Thread: You have now, a smile

Dust endings
and you still have now
the in crowd say he's got a smile

Full awake
and heart stone cold
the outsiders must hold his soul

I his mind
he just aint right
asking junkies for a light

Base line
in his life is sin
melody's a hope so thin

Bring him
till he needs to go
tell him still he'll never show

For Slight
and spite he lives death
running down his face and neck

A Book
may be his only need
he wears his spleen upon his sleeve

It our own fault
you'll see it now
the in crowd
says he got
a smile

any good?

i do mean to sound desperate.....

i'ts been a while....

Er, I'm sorry. But I can't quite get it, even after reading through it three times. The words seem so random... Is this about a guy walking through, say, the park with a lot going on in his head? That's all I can picture, and I'm not even sure of it.

I know there's some meaning here, but I can't see it. Care to enlighten me?

Originally Posted by TheFuhrer02

Er, I'm sorry. But I can't quite get it, even after reading through it three times. The words seem so random... Is this about a guy walking through, say, the park with a lot going on in his head? That's all I can picture, and I'm not even sure of it.

I know there's some meaning here, but I can't see it. Care to enlighten me?

i need to be less abstract


this is about a kid who gets dragged into a drug habit....

because he wanted to be like the cool kids

the in crowd say he's got a smile (should it be says)

I his mind (in?)

he just aint right (ain't)

For Slight (what is the significance of slight being capitalized?)

he wears his spleen upon his sleeve (this line seems a little cliche)

I think the rhyme scheme is a little to predictable. This might benefit from a rewrite. Try taking the strongest ideas and write them down without worrying too much about rhyme and focus on image.

Originally Posted by SvirVolgate

the in crowd say he's got a smile (should it be says)

I his mind (in?)

he just aint right (ain't)

For Slight (what is the significance of slight being capitalized?)

he wears his spleen upon his sleeve (this line seems a little cliche)

I think the rhyme scheme is a little to predictable. This might benefit from a rewrite. Try taking the strongest ideas and write them down without worrying too much about rhyme and focus on image.

cliche?

i never heard that line used before....


and i don't write poems that don't rhyme

thats just me

and i don't write poems that don't rhyme

you could try it as an exercise in writing concrete images.

he wears his [heart] upon his sleeve

why is the spleen important?

Originally Posted by SvirVolgate

you could try it as an exercise in writing concrete images.

he wears his [heart] upon his sleeve


why is the spleen important?

the spleen is useless....

thus he wears nothing on his sleeve and is very hard to read...much like this poem

I like this... interesting voice. I would only say that you could look to economize your language a bit more. It reminded me of this: We Real Cool- Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More

I almost made the mistake of reading comments before critiquing, but stopped myself three or four posts down. I like this piece a lot. Because I like it a lot, I'm pulling out the chainsaw and straight razors:

Originally Posted by Eli

Dust endings
and you still have now
the in crowd say he's got a smile

Full awake
and heart stone cold
the outsiders must hold his soul

I his mind
he just aint right
asking junkies for a light

The tone of terms like "heart stone cold" and "hold his soul" seems too different from "he just ain't right" and "junkies for a light." Although I think the "outsiders must hold his soul" line is a little weak, I think the tone of that is better suited to the rest of the poem than the tone of the stanza after it. I do think you need to make a direct drug reference, like you do with junkies, because this part is the key that makes the theme clear. But, maybe you should play with a few different wordings to see what might fit with the overall tone more smoothly.

Base line
in his life is sin
melody's a hope so thin

Bring him
till he needs to go
tell him still he'll never show

For Slight
and spite he lives death
running down his face and neck

A Book
may be his only need
he wears his spleen upon his sleeve

"spleen," as real an organ as it is, has been used in comedy so much that it's hard to read the word without thinking it funny. Maybe it's because that's where the fart-fairies work their magic.

It our own fault
you'll see it now
the in crowd
says he got
a smile

I think you should work with this. Two general suggestions, first is pacing and development. A poem like this, telling a narrative, might benefit from a bit of narrative structure. By this I mean to develop the problem slowly from one stanza to the next. For example, after your introductory stanza you could have him hanging out with the "cool kids." Then, have him curious or exposed, then enraptured and blissful, then obsessed, then fallen. Maybe even dead at the end.

My second suggestion is on form. I like that (a recent topic somewhere else here) you've written free-verse while at the same time inventing your own conventions. This is the style as I've pinpointed it.

seven 3 line stanzas, one 5 line stanza.
Basic rhythm pattern (+stressed, -unstressed):
+-+
-+-+
-+-+-+-+

Since you've created your own rhythm pattern (something I personally feel is necessary in my own poetry), and an interesting one, I think you should develop it and try to play with your stanzas to follow it more closely. It's hard to follow exactly, but I half-cheat when I do it. If this were the rhythm of one of my poems it would probably be schemed like this:

-+
-+-+
-+-+-+-+

Any unstressed syllable might be removed, replaced with a comma, or have another unstressed syllable with it, but I would try to limit this mostly to the starts and ends of lines, and probably not want to do it any more than once or twice per line. That's when the rhythm would start to become noticeably clunky.


As for the final stanza. I've always been fond of bookend stanzas, ending with the same as the beginning, but I've always been steered away from it. That's all I've got to say about the final stanza being the same, but on its rhythm: I think you should try to either reverse the pattern of the regular stanza-rhythm, so that the poem (his life in addiction) dwindles to nothing at the end. Or, maybe give it a uniform rhythm, so that each line is the same and the poem ends of in a regular cadence.

edit: I didn't even notice the internal rhymes. I like rhyme, and think that it is way undervalued in general. But I also like not-rhyme. I think it's good to write in rhyme, but you will be a much stronger poet if you dabble in both - your skill set will be expanded and crossover one to the other. In the case of this poem specifically, I think rhythm should be a much higher priority. Some of the rhymes work nicely, but I don't think you should sacrifice rhythm or meaning for rhyme.

Originally Posted by Slugfly

I almost made the mistake of reading comments before critiquing, but stopped myself three or four posts down. I like this piece a lot. Because I like it a lot, I'm pulling out the chainsaw and straight razors:


The tone of terms like "heart stone cold" and "hold his soul" seems too different from "he just ain't right" and "junkies for a light." Although I think the "outsiders must hold his soul" line is a little weak, I think the tone of that is better suited to the rest of the poem than the tone of the stanza after it. I do think you need to make a direct drug reference, like you do with junkies, because this part is the key that makes the theme clear. But, maybe you should play with a few different wordings to see what might fit with the overall tone more smoothly.

"spleen," as real an organ as it is, has been used in comedy so much that it's hard to read the word without thinking it funny. Maybe it's because that's where the fart-fairies work their magic.

I think you should work with this. Two general suggestions, first is pacing and development. A poem like this, telling a narrative, might benefit from a bit of narrative structure. By this I mean to develop the problem slowly from one stanza to the next. For example, after your introductory stanza you could have him hanging out with the "cool kids." Then, have him curious or exposed, then enraptured and blissful, then obsessed, then fallen. Maybe even dead at the end.

My second suggestion is on form. I like that (a recent topic somewhere else here) you've written free-verse while at the same time inventing your own conventions. This is the style as I've pinpointed it.

seven 3 line stanzas, one 5 line stanza.
Basic rhythm pattern (+stressed, -unstressed):
+-+
-+-+
-+-+-+-+

Since you've created your own rhythm pattern (something I personally feel is necessary in my own poetry), and an interesting one, I think you should develop it and try to play with your stanzas to follow it more closely. It's hard to follow exactly, but I half-cheat when I do it. If this were the rhythm of one of my poems it would probably be schemed like this:

-+
-+-+
-+-+-+-+

Any unstressed syllable might be removed, replaced with a comma, or have another unstressed syllable with it, but I would try to limit this mostly to the starts and ends of lines, and probably not want to do it any more than once or twice per line. That's when the rhythm would start to become noticeably clunky.


As for the final stanza. I've always been fond of bookend stanzas, ending with the same as the beginning, but I've always been steered away from it. That's all I've got to say about the final stanza being the same, but on its rhythm: I think you should try to either reverse the pattern of the regular stanza-rhythm, so that the poem (his life in addiction) dwindles to nothing at the end. Or, maybe give it a uniform rhythm, so that each line is the same and the poem ends of in a regular cadence.

edit: I didn't even notice the internal rhymes. I like rhyme, and think that it is way undervalued in general. But I also like not-rhyme. I think it's good to write in rhyme, but you will be a much stronger poet if you dabble in both - your skill set will be expanded and crossover one to the other. In the case of this poem specifically, I think rhythm should be a much higher priority. Some of the rhymes work nicely, but I don't think you should sacrifice rhythm or meaning for rhyme.

you're a genius

lol! No. I just like what I do and get long-winded sometimes.