The sad fate of the Vampire Aurelius

Act I. I read this as best I could with eliminating structure. My end conclusion was that the sentences are a little strange and we're talking about something which doesn't seem that unusual. We have a boy who's only friend is a dog, which likes to wag its tail, and the boy is looking for someone to be his friend. The first sentence: "His mind is frail his face is pale his only friend: a dog who likes to shake its tail." is really long and drawn out with multiple complete ideas in just one sentence. I would suggest breaking it up into the separate sentences with punctuation or adding details about this person using adjectives in the subject of the sentence. so far we have the structure, [(possessive pronoun + noun +) (verb + direct object)]. It does change it up after that sentence though, which I know I didn't see in my first reading.

In the second sentence, it ends very abruptly without a direct object for "find" and this confused me to no end because I pause, and reflect on sentences when I finish reading them typically. "A lonely kid one of his kind at least it seems so 'cause he can't find." and I want to yell at the top of my lungs: find what? Is there something I missed? He refers to the lonely kid, so he can't find-himself? a friend? one of his kind? It seems like there's a hole here and it bothers me. Maybe that was your intent?

The next sentence seems to have the end of the second sentence, and it eases my mind enough to just shoot a glare back at its partner in crime and move on with my life. It is here that we get back to the structure, but it's a little warped. now instead of a possessive pronoun, we see the structure of a determiner + noun + verb + direct object with a few inconsistencies bringing back the original structure with the possessive noun and the final thing of the sentence being a complete sentence in its own right, but structured as determiner + adjective phrase + noun, + verb Proper Noun. I would say you don't need the comma after the noun, but if you want to pause there, go for it. I like having the commas better than just going through and reading all of the embedded sentences in the first sentence like it was.

I'm going to read this symbolically just to give you a different taste. For me, I can see the child representing the purity of the world and the dog being loyalty. This means that Aurelius, purity, is being ignored by the other kids who are not pure in the least and could be taken as a comment how people aren't raising their kids with the same morals as they used to. Of course, this is just act one, but if we've got different acts, then maybe we're developing purity to make a statement about how things have changed. PS: Credits to kayfortnight for giving me the idea to read this symbolically after s/he read Red Coats the way s/he did.

Act II. This was nicer for me then the first act. I'll go with my symbolic interpretation first to see how it pans out. If Purity is staying in his room all day this could be talking about a time when purity has been slandered, his dog, loyalty ran away. Perhaps loyalty was the church? If Loyalty was the church and the church ran away from purity, that is a very strong political statement and very wonderful. Purity then has to turn to something new to solve this pain he's feeling about being alone, and hiding from the world. "- He must face it now" is a very strong line which encourages Purity to go forth and change where he was in the world.

I'll do a close reading for sentences. The first sentence I noted your use of "had ran" and I've had to look it up to see exactly what was going on because my brain was telling me that it should have been 'had run'. Here is what I found: In 2009 there was a standard form study which concluded that when run is next to have (had) then people typically use run for a past participle. However, there are some dialects and regions where "had ran" is acceptable so it really depends on where you're from. Because this is the case I'll just present my findings and not encourage you one way or the other. This has a very interesting beat to it. It is very nursery rhyme oriented. I could almost play the clapping game to this section. There are only a few places it is broken: "the tears he cried. Hate filled him" and then it drops right back into the pattern.

The sentence structure is much more complex in this section as well, which I find refreshingly nice. The most noticeable change is the addition of prepositions, transitional words, and auxiliary verbs.

Act III. Going with my original symbol for the boy, I would say that this is talking about how purity has found itself in the most evil of deeds. Because of how things have been corrupted and changed, the most pure things, the things which are now most 'pure' are when we no longer hold ourselves back and indulge in our own selfish desires. However, this is not satisfying to purity, which is why he is like Poseidon without his water.

This poem is still sing-songy at this point. I feel like it should be less sing-songy and less beat oriented and more oriented towards the anger. For me, when I'm angry, I am absolute chaos, words thrown everywhere, no structure in the least, no chance to make it sing-songy, every sentence unique as much as I can make it. Instead you have things that are repetitive, I won't go into detail, but can you see what I mean? There is a disconnect between what is being said, and how it is being said. Then you add in McDonalds: sweet and sour sauce, and my head goes right to the gutter. Truth be told is another thing which draws me out of the poem away towards some other origin. There are, however, again, some things which are inconsistent with the pattern. First off, the way it starts was very powerful and strong, but his soul still needs to be sold after the beginning where he has the power? This is kind of strange to me, then we have the few glitches in this repetitive beat like the last act.

Act IV: This starts out exactly the same as the last one of its kind, the act of III is just like IV. Sorry, couldn't help it. x.x; So this seems to be following the same principle as the last one, perhaps just because it is in the same pattern, perhaps because it's the falling action? Purity has realized he has lost his purity and now is dying, leaving the world for good.

Act V: I feel like this really doesn't conclude as much as it should. Purity has been left to wait out its captivity until something happens, like death. I suppose she could also be considered humanity, because what are we if we are not the walking dead? If she is humanity, this could be read saying that humanity wants nothing to do with purity any longer, be it bad or good.

The sentence structure is reminiscent of the first act, so I'll leave it alone. It does round out with the other acts teasingly in its presence, but it mainly just reminds me of the first act.

Overall, the poem still felt too structured for me because it ready funny still. It still has a good explanation of the story, but in order to get more into things, I think I'd rather know he was a vampire at the beginning or when he's been turned rather than just a snippet at the end to confirm my cautious beliefs. It also is strange to personify death at the end, when people usually think vampires are the living dead, yet she didn't show up before this.

Hi marivisan! Overall, I really like this. Usually, I dislike rhyme schemes with a passion, but it works pretty well here, although there are some spots it seemed forced. It did seem odd to me that the main character didn't know about the whole stake-through-the-heart thing (unless that doesn't work in this story? Okay fine, as long as no one sparkles ).

For every kiss,
Would end a life.
A simple hug
Would crush their bones.

He was a God,
Without believers
He was Poseidon,
Without his rivers.

She wouldn’t show:
The long awaited
Death
She didn’t even step
The ground close to his place,
She’ll leave him in his cage;
With monsters,
She got tad overzealous.
This the sad fate
Of the Vampire Aurelius.

Hi marivisan, firstly I'd liked to say that pretty much anyone reading your works and taking the time to comment is probably going to be doing it with an open mind. This is a writing site meant to offer advice, and you can choose to take that advice or not. Surely there is no need to be defensive.

-What I think Aley has right is that the rhyming is a bit forced, though I rather enjoy the poem for what it is, a not-too-serious work. The rhyming works in that sense.

-Aley never suggested that you use an annoying structure, in fact they suggested you do the opposite and get away from a structure that they believed you imposed upon yourself and which might limit the possibilities of the poem. I would say the short, rhymed lines work in a sense as they are consistent.

-For me, I think you can keep this scheme, but you should go through and look at all your rhymes and see if they are really working here. Some of them come in at awkward moments and caused me to pause as I was reading because of their unusual nature and placement, which is something you never want, and interrupt in the flow.

-In terms of content, it's a fun little ditty and one that is pretty simple. There's not a whole lot of depth, but I don't think it was meant to be deep. It's simplicity brings with it an amusing humor.

Feel free to contact me if you have any concerns.

All of these rhymes are really starting to fog the images that were trying to be created. I would strongly suggest getting away from this 4 beats per measure structure sooner and develop the lines into something more symbolic than telling us what is going on.

With such a strict structure and rhyme scheme, there is really nothing to get into with this poem. Most of the rhymes feel forced due to the need for this pattern, and once the pattern continues endlessly, it seems, I lose interest in the poem. Reading the lines without stopping at the end is also very difficult because there are so many breaks in the lines and every letter is capitalized on the first word of the line.

I would like to propose a challenge, write this poem again, but instead of writing it with five acts, write it purely in one poem that has five stanzas. This could really help narrow down exactly what the most inspirational thing was to the author by creating a different type of structure to follow and encourage longer lines. I think it would also help to make sure that there was no rhyme scheme the next time around to avoid re-using lines that are in this poem.

As it stands, my favorite line in the poem is "Death" because it is just a single word and beat. I do not actually believe I am supposed to be happy that the character is dead, so working on breaking out of the repetition earlier would be best. Also be sure to read things aloud to find things that are annoyingly repetitive, such as He, he, he, his, his, his, his. Determine something that will break up the obsessive use of pronouns in order to help develop a voice in the poem.

This poem did give me a good idea about what the story that inspired it was on, and it did have some intriguing ideas that were just under-developed, so I would like to see it again in a reworked form.