Note: this is a spoken word poem. Please take this into consideration when critiquing.


A Tender Violence

It is.

Our lips lightly touch like whispers soft on the wings of a moth.
My fingernails trawl across your ribcage, rip tides in slow waves.
I pull your bones apart to make home in your heart,
bathing in your hissing and your twisting and the way you keep insisting
my teeth on your shoulder, over and over.
I devour the prolific VerySpecific expression you render fine,
watching from just below your jawline,
the way you burn my skin off with your eyes;
surgically dissecting my disguise, your fingers pry through my insides
dyed in hues of green and blue
inspecting but never expecting perfection.
Affectionate articulation calls attention to fault lines
and salient doubtholes bound by silence but
every word of your prose stitches me closed,
unclothed and open to the world.
Breathing deeply and weaving freely my soul,
unfolding control of the known and untold.
Within and without you I find myself whole
and wholly alone.

What is it?

These moments unfurl from my fingertips like flags of surrender,
bending knees like young trees weighed under too far.
Memories free from my finger reeds as if each were lit cigars.
How the smoke fills the room, blooming in moon-flowers
asphyxiating my senses. Suffocating me senseless.
It's a tomb. For choking. And smoking. And hoping.
Hope may be a beacon but it is too a disease -
a pathogen wrapped within reveries and dreams
occupying your mind with complete incompletion and fear of deletion.
Instead of feeling healing, in head dread they fester
and I'm a repeat star offender.
It's cursed treasure obsession pleasure-
what you have is still gold but it cannot be handled.
Instead channeled, measured in hourglass sand.
Spend it slow and tend it with intended hands;
it cannot be infliction of conviction or addictive prediction.
Take moon-flowers in doses to ease the affliction
Quit rewinding the time, tune your mind to skysigns and
focus forward blind eyes 'til you finally
Arrive.

No comments? Critiques? Anything? O_o

I'm reading it right now...although your insistence irks me a bit.

First stanza stands up strong in my mind...very sexy. The only thing I can say is it reads like a cliche love poem, but who am I to judge it?

(07-23-2014, 06:22 AM)maximumjake Wrote:  I'm reading it right now...although your insistence irks me a bit.

First stanza stands up strong in my mind...very sexy.

Sorrynotsorry yo, I'm going to a poetry reading tonight, in an hour, and I was hoping that 16 hours posted would result in at least a single comment ya know? Thanks for reading!

(07-22-2014, 03:31 PM)catfacemeowmers Wrote:  Note: this is a spoken word poem. Please take this into consideration when critiquing.


A Tender Violence

It is.

Our lips lightly touch like whispers soft on the wings of a moth.
My fingernails trawl across your ribcage, rip tides in slow waves.
I pull your bones apart to make home in your heart,
bathing in your hissing and your twisting and the way you keep insisting
my teeth on your shoulder, over and over.
I devour the prolific VerySpecific expression you render fine,
watching from just below your jawline,
the way you burn my skin off with your eyes;
surgically dissecting my disguise, your fingers pry through my insides
dyed in hues of green and blue
inspecting but never expecting perfection.
Affectionate articulation calls attention to fault lines
and salient doubtholes bound by silence but
every word of your prose stitches me closed,
unclothed and open to the world.
Breathing deeply and weaving freely my soul,
unfolding control of the known and untold.
Within and without you I find myself whole
and wholly alone.

What is it?

These moments unfurl from my fingertips like flags of surrender,
bending knees like young trees weighed under too far.
Memories free from my finger reeds as if each were lit cigars.
How the smoke fills the room, blooming in moon-flowers
asphyxiating my senses. Suffocating me senseless.
It's a tomb. For choking. And smoking. And hoping.
Hope may be a beacon but it is too a disease -
a pathogen wrapped within reveries and dreams
occupying your mind with complete incompletion and fear of deletion. these rhymes feel forced to me.
Instead of feeling healing, in head dread they fester same with feeling healing and head dread. Reads as kind of tacky.
and I'm a repeat star offender.
It's cursed treasure obsession pleasure-
what you have is still gold but it cannot be handled.
Instead channeled, measured in hourglass sand.
Spend it slow and tend it with intended hands;
it cannot be infliction of conviction or addictive prediction.
Take moon-flowers in doses to ease the affliction
Quit rewinding the time, tune your mind to skysigns and
focus forward blind eyes 'til you finally
Arrive.

Your poem conveys a simple idea about nurturing love. I think it was pretty effective at that.

Hello catface, and welcome. Good luck at the reading. I don't have time to leave a real crit before you go. I would agree that there is some over-rhyming in the 2nd half. I enjoyed the first part more. I hope you have S2 well rehearsed. Some tongue twisting going on there. Some nice ideas throughout though. Again, good luck. - Paul

Hi - I think the poem will go down well at the reading. All the things that bother me about it - forced rhyme, and gerunds, and adjectival overload, and abstract concepts, will go unnoticed in the rhythmic
articulation of your passion and persuasion of your voice.

(07-22-2014, 03:31 PM)catfacemeowmers Wrote:  Note: this is a spoken word poem. Please take this into consideration when critiquing.


A Tender Violence

It is.

Our lips lightly touch like whispers soft on the wings of a moth.It is a mixed metaphor....touch and whispers are in different rooms...and I have difficulty relating to a whisper on a wing. Sounds nice....but is it clarifying?
My fingernails trawl across your ribcage, rip tides in slow waves. Again, "rip tides in slow waves" is just this side of expressive until you realise that a "rip tide" itself is a misnomer....BUT....I can actually see where you get this "idea" from but would make one suggestion. Change it to "rip tides THROUGH slow waves".
I pull your bones apart to make home in your heart,
bathing in your hissing and your twisting and the way you keep insisting
my teeth on your shoulder, over and over. Very nice assonance but at the expense of sentence structure." ...and the way you keep insisting
my teeth on your shoulder..." Just how does one insist teeth?
I devour the prolific VerySpecific expression you render fine,
watching from just below your jawline,
the way you burn my skin off with your eyes;....and just how do you read VerySpecific out loud? See my end comments....and beware of the rap. It is not for everyone or everything.
surgically dissecting my disguise, your fingers pry through my insides
dyed in hues of green and blue
inspecting but never expecting perfection.
Affectionate articulation calls attention to fault lines
and salient doubtholes bound by silence but
every word of your prose stitches me closed,
unclothed and open to the world. In my weaker moments I confess to enjoying this kind of slash and burn style. I believe that you will make an excellent job of its oration. Once you use hard "attack" words, artiCulation, ATTENTION!, bound, stitches, unclothed (and its counter, clothed. Deliberate....yes, of course) you move on with relative ease, all behind you burned and smouldering. A long pause here, methinks.
Breathing deeply and weaving freely my soul,
unfolding control of the known and untold.
Within and without you I find myself whole
and wholly alone.

What is it?Never keen on rhetoric...especially in front of an audience. When in the play, the German asks "WHERE IS ANNE FRANK?" and an audience of panto-goers lilts "Sheeees in the AAAATIC!" , you can see my reticence....or is "What is it?" a title/header?

These moments unfurl from my fingertips like flags of surrender,
bending knees like young trees weighed under too far.
Memories free from my finger reeds as if each were lit cigars.
How the smoke fills the room, blooming in moon-flowers
asphyxiating my senses. Suffocating me senseless.
It's a tomb. For choking. And smoking. And hoping.
Hope may be a beacon but it is too a disease -Tentatively suggest commas before and after "too". Pedant you see
a pathogen wrapped within reveries and dreams
occupying your mind with complete incompletion and fear of deletion.For me, this is a dreadful line and I condemn it wholeheartedly as out of context both in terms chronological and spiritual. It is a sop to the -ion rhymers of the street. Not worthy of inclusion, dat's mah conclusion and mah resolution....yuk.
The rest, I feel, is another poem and I don't know how we got here from there...but I wish we hadn't
Instead of feeling healing, in head dread they fester
and I'm a repeat star offender.
It's cursed treasure obsession pleasure-
what you have is still gold but it cannot be handled.
Instead channeled, measured in hourglass sand.
Spend it slow and tend it with intended hands;
it cannot be infliction of conviction or addictive prediction.
Take moon-flowers in doses to ease the affliction
Quit rewinding the time, tune your mind to skysigns and
focus forward blind eyes 'til you finally
Arrive.

Hi,
please do not think me cynical but your comment "Note: this is a spoken word poem. Please take this into consideration when critiquing.", I find similar in effect to those driver's of cars with "Caution....Baby on Board" stickers on the back window. If you write spoken-word poetry (as all poetry should be) it is up to you to make sure that your intent, intonation, pauses and caesuras are at least seen to be intentional and at best seen to be to the IMPROVEMENT of the poetry. So please take this in to consideration when reading my in-text crit.
best,
tectak

Well let me give this one a shot. Spoken word is a bit of a different animal--its related to written poetry but not quite the same. There is the performance aspect that is not captured solely in the text.

I'm going to review this as a written piece then because I believe that arriving at the best content should help improve the performance. I think this one on the surface would read well to a group. That said, here are some notes below:

(07-22-2014, 03:31 PM)catfacemeowmers Wrote:  Note: this is a spoken word poem. Please take this into consideration when critiquing.


A Tender Violence

It is.

Our lips lightly touch like whispers soft on the wings of a moth.-- I like your opening image. I like the use of the wings of the moth. I like how it could be a similar shape to lips. I would cut lightly and trust the imagery more. It's a stronger line without the modifier.
My fingernails trawl across your ribcage, rip tides in slow waves.--trawl is a neat word I think you need to bring more of a net feature into the motion to pull off the word here. Clever play on words with rip tides, and I like that the imagery is suggestive to the action happening.
I pull your bones apart to make home in your heart,--might be nitpicking but I don't like the your. I think you need to consider flowing from ribcage better so that we stay focused on which bones are in view. We get it but we have to reevaluate once we read heart and that's a disconnect from the experience. Maybe even something more medically precise than simply bones--option. At this point even "the" for "your" would be an improvement for me.
bathing in your hissing and your twisting and the way you keep insisting--Like the sonics. I'm not sure I interpret the sound of hissing easily but it's a judgment call I guess. These phrases have a nice rhythm to them.
my teeth on your shoulder, over and over.--too abrupt. some variation on "that my teeth bite your shoulder, over and over." I'm not saying that has to be the line by any means but it reads too choppy at present
I devour the prolific VerySpecific expression you render fine,--sounds good, says little. This is shorthand for something without actually providing anything--be careful here
watching from just below your jawline,
the way you burn my skin off with your eyes;--This fits well with the title and I like the line
surgically dissecting my disguise, your fingers pry through my insides
dyed in hues of green and blue
inspecting but never expecting perfection.--This feels like it needs a line break after expecting to get that half beat before perfection. The problem here with this section is it's much less evocative than your first strophe. You need more consistency when the partner begins their exploration
Affectionate articulation calls attention to fault lines
and salient doubtholes bound by silence but
every word of your prose stitches me closed,--prose strikes me as a bit meta
unclothed and open to the world.
Breathing deeply and weaving freely my soul,
unfolding control of the known and untold.
Within and without you I find myself whole
and wholly alone.--I like this end line with the break on whole, the word play and the conclusion drawn. Some of the soul lines feel a bit too ethereal without more grounding imagery. They aren't bad just not particularly memorable at the moment.

What is it?

These moments unfurl from my fingertips like flags of surrender,--as might work better than like here.
bending knees like young trees weighed under too far. --under feels wrong. Down maybe
Memories free from my finger reeds as if each were lit cigars.
How the smoke fills the room, blooming in moon-flowers--don't like the "how" but like the rest of the line
asphyxiating my senses. Suffocating me senseless.--maybe condense: "asphyxiating me senseless" A bit more economy may be stronger
It's a tomb. For choking. And smoking. And hoping.
Hope may be a beacon but it is too a disease -
a pathogen wrapped within reveries and dreams
occupying your mind with complete incompletion and fear of deletion.--This sequence just felt sort of preachy to me. Could just be me.
Instead of feeling healing, in head dread they fester
and I'm a repeat star offender.
It's cursed treasure obsession pleasure-
what you have is still gold but it cannot be handled.
Instead channeled, measured in hourglass sand.--measured in hourglass sand is nice. You have some good moments but you seem to go for these little rhythmic pops that may not add much. I think you could cut some of the flourishes and have a stronger piece.
Spend it slow and tend it with intended hands;
it cannot be infliction of conviction or addictive prediction.
Take moon-flowers in doses to ease the affliction
Quit rewinding the time, tune your mind to skysigns and
focus forward blind eyes 'til you finally
Arrive.

Those are my initial thoughts for your consideration. Hope some of it helps.

Best,

Todd

Hello Catface, I won't go into detail I will leave that for others. My overview was this.

I thought the content was too dense for "spoken word," The listeners would have got the rhythm and rhyme, but would they have got a poem that stuck in the mind.?

A lot of abstractions that will come off because thought cannot be given to them in a tight time frame.

The theme was a jaded for me.

On the plus side I think you are a competent writer, that came through for sure.
I also think you know what you are doing with rhyme, especially the internal rhyme as opposed to line ends. I also work in the same way that you have used here when I am practising with rhyme.
JG

I hope you enjoyed the reading.

You have some nice metaphors or similes here. I liked "rip tides in slow waves"and "..How the smoke fills the room blooming in moon-flowers". Assonance abounds throughout which is good when it comes naturally. Try not to get romanced by tempting word-sound combinations that deviate from the true feelings at the bottom of where these word originate. Such things as,"infliction of conviction or addictive prediction" are unnecessary rambling , unnecessary because you already have plenty of good word combinations with lots of natural assonance. You don't need to reach over the deep end to impress your audience. Its a very sexy, love longing piece. You have original metaphors and lots of assonance. I expect it will be well received. Good luck.

Thank you all so so much for your input. Truly appreciated and I agree with most of it. Can I post an edit with the revisions?

(07-26-2014, 08:19 AM)catfacemeowmers Wrote:  Thank you all so so much for your input. Truly appreciated and I agree with most of it. Can I post an edit with the revisions?

The preferred way to post a revision is to edit your original post and place the labelled new edit above your original.

Posting your edit/revision along with the original piece is what we are here for. Not here to bask in anticipated praise. When you post the revision and the original, you show what you may have learned. Even more so others may learn too. I look forward to your revision and subsequent postings. Welcome!

this is not suitable feedback for the critique forums, post removed /admin

(08-02-2014, 04:30 AM)Pink_Bunny Wrote:  

Quote: It's a tomb. For choking. And smoking. And hoping.

This just makes me feel like Jesus.

Kisses!

catface,

Shouldn't it be cat faced?

As I've already missed the boat on this one...

Should I say the nice things first? OK, this has a nice cadence/rhythm to it, and the rhyme gives it energy.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

A lot of your metaphors/similes are just senseless. That's probably already been covered, but..

"like whispers soft on the wings of a moth" uh?

"I pull your bones apart to make home in your heart" You have some problem with indirect articles.
"I pull your bones apart to make "a" home in your heart"

"bathing in your hissing and your twisting and the way you keep insisting" How does one bath in twisting and insisting?

"my teeth on your shoulder, over and over." "crimson and clover, over and over" yep, heard it already. Between Tommy James and you I'll go with Tommy. At least his has some sense to it, yours is just a forced rhyme.

"I devour the prolific VerySpecific expression you render fine" I don't think that is possible, plus this makes no sense. How does one "devour the prolific?" or "expression you render fine"

fine-jawline forced rhyme.

"the way you burn my skin off with your eyes" Incredibly awkward. At least change it to:

"the way you burn my skin with your eyes" I think off is implied. Still a cliche, but a non-awkward cliche.

"surgically dissecting my disguise" I thought they were burning your skin off?

"dyed in hues of green and blue" what? uh? Your insides are blue and green?

As this is mild critique I'll stop there. Sorry but if meaning were gold, you probably wouldn't have enough to buy a cup of coffee. As I said it has a nice rhythm about it, and there are only a few places where it gets awkward. I would suspect this would go over well if read aloud. If read with the intent of finding meaning, or making sense, well, you know....

Welcome to the site,

Dale