Malone

There's a bottle of hate hidden in a chest under my bed that I bring out to drink on special occasions.

It's sweet - not bitter like you'd think - and thick and orange-ish in a way that is reminiscent of cough syrup,
but without the soothing narcotic effects.

The sticker on the clear glass bottle reads "Hate - The Good Stuff" in rolling cursive
set in a field of deep purple.

Can you see the bottle yet? In your mind?

Good.

Here:

Have a drink.




Any feedback on line breaks/spacing and wording would be appreciated. I'm also debating between the colon after "Here" or a hyphen or a period, a comma, or nothing at all.
I was going to describe the "orange-ish" as fossilized amber, and I was going to say something about the sun shining through the liquid, but ultimately kept those two out. Any thoughts on whether to put them in or not?
I have a feeling this is one of those "I like it enough that it must suck" type of pieces.
You guys are better with poetry than I am. Let me know.
Thanks in advance.

__________________
There Is A Policeman Inside All Our Heads: He Must Be Destroyed


Malone's Mind
Everyday Madness Kindle Edition

vangoghsear

I'd end it with something like this:

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If writing is wrong, I don't want to be right.

Freya

I feel a good flow with what you have. Punctuation is so personal, I'd but a comma -reads, "Hate -but that's just me.

SadLuckDame

I read this earlier before I ran out for some errands. I thought it was great. I liked the descriptions you went with on the syrup except the clear glass bottle part, as any cough syrup I've seen was in white plastic or dark glass, still fun stuff Malone.

__________________
Well, it was a nice check, Kitty, and really I might have won, if it hadn't been for that nasty Knight, that came wriggling down among my pieces. Kitty, dear, let's pretend -- -" And here I wish I could tell you half the things Alice used to say, beginning with her favorite phrase "Let's pretend."
written by Lewis Carroll

apple

Wow, interesting, Malone. You express this in a very sparse, wry way. Great. Is the fact that we are able to visualize the bottle a very important thing? It seems so, but I feel I need for just a little more. Not necessarily the color of the liquid, but more tactile the "feel"of it, something to bring me closer to either take a sip or reject it.

Mirror

Good offer, Malone, incumbent upon one's ability to envision.
My only gripe concerns line breaks - transform this piece from a small prose passage into a poem.

If you don't mind, I'll tinker with this. Excuse my rough hand.

There's a bottle of hate
hidden in a chest under my bed
that I bring out to drink on special occasions.

It's sweet
- not bitter like you'd think -
thick, orange-ish,
reminiscent of cough syrup
without the soothing narcotic effects.

The sticker on the clear glass bottle
reads "Hate - The Good Stuff"
in rolling cursive
set in a field of deep purple.

Can you see the bottle yet?

In your mind?

Good.

Here:

Have a drink.


*

The colon after 'here' does not present a problem for me. I would, however, suggest you omit various filler words (i.e. 'that is', 'and' ) for flow.

About 'orange-ish': The fossilized amber would add a new angle (time elapsing, something already waned)... It all depends whether you wish to expand this piece or confine it to a description of the liquor bottle, intended to incite imagination.

I like it. It expresses what it needs to. Very laconic.

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Eiji Tunsinagi

I enjoyed it and would enjoy it (more/still) sans line breaks. It doesn't need shorter breaks because this piece doesn't need the rush.

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"nothing is perfect, nothing lasts, and nothing is finished."

"how will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?"

BrianDJeffers

i like it a lot. very neat idea and really awesome. something i would read again. very clever. reword it something like "Mirror" above posted and you have a winner in my opinion

Malone

Thanks everyone.

This was originally prose for a novel, but I wanted to post it in the poetry section because this is were the hard core word smiths work.

I was going for a liquor bottle style filled with the thick cough syrup stuff, not the beige plastic Rx bottle. Perhaps I should clarify that.

Mirror, perfect line breaks. Exactly the kind of stuff I need to learn.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Sorry to respond once this has already fallen to the second page, but I felt the feedback deserved recognition and I just now got the computer to read them.
Sorry if this bumps down a better poem.

__________________
There Is A Policeman Inside All Our Heads: He Must Be Destroyed


Malone's Mind
Everyday Madness Kindle Edition

Matt3483

I'm glad you bumped it. The whole idea and the wording was great--and then Mirror came along and gave you the perfect line breaks. You two should collaborate more often.

Nice piece.

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Reading is to me like water is to a fish: I can't live without it.

Edgewise

Good read. That's it...

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How can you expect a man who's warm to understand a man who's cold?
- Solzhenitsyn "Ivan Denisovich"