm not a big rhyming fan. I'm a fan of it when it is needed and necessary for the poem's type (like a child's poem or a riddle or a legend or song), form, or mood (I find that really creepy things can be enhanced by rhyming as well as really silly, childish things). Also, I only like it then when it isn't forced. I don't really see a need for this poem to rhyme, and the rhymes are pretty forced.
By forced, I mean that the rhyme is getting in the way of full comprehension of the line. It's like you said that line only to make sure that there was something to rhyme with the previous line. I feel like you could get the point you're trying to make across better if you took out the rhyme and wrote what you're trying to say. You can still make it sound nice, of course! But the rhymes here take away from the poem more than they add to it.
I like the theme you have here, and your title really pulls it together, but I'm not sure what the really important parts of this are because of the rhyme. Also, although the theme is readily apparent, the actual story and point here is sort of vague and hidden behind fancy and forced words. I think this may clear up if you get rid of the rhymes and write what you mean to say, but there's a chance it may not. It's hard figuring out what kind of language to use for a poem, and everyone has their differing opinions. Personally, I like the poems that talk like we talk. Some people think that poetry has to have very florid and "deep" sounding language, but that usually takes away from the clarity of a poem, and I am a fan of clarity.
I'm having a hard time with the third stanza because it's pretty much a fragment, especially the first two lines.
I really do think that if you write what you want to convey instead of hiding it behind forced rhymes, this poem could be much better, and I'd like to see it. If you don't know what you were trying to convey, ask yourself questions like, what is this poem about? Why did I write this? Why did I use that particular word? (and if the answer is only "to rhyme," then get rid of it!) Why did I begin the way I began and end the way I ended?
Poetry is essentially a game, if you ask me. You impose your own rules on yourself, which makes it one of my favorite games c: Rhyming and rhythm for examples are 'rules' you can impose on yourself, but there are other rules too! Alliteration and poetic devices are some, but more subtle are the rules like, "this is the point I'm trying to make, and I'm going to get it across as clear as I can without just simply stating it. I'm going to get it across through a story, or separate images." And the best things about rules you set yourself is that you can break them whenever it suits you to artistically.
One thing I really like about your poem is you have a lot of intriguing images, but they don't really flow together. If that was purposeful, that's alright, but I would like to see it be a little more obvious if that was the case. If, for example, you /wanted/ it to not all fit together smoothly, which would make sense because of your theme of "internal problems," I would suggest making it more obvious by giving the reader more visual clues of incohesion. Purposeful line breaks and punctuation can be used quite well to this end. If it was not your intention to have the images not flow, then I suggest that you think in one direction. For example, you might start with the nut at the center of a machine and work out to the huge outer metal shell, or start at the outward emotion of a person and work into their heart, or tell it in chronological order. Just some order to the images helps the reader follow along easier. And it doesn't have to be super obvious. Even subtle order that the reader won't pick up on consciously will still help them subconsciously.
One final poetry tip, since it seems I've given you most of the ones I have, words are powerful. Usually people use too many. People like short poems, and while this is short enough to keep their attention, this is mostly a tip to use all the time. Ask yourself, when you're finalizing your edits for the poem, if every word you have is needed. Sometimes people have repetition without reason, or sometimes there's just extra words that aren't doing anything for the poem. You can ask yourself with every word and phrase, "do I really need that to further the point of the poem?" I find that the fewer words you have that still relate the same point, the more powerful each one is, and the more they'll stick with the reader.
Okay. Hope I didn't bore you to tears there hah!
Great job! Keep writing!
~fortis
Thank you!