the wilhelm scream

Whoa. I really could've sworn I took care of this review a long time ago, but it seems I neglected to. I hope you accept my full apology. Anyway, let's get started.

I really have no idea where you were trying to go with this piece. It seems you have some amount of intention and sense of direction, but the way you present your various icons and images, which are supposed to help clarify a moral, only muddle and obstruct it. If you really want to include such a large variety of hidden meanings and the like, you should expand this, and in doing this expand a bit more on these metaphors. For example:

and even so, i have had the most hoarse
ache, the most terrible dream, the frothing of
what Cronos never saw and what you will never see!”
Whirlpools of lust given way to echoes of moans
fomenting plots to jump the dinghy as i
fly through the murk to unload my charge;
i play with the greased coins with one hand -
two, four, six eight souls enshrined in gold - and
in the other remember how mother cried.
Wailing from the back row, Picasso's horrified
face justified as the walls spite the tombs of
the unknown, names on my palms split to the
side, etched into Persephone's forced womb—

Even a ferryman
mutes his cries, they say,
as the collapsible tugs on
waves like a child’s hand.
Cast river, iron rod,

word of mouth,
house of God.

a bazaar of Gregorian stalactites,

sweep open as gods
who swing to life on the first day
and find nothing at all

cigarette butts of a couple bored decades

"i shroud my face to
hide the holes from your wretched sockets,
pocked marked bones clutching on to coins
and lockets as you shuffle forth, join us in
holy matrimony and scream out your stony
husks breathy dry as they come, as

i open my mouth,
gulls emerge, stupid-eyed,
voiceless as chambers

and even so, i have had the most hoarse
ache, the most terrible dream, the frothing of
what Cronos never saw and what you will never see!”

We pray to
forsworn rowers.
We play their
dreams like tributaries running down the scope
of a lava flow.

We pray - two,
four, sworn rowers.
(We play). They're dreams,
like tributaries running down the scope of a lava flow.

Well, hello hello. What have we here,


(This is a totally unrelated, unrelevant, useless comment, but the opening line to this made me think of that Written in the Stars song, haha.)

I'm not much of a critic lately, and truthfully, I appreciate the entirety of this because when I read it aloud, the words roll off the tongue and paint beautiful, beautiful images. Anything that I could find wrong within this is just me digging for something worth picking at, but honestly, the poem is beautiful.

I will say though, that even in all of its beauty, the words are a lot. I very much appreciate the vivid images they create, but, I found myself having to keep a lot of words in my head to get the whole picture -- which is definitely an okay thing for this sort of poem, but it made for images that blurred together (an effect that I generally like in some poems, but the two heads in on this made it feel like it was being pulled in opposing directions, and at some points the images broadened and broadened and never came full circle, I think).

All the gulls
sink into waves, like blossoms
into a trout-muscled summer, screaming

This sucks. Burn this sorry thing and start over.

- Monsterific

Me, obviously.

Edit: Ok, I've been posting too much non-critique stuff on this. Placeholder for review or summat here.

Me too, me too! Who did I rip off? This is a collaboration after all.

Boson

Ripoff of Galerius.

Hey there! Dream here, as requested And might I saw, interesting choice of words for this piece! I love a well worded poem ;D. But enough about that, lets get to the critiqueing!

i.

Even a ferryman
mutes his cries, they say,
as the collapsible tugs on <-- collapsible? What is collapsible?
waves like a child’s hand.
Cast river, iron rod,

word of mouth,
house of God. <-- Interesting imagery. I like this part quite a bit.

ii.

Written in stone,
written with fingernails
and charcoal etched in
walls of veins - vales cragged in bones <--- you use the word walls again here. It creates a redundancy that you wouldn't want in this sort of a poem. I would change that word.
as twilight veils the eyes of
a moonlit bride and a gown
starts to smell of seas and
shells. i wrote them every day <-- personally speaking, I'm not a fan of putting a period in the middle of a sentence when it comes to poetry. It kills any chance of flow. Try to keep the periods at the end.
on my wrist, the names of those
who lay - shrieking porcelain dolls, stiff
armed and thin lipped bitten deep
in flying spit, sprayed on a tattered
coin as they prayed long
after they had dried. But <-- confusing. You are giving a ton of imagery here, but it doesn't appear to be giving a definable shape unlike the beginning of the stanza where we get a clear view of what you are implying. Here its just a mess of spitting and coins and praying... I'm not quite sure where you are going and I'm not getting the meaning at all.

in cowlicks of stone, <-- try not to end a stanza thats still connected to the one above it. It looks random and it makes the structure seem pointless.
the driving tide of caves—
a bazaar of Gregorian stalactites,
and against the sea, a sky shears
like a pierced side. All the gulls
sink into waves, like blossoms
into a trout-muscled summer, screaming
and petering out. The caves <--- this stanza shows the imagery I like. Imagery that connects. Everything is pretty much a sequence which is absolutely lovely. Keep working with such things like that. Poetry is fluid. It should be able to connect and flow.
yawn, sweep open as gods
who swing to life on the first day
and find nothing at all, craving
bipeds from bone. <-- interesting but confusing once again. I feel as if you may be pulling some of these lines out for effect. Its hard to understand that effect though.

We pray too,
forsworn rowers.
We play there -
dreams like tributaries
running down the scope
of a lava flow. <--- Lava... where did that come from? I know the imagery would be very impacting but in this case it seems ill-used. White-capped waves would have been more profound and more to the point than lava.

He leads me through tidepools
that churn with dumb blood, down <-- dumb blood? Can blood be dumb?
a steep strangle of stone to the cave <-- I like this imagery. Strangle of stone... well worded. Interesting alliteration.
and i can see the cramped little
cigarette butts of a couple bored decades
like the gnaw of mice on saints' bones
scattered in the corner. Sea-breath, cold buttons, his jaw
out of the dark, his breath
warm as horse-fed apples.<-- again, a sentence that doesn't make sense. I suppose apples in the stomach of a horse would be warm... but in what way is that good imagery?

Styx is a beast. He screams, beat
after beat, arteries clutching against <-- aterties?
the seared boat as smoke gives way to
lay away the souls, spread bare
like butter from the whole to the half-jawed
grins laced on the walls, driven in by
thumbs and crow calls. "i shroud my face to
hide the holes from your wretched sockets,
pocked marked bones clutching on to coins
and lockets as you shuffle forth, join us in
holy matrimony and scream out your stony
husks breathy dry as they come, as <--- confusing. Interesting imagery but random and sporatically placed.

i open my mouth,
gulls emerge, stupid-eyed,
voiceless as chambers

and even so, i have had the most hoarse
ache, the most terrible dream, the frothing of
what Cronos never saw and what you will never see!”
Whirlpools of lust given way to echoes of moans
fomenting plots to jump the dinghy as i
fly through the murk to unload my charge;
i play with the greased coins with one hand -
two, four, six eight souls enshrined in gold - and
in the other remember how mother cried.
Wailing from the back row, Picasso's horrified
face justified as the walls spite the tombs of
the unknown, names on my palms split to the
side, etched into Persephone's forced womb— <-- I like this stanza. A lot. Its to the point. It connects some of your themes before. It makes sense to some degree. Picasso... I didn't get so much.

iii.

—brought fruit totters
onto a cliff of ripeness, such swollen rocks;
branches bend with weight
like drugged voices. One misstep,
to plummet down
the gate of ivory.
At least you can still
hear your color over <--- again. Poetry, though complicated, should make sense, and lines like 'hearing color' though interesting to the mouth, are confusing to the mind.
the gangrape of bees - two, four
six, your soreness of half-there
wysteria against brick.

We pray to
forsworn rowers.
We play their
dreams like tributaries running down the scope
of a lava flow. <--- again, not feeling the lava flow.

We pray - two,
four, sworn rowers.
(We play). They're dreams,
like tributaries running down the scope of a lava flow.

Hello! It's been a while since I've touched poetry, but hopefully I'll have some meaningful feedback.

My feeble poetic mind actually liked this overall! I think the second part's probably my favorite. The sailor-like metaphor from the beginning tied very neatly into the Styx bit. It was kinda cool! And hopefully that's not just me being proud of myself for following it.

The first stanza confused me. Mainly the God bit. I was kind of hoping this would make more sense later, but then we get into Styx. And the jump from God to Greek beliefs messed with my head. But I reeeally like your second part, so perhaps the first stanza can be worked with? "word of mouth, house of God" is it. The lines before it I could follow fine. I just don't see why we're mentioning God here.

And actually, before my brain implodes from thinking so much, I can't make sense of the first part at all. The other two I could, but this one is really hurting my brain. I don't see a tie between this and the title. Except that the ferryman is muting a scream.

You've got some really pretty wording going on here throughout the whole thing. Especially the second part (which is my favorite as already mentioned), but there's a glaring "stupid" somewhere in there. I don't understand the use of the word stupid when the rest of the poem was much more sophisticated. Otherwise, the second part was just full of cool imagery and meaning and tied in with the title rather well! I enjoyed this bit.

I *really* love how you ended this. It tied with the rest of the poem, and that's exactly what I look for when I read the poem. I hate being left hanging with a dumbfounded expression, but this one ended so nicely, it made me smile!

That's all the thoughts I had, I'm afraid. Hopefully you got something out of my feedback. I thoroughly enjoyed this, as much as my feeble poetic mind could! Good luck in the contest. I'm sure you'll give the others a run for their money.

Keep writing!

Jabber, the One and Only!

Hello Smiley, I'm here as requested!

First off, I want to point out the weird way you've separated this poem... Or maybe not separated but spaced? I'm not sure how to say that...

Written in stone,
written with fingernails
and charcoal etched in
walls of veins
vales cragged in bones * I'm not sure what you meant by cragged...
as twilight veils the eyes of
a moonlit bride and a gown
starts to smell of seas and shells.
Should there be a space here because it's a new subject?
I wrote them every day
on my wrist, the names of those
who lay - shrieking porcelain dolls,
stiff armed and thin lipped bitten deep
in flying spit, sprayed on a tattered
coin as they prayed long
after they had dried.

But in cowlicks of stone,
the driving tide of caves—
a bazaar of Gregorian stalactites,
and against the sea, a sky shears
like a pierced side.
All the gulls sink into waves,
like blossoms into a trout-muscled summer,
screaming and petering out.
The caves yawn, sweep open as gods
who swing to life on the first day
and find nothing at all, craving
bipeds from bone.

and I can see the cramped little

"I shroud my face to
hide the holes from your wretched sockets,

as I open my mouth,
gulls emerge, stupid-eyed,
voiceless as chambers

and even so, I have had the most hoarse

Whirlpools of lust given way to echoes of moans
fomenting plots to jump the dinghy as I
fly through the murk to unload my charge;
I play with the greased coins with one hand -
two, four, six comma, eight souls enshrined in gold - and
in the other remember how mother cried.

names on my palms etched into
Persephone's forced womb—

This is obviously going to win. Best cowrite I've read yet.

Also -- who are you and what have you done with the real Galerius.

Critique to come once I figure out why Galerius suddenly got another account, or why he sounds like Kylan sometimes, or how on earth two newcomers to YWS can imitate our poetic legends so seamlessly, and -- dare I say it -- do it better in some parts. PM if you feel like explaining yourself.


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