Immortal

by matthewclarke7

Published August 26, 2011

My perennial silhouette blackens my dark cold heart,
cools my icy flesh, steals all my warmth, my grace it takes,
instills (only devouring) ruminations and splits my hollow soul apart.
All these enduring, mirthful years. Fakes.

The Star is greater now; I have watched it redden for Armageddon,
it be a glow of great irony, for what once was life is now death.
The rest have wasted, blasted, but I remain, never to deaden.
Cursed, and damned, condemned I still gnaw on breath.

The Earth beneath me crumbles, scorched, cracks,
There exist sands, cinders, where once there was Them,
Oh... but now only ash, sand. Dust. Bones of backs.
I have seen all, been all, I know all, and I be where true dark does stem.

I fall to my young knees, grasp my forever-same hair and in despair, suddenly chortle,
because all the memories that in me exist, make all I have been and seen, Immortal.

Comments & reviews · 9
Narnialover4ever1 wrote a review Review · Aug 28, 2011

Very good! I liked it! It was deep, dark and had a lot of great adjectives. I liked the more descriptive sentences they really spoke to me, the reader. Good job and keep writing! :)

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Noelle
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Noelle wrote a review Review · Aug 28, 2011

Hi there!

All right, my comments are in red below.

matthewclarke7 wrote:My perennial silhouette blackens my dark cold heart,
cools my icy flesh, steals all my warmth, my grace it takes, Wow, I just got as much imagery in these two lines that I usually get in a whole poem. Good job!
instills (only devouring) ruminations and splits my hollow soul apart.
All these enduring, mirthful years. Fakes.
Great first stanza. Your imagery was great.

The Star is greater now; I have watched it redden for Armageddon,
it be it's a glow of great irony, for what once was life is now death. Great example of irony.
The rest have wasted, blasted, but I remain, never to deaden.
Cursed, and damned, condemned I still gnaw on breath. This is a real powerful line.

The Earth beneath me crumbles, scorched scorches, cracks,
There exist sands, cinders, where once there was Them,
Oh... but now only ash, sand. Dust. Bones of backs.
I have seen all, been all, I know all, and I be am where true dark does stem.

I fall to my young knees, grasp my forever-same hair and in despair, suddenly chortle,
because all the memories that in me exist, make all I have been and seen, Immortal.

Wow, this is a really good poem! Like I said earlier, I am very impressed by the amount or imagery you put in this. Good job! I was also impressed by your vocabulary. Heck, I didn't know what some of the words meant! The flow of this is good and it has a definite rhythm to it.

Overall I really enjoyed this poem. Keep writing! :)

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Benway
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Benway wrote a review Review · Aug 28, 2011

I would like a better understanding of who the speaker is. You say that they are immortal. As Immortal is the title, I'm assuming that immortality is a primary center of meaning for the poem. What I get from this is a sense of tortured endurance--the world coming apart, but the speaker remaining. If this is in fact the case, I'd like to know a lot more about who this speaker is--why this speaker is--and what remains for them when the world is gone. Perhaps I'm missing an obvious point about who they are, but as the character's immortality seems to be primary, I feel we should know a bit more about them, as well as what we know of the destruction of the world, surrounding.

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Emerson
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Emerson wrote a review Review · Aug 28, 2011

Hey there!

My perennial silhouette blackens my dark cold heart,
cools my icy flesh, steals all my warmth, my grace it takes,


So I chose this verse here because I thought I could use it to explain my issue with this poem. You use a LOT of adjectives and other descriptive words, but in many cases they're redundant and end up just muddling the poem. So.. the silhouette blackens your dark heart? Wait wait wait. How can you blacken what is already dark!?

OK. and your heart is cold - and that cools your icy flesh... how do you cool what is already icy? AND it steals your warmth? Hold on here - you said that it makes you cold three times? A bit of over kill don't you think?

You do that in a lot of other places too. "Damned, cursed, condemned". A good principle to live by is to pick the one, best word that you want to use - and use just that. Using three words, three lines to describe something weakens your initially point. I Feel nothing when reading this poem because I only see the numerous repetitions jump out at me. But if you choose one example, one word to describe something, you can then hone in and making it the strongest possible to actually give the reader a feeling, an emotion, something to react to.

I think following the above advice will help you skim the fat off this. Try to cultivate your idea, not just be verbose and redundant, and this might end up being more than lots of lines put together, and actually become a poem!

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Demeter
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Demeter wrote a review Review · Aug 28, 2011

Hello there, Matthewclarke! Let's see what you have here.


My perennial silhouette blackens my dark cold heart,


"Perennial silhouette" is amazing, so beautiful. "Dark cold heart" is a bit cliché, besides you use the word "blackens", so it makes "dark" a bit redundant. Either choose another verb or drop the dark.


All these enduring, mirthful years. Fakes.


I like this line -- mirthful is a nice word, and "Fakes" on its own makes it rather spunky, haha.


The Star is greater now; I have watched it redden for Armageddon,


redden for Armageddon -- what a delicious rhyme! I relish it.


for what once was life is now death.


This is a bit on the clichéed side again, watch out!


The rest have wasted, blasted, but I remain, never to deaden.
Cursed, and damned, condemned I still gnaw on breath.


Very nice -- I love the word "deaden", haha. I don't think I've ever heard it before.


Oh... but now only ash, sand. Dust. Bones of backs.


"Dust" seems redundant here. It seems like you already completed the thought, so no need to add any more there.


I have seen all, been all, I know all, and I be where true dark does stem.


This is rather pretty and intriguing!


I fall to my young knees, grasp my forever-same hair and in despair, suddenly chortle,
because all the memories that in me exist, make all I have been and seen, Immortal.


I found this a strong enough ending, even though the lines were so long. I also like the internal rhyme in hair and despair.

Overall, I think you did a great job! *clicks gold star*


Demeter
x

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ScarlettFire
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ScarlettFire wrote a review Review · Aug 28, 2011

Hello there, matthewclarke7. I'm Scarlett and I'll be reviewing your poem tonight.

Wow. This is dark and frightening. I could just imagine the possibility for insanity if one were Immortal. It's a chilling thought. Unable to die, and yet seeing everything the world becomes. Very dark and chilling. And I like it. I think I'll be clicking 'like' when I done here. I have no nitpicks that haven't already been pointed out, sadly. But I can say the flow works well and the imagery is brilliant. Very chilling. Makes me rethink wanting to be Immortal, which is slightly odd (Who wouldn't want Immortality?).

Overall. This is a brilliant and a little more than a slightly dark poem. And I like it. *clicks like* I hope this helped, even a little. And thank you very much for the wonderful and brilliantly dark poetry. Keep writing, and don’t ever give up!

~Scar.

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Twinkle4ever
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Twinkle4ever wrote a review Review · Aug 26, 2011

Hey, I read your poem. I've got to say you've done a pretty good job. The title is very eye-catching. The poem made me think of vampires since they're immortal in most stories.

matthewclarke7 wrote:The Earth beneath me crumbles, scorched, cracks,
There exist sands, cinders, where once there was Them,
Oh... but now only ash, sand. Dust. Bones of backs.
I have seen all, been all, I know all, and I be where true dark does stem.

I liked this part best. It was interesting how you talk about 'Them'. It leaves the reader intrigued. Nice work! :)

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StoryWeaver13
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StoryWeaver13 wrote a review Review · Aug 26, 2011

I thought this was definitely a good poem, the way you wrote it flowed really well and definitely had a sharp mental image. There was only one thing I'd change:

I fall to my young knees, grasp my forever-same hair and in despair, suddenly chortle,


It just seemed out of place for him to describe his knees as "young" - small thing that just kind of came off strangely for whatever reason.
Anyway, this was a really good poem!
Keep writing,
StoryWeaver



There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.
— Arthur C. Clarke