Hey guys! It's been a long time since I've posted something, well here is something I just whipped up. Yes I know "screaking" isn't a word... but fortunatly in poetry we have the leniancy to make up words sometimes! :) Anyways I'm open to any and all comments/critisism. Thank you for reading!
P.S (Sorry for any missed spelling errors, I think i got them all but I may have flooked. Thank you!)
Ash falls like butterflies,
flittering down from the skies.
Soft ash twisting in swirls
over the chinmey tops of
rubble and dust.
Thorny Vines and whithered roses
creep and crawl,
to enshroud them all
in the slimy grasp
of the Devil's hand.
Them all- The festering corpses
and rotting flesh of God's disciples.
Enmeshed in the slithering vines,
of destiny and time,
the black decomposing teeth
and hissing forked tongues
crumble like pastries
among the enchanting, raining ash.
These angelic cravens,
cower before the screaking Ravens.
As the ashen faces
of the sisters three,
weep in nameless darkness, idily.
God's disciples,
and the Devil's cravens,
let rain this glorious ash
with the explosion of light,
and the cackling of fire.
Ravens screech at this
unghastly sight.
Now let the seeds of morality reunite.
I am not going to forget that bright image of pastries suddenly cropping up in the middle of all this grayness for a long time. I want to remember it, that technique of somehow flashing back in poetry JUST through a couple of words-long simile. I don't know if you intended it, and if you didn't, study your accident well, but for me that simile that could have been ridiculously out of place actually served, in my interpretation, as a flash back to what came before this ashen time. Like, at some point, people sat in cafes and picked the flakes off their pastries with shined forks. That's what it did for me.
That said, I think most of the poem after that stanza was just repetition except for three valuable points that I don't know the right location of: the sisters, the explosion of light, and the morality seeds. The rest is literally just repetition: the cravens (which, by the way, is an adjective and not a noun!), god's disciples, etc. Cut it out and slip the important parts back in where they might fit better.
For example, if the three sisters are, in fact, the three fates, wouldn't they do better mentioned near "destiny and time" in the third stanza? I'd love to see their faces earlier, so it doesn't just seem like a poetic landscape of a frozen moment. They and the explosion of light are the movement and excitement in the piece. The morality you mention might be, too, but I don't know what it's referring to. It seem tacked on at the end, but you obviously had a purpose in using it, so clear that up, please.
What I would really like to see more of is the movement of the ash. I think it would be awesome if you continued the dance of it from your first stanza all the way through to the end. Right now, it seems to be picked up in the wind for a moment and then forgotten, but wouldn't it be nice to juxtapose the stillness of the vines and the bodies with the movement of the ash?
Let me know what you think of my suggestions, and if you have any questions, through PM or a wall post, please. Good luck with rewriting, if you go down that path, and keep writing whatever you do!
Really? Where did you get that impression?
So, a comment on that last stanza: it feels too short. Compared to its predecessor, all of its lines are much too short and the idea it presents is half-baked. Try elongating it a bit.
The adjectival overload in this stanza is overwhelming. Use active, accurate verbs to create images; adjectives aren't active and should be used in moderation, especially in poetry. Also, the number of unnecessary, irrelevant images in this stanza eclipses the religious commentary you're attempting to make. Just say what you want to say. The relentless downpour of imagery is sucking the meaning out of this poem.
So. The most pressing issue that needs to be resolved in this poem is the massive amount of seemingly irrelevant imagery. I know there's a theme buried somewhere beneath all of it, but the imagery renders it vague and indecipherable. What you need to do is cut away all that rotting flesh crap and say what you actually want to say with this poem; free yourself from the burden of wanting to sound intelligent by masking yourself with loads of meaningless description.
-Kafka
Ok my dear friend Kafka, thank you for your review. Although you missed most of the purpose of my writing many of your comments are extremely helpful and I will apply them to my writing. Firstly, I appologize for all my spelling errors, I copied and pasted this into word and for some reason there were some words it didn't quite catch... regardless this poem is suppose to be one that you understand more as you read along. Therefore my vagueness in the second stanza I argue is no necessarily needed but adds to the feel of the poem. My personal opinion of course. However I completely agree with you on the third stanza, it most certainly is some of my weaker writing. However, I used the imagery of pastries and butterflies as a mixing of the modern joys and what we associate typically with happiness into the current apocalyptic world that we've created. Maybe I was trying for too much there. Although short and sweet lines, breaking up a sentence into two different lines is somewhat of my writing style and I'd like to keep it that way thank you. Although do you think that having longer lines in some stanzas and more shorter lines in other stanzas draws too much away from my writing? Furthermore, the "sisters three... idly" is a necessary component in this piece because it tells the reader how they are now useless and have no purpose. Now for the last stanza I attempted (failed attempt obviously if you the reader are confused) at merging the people of god and the devil into one. Regardless of what affiliations one has, it was their actions that still utterly mauled the world. And again I agree, "seeds of morality" was just something I pulled outta my ass cause i couldn't think of something to bring good closure to this poem. On a seperate note I admire the fact that you've taken "Kafka" as a pen name. His book The Metamorphosis is one of my favorites. Thank you for your review, I'll see what I can do to fix these problems.