Creative Writing
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Shaper
Member # 3442
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written Wednesday, October 26 2005 07:45
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Well, erm, I remember somebody once posted a song on here, a while back (may have been Ichsi?), and I was really amazed. I've been writing poetry for a long while, but was never really brave enough to post any. Well, 'til now. The light of my life found this and already plastered it over other message boards, so I thought I'd post it here. Erm, feel free to rip it apart or whatever. I'm looking at you TM :P So, it's called "Moonbeam" ----- An artist's dream on a revolving door A burning world brings tears to my eyes And the soulless, lightless, deep cold faces Keep watching as the doors slow down Is that an angel out there in the darkness And is she pointing the way into your heart? Is the only way I can sleep at night To stare up at the gates of heaven? To stand beneath the bleeding sky? To dream that I'm warm, with you, inside? I've seen a angel outside in the darkness Aglow in a blaze of hope and limitless hate. I can't walk past the faces without you But the angel will carry me forth I can't live with the emptiness inside me But the angel will carry me forth And when the moon waxes in the starlit sky I'll be thinking of you in my arms. ----- -------------------- And when you want to Live How do you start? Where do you go? Who do you need to know? Posts: 2864 | Registered: Monday, September 8 2003 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 3364
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written Wednesday, October 26 2005 17:58
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I ran through quite a few impressions on that one. Very dark, but containing light. Sad yet not without hope. I liked it. :) -------------------- "Even the worst Terror from Hell can be transformed to a testimony from Heaven!" - Rev. David Wood 6\23\05 "Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can." - John Wesley Posts: 1001 | Registered: Tuesday, August 19 2003 07:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 4
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written Wednesday, October 26 2005 18:51
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Lord Byron once stated that, to be a poet, one must be either in love or miserable. He may well have been only half-right. ... "An artist's dream on a revolving door" Revolving door invokes imagery of department stores, materialism, et cetera. Dismal perhaps depending on your politics, but it doesn't convey that feeling to the reader. (This image isn't overwrought, unlike most of yours. It just doesn't accomplish anything is all.) "A burning world brings tears to my eyes" Cliché, maudlin and hollow. "And the soulless, lightless, deep cold faces" See #1. "Keep watching as the doors slow down" Why are they watching? Aren't they supposed to be distanced? "Is that an angel out there in the darkness" See #1. Also, "out there" makes the poem far more vulgar or mundane, making your angel far less profound. "And is she pointing the way into your heart?" See #1. In fact, this line is perhaps the worst violator of the whole poem. "Is the only way… …bleeding sky?" See #1. "To dream that I'm warm, with you, inside?" ...I'm not sure if you even intended this, but I dig the Freudian imagery here. "I've seen a angel outside in the darkness" Another violator of #1... "Aglow in a blaze of hope and limitless hate." I'm not even sure what you're saying here. I mean, you can't really claim the defense of abstraction when your abstractions contradict themselves. (If you actually want to make this a component of your poem, do so, but be aware that it's a zero-sum game. Either you explicate whatever the hell this line means, or slash it entirely.) "I can't walk past… …carry me forth" This isn't overwrought imagery, per se. This is more just the territory of maudlin triteness that is usually reserved for pop-songs. "And when the moon waxes in the starlit sky" I like this line. "I'll be thinking of you in my arms." This is also WAY too maudlin. ---- #1. Your images are way too overwrought. You needn't tell me that faces are soulless or that the sky is bloody- in fact, even if you do, I won't believe you. Try some metaphor for greater affect. For instance: "And the soulless, lightless, deep cold faces" could become... "Faces warped from vulgar, consuming apathy" Try to go for more profound images throughout the poem. #2. Your rhythm from line to line is nonexistant. I won't demand that you adhere to iambic pentameter* or italian/shakespearean sonnet form, but at least try to make your work more smooth-sounding. When it's jostling to read, especially when it's clear as day that you don't have any special mission for the lyrics in your poem, you really should clean it up. #3. Your rhetoric is terrible. In fact, the prose I'm writing to illustrate your poem's shortcomings is more fluid than the poetry you wrote. Give in to the darkside and use MSWord's thesaurus feature if you have to. Your poem is yearning for better diction, and but badly. (* Interesting fact- Robert Frost claimed that iambic pentameter was the only way in which to write true poetry, and wrote in iambic tetrameter for most of his career.) ... I don't want to comment on the poem's quality overall until you've reworked it significantly. -------------------- * Posts: 6936 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Wednesday, October 26 2005 20:00
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I propose that TM offer us a brilliant example of his own poetry, as it seems he has mastered all the techniques for proper poem assembly. [ Wednesday, October 26, 2005 20:12: Message edited by: Synergy67 ] -------------------- A4 Items List A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List G4 Insidious Infiltrator NR Items List Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 2984
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written Wednesday, October 26 2005 20:23
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TM was relatively lenient - relatively to the poem, and to TM. :P Poetry is a far less forgiving medium than prose. It's much easier to produce toe-curling content using the former. While this poem wasn't quite toe-curling, it needs practice. Until then? Hide it. It's what I do. You can't make good poetry until you've produced tons of first crap, then bad stuff, then mediocre works. However, showing these results to an audience can result in a lot of discouraging feedback. --- Oh, by the way: Meter can occasionally forgive a lack of content, in a poem. Powerful language can sometimes make up for a lacking meter (or be enhanced by it). To use that, though, you first need to understand how both work. For now, you'll have to use the standard ingredients for style: Rhyme, inflection, meter, metaphors, etc. [ Wednesday, October 26, 2005 20:24: Message edited by: 4000 ] -------------------- Encyclopaedia Ermariana • Forum Archives • Forum Statistics • RSS [Topic / Forum] My Blog • Polaris • I eat novels for breakfast. Polaris is dead, long live Polaris. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00 |
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Shake Before Using
Member # 75
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written Wednesday, October 26 2005 20:44
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Bah, Synergy, you know very well that's a bad argument to make - despite never having created a Blades of Exile scenario myself and possessing no skills of scenario creation, I can accurately assess that a poor one sucks. Posts: 3234 | Registered: Thursday, October 4 2001 07:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Wednesday, October 26 2005 20:47
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Just as I suspected. Another unmarried marriage counselor. EDIT: Hmm, I wasn't making an argument at all. I seriously would like to see the kind of poetry constructed by someone who is able to dissect another poem with such cold concision. If we are comparing the skills of software game building to the art of writing poetry, I'm a bit amused. I'd not be inclined to mention the two in the same sentence. Despite that, never mind. SupaNik did invite comment with the particular phrase to "rip it apart" and even bothered to invoke the TM demon by name, so I guess he got what he asked for. I've seen worse from 18 year olds. Harkening back to the U.S. court history debating decency and specifically referencing pornography, I can say I don't know how to define good poetry, but I know it when I see it. I think a good native sense of aesthetics and a healthy dose of intuition are probably more critical to make pleasing prose than knowing "the rules." I'm certain that a truly good poet can break many of those supposed "rules" of writing a good poem and still create something powerful and evocative. [ Thursday, October 27, 2005 00:17: Message edited by: Synergy67 ] -------------------- A4 Items List A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List G4 Insidious Infiltrator NR Items List Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 2984
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written Wednesday, October 26 2005 23:40
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An unmarried marriage counselor might well be "living according to his own advice". :P Edit: While you can make that argument for TM: I *have* written poetry. Crappy though it is, that doesn't disqualify me from judging it. I know bad poetry when I see it. :P Btw, the "An Artist's dream on a revolving door" would be a wonderful line if you followed up on that metaphor or explained it in the following lines. It's a perfect iambic pentameter. Just if you were to write the rest of the poem like it, it would be great. Actually, that holds for most of the lines. Each could look good in another poem, but as it is it seems a bit disconnected. [ Wednesday, October 26, 2005 23:46: Message edited by: 4000 ] -------------------- Encyclopaedia Ermariana • Forum Archives • Forum Statistics • RSS [Topic / Forum] My Blog • Polaris • I eat novels for breakfast. Polaris is dead, long live Polaris. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Thursday, October 27 2005 00:03
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quote:It's not quite pure iambic pentameter -- you don't stress the "a" when reading it, or at least I don't, and when I force myself to do so it sounds unnatural. Not that that's a bad thing; I'm just pointing it out. [ Thursday, October 27, 2005 00:03: Message edited by: Explode Thuryl Now ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Thursday, October 27 2005 00:30
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I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is. I've written very few poems in my life. This is one I wrote when I was 20—quite some time ago. It was just a personal experiment as I knew and continue to know almost nothing technical about poetry. I consider it self-indulgent adolescent gothic-romantic fantasy, and I had a somewhat overly-ornate and complicated way of writing back then. I sent it to the girl I was in love with. We broke up some months later, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't just because of the poem. ;) THE REBEL'S RETURN The air hung thick, starved for sound A passage barren Black death to share Ahead, a savage lair in Which no hope, no life, no breath to spare Cold iron gates stood firmly bound A sudden tremor, rumbling loud Then crack of light Tinged in fiery glow Between walls of silent might, With tortured groan of buckled steel, did show White mist hissed forth, spreading ghostly shroud Deafening crash of shattered bones Frightened echoes fleeing Down vacant hall Dark shape of being In shadow's guise, cast upon the wall Metal, lifeless twisted on the stones And then, silence; the vapors fled Sullen, drifting ashes Fell to blackened earth Drunken light, tossed in splashes Forth to show, in widened berth A silhouette 'gainst crackling flames of liquid red He stood alone, grim and pale Cloak stained and torn Black boots rooted to the floor A wisp of hair in eyes to scorn Broken gates, as turning gaze upon the door In vengeance cursed the death he did assail And in his hand a long streaked sword Tightly held in grip Of iron, gleamed like ice; The quiet but persistent drip Of crimson blood from blade, the vice Of every victor and every victor's reward In the shadows deep, the fires burned Darker, lower in vanquished gloom He stepped across The threshold, strode from halls of doom Stars and moon outside to greet; no loss From Hell itself, The Rebel hath indeed returned! [ Thursday, October 27, 2005 16:00: Message edited by: Synergy67 ] -------------------- A4 Items List A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List G4 Insidious Infiltrator NR Items List Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
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La Canaliste
Member # 5563
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written Thursday, October 27 2005 00:43
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This has as much meaning as "a whiter shade of pale". It was previously posted on Desp, but I found it in a notebook while hunting for a price list for selling my armour (don't ask). Let me walk Let me walk across the bridge that holds the nighttime from the morning: Let me catch the weeping stars and set them on their journey home. There was acid on the knife that cut the jewels from my girdle Which sent the final message from the sunlight to the stone. And tell me, master mariner, whose daughter you are bedding And if you sing her songs as you sit her on your knee And if the forty thousand birds that featured at your wedding Were weighing down the branches as you tied her to the tree. And tell me if the autographs of Kissinger and Monroe Are framed in silver frames above your hallway shelf And when the darkness thickens round the fir trees in the mountains And the velvet drapes need drawing: do you still do that yourself? So as the darkness falls like a feather on the carpet Let us take a final look into the ruins of the fire There was music once and dicing and gaiety and laughter And the echo of them ripples and the ghost will not expire. No meaning, no significance, just words. Enjoy Edit: fixed a typo [ Thursday, October 27, 2005 00:45: Message edited by: saunders ] -------------------- I am a mater of time and how . Deep down, you know you should have voted for Alcritas! Posts: 387 | Registered: Tuesday, March 1 2005 08:00 |
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Shake Before Using
Member # 75
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written Thursday, October 27 2005 07:14
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While you have a legitimate point (that actually giving helpful advice of your own invention requires some amount of ability to do it yourself, or some experience in having done it yourself), Synergy, you certainly would not argue that an unmarried person could accurately assess that a marriage in which the husband and wife routinely angrily beat each other with clubs and angrily threatened each other with guns was a poor one, would you? Posts: 3234 | Registered: Thursday, October 4 2001 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Thursday, October 27 2005 08:46
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Many literary critics (I'd guess most, but I can't back it up) are not themselves producers of literature. That doesn't make them hypocrites or poor judges. Creating and judging are, after all, different skills. —Alorael, who is not terribly practiced at either. He's more of a lover of prose, and neither a critic nor a (good) writer. And there are limericks, of course, but they hardly count as poetry at all. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 2984
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written Thursday, October 27 2005 09:14
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Saunders, did you write that? (You said you "found" it, but not if that was after writing and forgetting it, or you found it somewhere else). The words sound very powerful. The beginning appears to be trochaic ("LET me WALK aCROSS the BRIDGE that..."), but it switches. There are also some "holes" in the meter (I can't figure out how to stress "And if you sing her songs as you sit her on your knee" without stumbling). I still don't know if you wrote that, but the style does remind me faintly of your "Guy by the Canal" story... Edit: I suddenly realize that I'm among the few who have claimed to poeticize and haven't posted anything. Wait a bit while I rummage for something that doesn't make you want to claw out your eyes. [ Thursday, October 27, 2005 09:16: Message edited by: Explode The Bandwagon Now ] -------------------- Encyclopaedia Ermariana • Forum Archives • Forum Statistics • RSS [Topic / Forum] My Blog • Polaris • I eat novels for breakfast. Polaris is dead, long live Polaris. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 3364
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written Thursday, October 27 2005 09:53
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I wrote this in grade school. It's cheezy but hey, I was a kid. Real is cloth. Fake is plastic. Both are life Until the casket. Too much corrupts. Too little starves, And want for leads To prison bars. The thing you most Often argue about, And subject of many Philospher's spout. It's color matches A person's eyes When what's in pocket Can't match the price. Every problem it Seems to solve When will we learn? When will we evolve? -------------------- "Even the worst Terror from Hell can be transformed to a testimony from Heaven!" - Rev. David Wood 6\23\05 "Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can." - John Wesley Posts: 1001 | Registered: Tuesday, August 19 2003 07:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Thursday, October 27 2005 11:31
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Imban, you're right, no one needs a marriage counselor to know or to be told their marriage is in big trouble. That's not what marriage counselors are for. Sure, anyone with half a sense for art can criticize a poem, despite much of the process being subjective and personal. TM scrutinized every line of SupaNiik's poem with exacting concision. He shows he knows exactly what is wrong at every point and even suggested how to make some lines "good." I think TM should demonstrate the "right" way to write Nik's poem by rewriting it according to all the rules for making a "good" poem. Then that aptitude for dissection would actually be worth something. [ Thursday, October 27, 2005 11:43: Message edited by: Synergy67 ] -------------------- A4 Items List A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List G4 Insidious Infiltrator NR Items List Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
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Shake Before Using
Member # 75
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written Thursday, October 27 2005 13:23
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Well, okay, apparently we were arguing over nothing. My apologies, since I believe I misinterpreted your first post on this thread. Posts: 3234 | Registered: Thursday, October 4 2001 07:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Thursday, October 27 2005 13:26
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Oh, you probably didn't. It was dripping with sarcasm, but I also meant it as a legitimate challenge out of curiosity. -------------------- A4 Items List A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List G4 Insidious Infiltrator NR Items List Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 1993
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written Thursday, October 27 2005 15:21
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SupaNik, I can see that you are a very romantic young man and probably fallen in love with desperence and sadness, but this is sheer nonsense. The sky "bleeds" at the utmost in a sunset but not in the night. What is a "blaze of hope and limitless hate"? What has hope to do with hate? ;_; Clichés and shallow pomposities. :) Ok, the first line and the waxing moon are promising. Synergy, you wrote this for a girl :eek: and she liked it? Hmm. Which girl might like such martial images of darkness and male ego-blasts? ^_^ Maybe she liked you in spite of your poems. Saunders, this is beautiful and touching, did you write it? Gizmo, I like the first verse :) -------------------- Slartucker: * facepalm facepalm facepalm * Dikiyoba: Are you unconscious yet? Posts: 1420 | Registered: Wednesday, October 2 2002 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 2984
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written Thursday, October 27 2005 15:27
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This is something I put together for a roleplay once. Overused imagery, and a style that fails miserably at imitating R.E. Howard. But anyways. quote: -------------------- Encyclopaedia Ermariana • Forum Archives • Forum Statistics • RSS [Topic / Forum] My Blog • Polaris • I eat novels for breakfast. Polaris is dead, long live Polaris. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00 |
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Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
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written Thursday, October 27 2005 15:50
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SupaNik, the poem does a good job of conveying your emotions, which is the main point of this kind of poetry. I usually prefer poems that rhyme, but yours flows well enough that I didn't really notice that it doesn't rhyme. Synergy, the style somewhat reminds me of poems from fantasy books, which is probably what you were trying to imitate. Saunders, is this poem part of your canal story? Jewels, yours was pretty fun to read. A nice diversion from the dark atmosphere of the other three. Aran, that's a good way to present your setting, if that's what you were trying to do. And now my contribution. I've only written less than a dozen, so don't expect too much. Campus at Night The quiet calm of empty walkways... Of darkened buildings silent grace... When noisy crowds disappear, Great calm can everything embrace. Dignified beauty of old buildings, Highlighted by moon's bluish light, Can truly be appreciated Only in silence of the night. Tall candle of the Campanillie Spreads light to all near and far. And quiet beauty of dark walkways Makes you forget where you are. Gone are the crowds and the rallies, The rush of students after class And the cries of violent protests Forgotten are like broken glass. And all the memories unpleasant Seem gone forever from your sight. As you walk through the streets enchanted By quiet magic of the night. [ Thursday, October 27, 2005 16:02: Message edited by: Zeviz ] -------------------- Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword, For it too has the power to kill. However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword, Can also have the power to heal. Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Thursday, October 27 2005 16:08
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quote:The sort who dyes her hair black and goes to Skinny Puppy concerts. quote:Yes, in spite of my poems, for a season. Then she gleefully ripped my heart from my chest and ground it into the earth with oh so much gothic-romantic, tragic finesse. I can't remember writing a poem since, come to think of it. Ain't love grand? :D [ Thursday, October 27, 2005 16:09: Message edited by: Synergy67 ] -------------------- A4 Items List A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List G4 Insidious Infiltrator NR Items List Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 1993
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written Thursday, October 27 2005 16:25
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:P You should have written a poem after she left you ... -------------------- Slartucker: * facepalm facepalm facepalm * Dikiyoba: Are you unconscious yet? Posts: 1420 | Registered: Wednesday, October 2 2002 07:00 |
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Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!
Member # 919
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written Thursday, October 27 2005 17:14
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Heh. My best poetry is similarly inspired. I agree completely. Saunders, it's pleasant to read with or without a meaning. SupaNik, it's not great, but I think it's got potential. A thesaurus is an invaluable tool - don't ever be ashamed to use one. That goes for all of you. -------------------- And though the musicians would die, the music would live on in the imaginations of all who heard it. -The Last Pendragon Polaris = joy. In case of emergency, break glass. Posts: 3351 | Registered: Saturday, April 6 2002 08:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 3171
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written Thursday, October 27 2005 19:24
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A wrote a good one a while ago which earned me an excellence in school (the equivelent of an A+) and if I can find it I may have to post it here. Posts: 776 | Registered: Friday, July 4 2003 07:00 |