Coca Cola

by xanthan gum

Published October 26, 2006

Under these black lights in the atrium
of the teenage heart, I whisper across the
chestnut table - "Hey honey, this tastes like
blood. Jesus Christ. Golgatha burns tonight."
He turns black-and-blue, and I turn on you
but your indebted sevenfold, star-crossed,
heart-crossed, across a cross and
splayed across my heart.

Haphazard, once upon a dream I called you
innocent. But now you're always screaming out my name.
Chaste, skin-deep is only as far as you'll
ever need to go.

Comments & reviews · 8
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lexy
Review
lexy wrote a review Review · Nov 2, 2006

xanthan gum wrote:Under these black lights in the atrium
of the teenage heart, I whisper across the
chestnut table - "Hey honey, this tastes like
blood. Jesus Christ. Golgatha burns tonight."
He turns black-and-blue, and I turn on you
but your indebted sevenfold, star-crossed,
heart-crossed, across a cross and
splayed a[color=yellow]cross my heart.[/color]

Haphazard, once upon a dream I called you
innocent. But now you're always screaming out my name.
Chaste, skin-deep is only as far as you'll
ever need to go.


What I have written in red is the imagery that i liked :-)
The words in yellow are the ones I felt were used too much.
Other than that I was really impressed and I liked it.
Well done xxxxx

pandoraswritings wrote a review Review · Oct 26, 2006

Wow, shuddered reading this. It was creepy, but it was a good creepy. It was very good. I look forward to reading more of your poetry. I liked how you said "teenage heart" as though it was different from any other heart.
Wonderful work.

Pandora

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Incandescence
Review
Incandescence wrote a review Review · Oct 26, 2006

Sara,


I am pleased with this output.

Any clause involving the word "heart" can be dropped immediately--it just makes your work sophomoric. The line Jack and Snoink took issue with I can not share their sentiments on; however, I will say that it is reminiscent of poetry found on teen-angst sites, cess pools for melodrama. For effect, you should try playing with / omitting your prepositional phrases, making them active--I think it looks better on you.


Thanks for letting me read and respond,
Brad

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Firestarter
Review
Firestarter wrote a review Review · Oct 26, 2006

Mattie >> Golgotha was where Jesus was crucified, I think. Hence the use of cross in the same stanza.

I have to agree with Snoink -- the first stanza is way better than the second -- I think it's something to do with "But now you're always screaming out my name" which didn't seem to work in the context of the poem.

User avatar
Snoink
Review
Snoink wrote a review Review · Oct 26, 2006

Heheh! I like the repetition of cross. It made my head spin, which was a good thing. (Or maybe the spinning because I need to eat?) In any case, it had a dizzying effect, which I like. I have to say, the first stanza is totally awesome, but the second stanza is only okay. I don't know... it seems too preachy for me. But maybe that's because I'm weird like that. ;)

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Cassandra
Review
Cassandra wrote a review Review · Oct 26, 2006

As Elizabeth and Mattie have said, there's definitely this eerie feeling I get when reading this, which is good! That means you used the words in this to make the reader feel an emotion, and that is the mark of an excellent poet, I think.

Obviously I'm not much of a poetry crit, but I just thought I'd let you know that I liked this, [s]along every other poem you've ever written[/s] and I remain impressed. :D

User avatar
Mattie
Review
Mattie wrote a review Review · Oct 26, 2006

I love love love this part:

your indebted sevenfold, star-crossed,
heart-crossed, across a cross and
splayed across my heart.


I loved how you took a simple word and wrote it to where it rhymed. It even made sense and flowed well. I like the whole poem, really. It reminded me of something witchy...hm, and it's short too, but was very satisfying in a way. Oh...I got this creepy feeling when reading it. :) Very nice though...your discriptions were good as well, and not too much. But one thing, what exactly does Golgatha mean? I think if you cleared that it'd be much more understandable. You kind of stop there when reading it. (Or I did, anyway.)

Random avatar
Elizabeth
Review
Elizabeth wrote a review Review · Oct 26, 2006

This creeped me out... In a good way heh....

I think you used the word cross too many times in those two lines lol... start crossed, heart crossed, across a cross :P
I think that was actually funny even though it was probably intentional.

I liked it lol... It feels obsessiony... that's very scary as well.



Perfection is lots of little things done well.
— Marco Pierre White