Cotton Candy Sheep - Fourth Draft

[tectak]

A prior critique suggested that the first work needed more 'grammar'. So I chose to follow advice and have expanded on this piece.  


Cotton Candy Sheep [Fourth Draft]

Cotton Candy Sheep;
Velvet mouths wake screaming,Why the comma here? Don't get mad....get even. Make sense with punctuation. That's what it's for
obscenities sickly sweet. Oh. This is wordy, contradictory nonsense so you have two problems.
Bleating into the abyss; Avoid the abyss...in life and poetry. It is a cliche cliff.
sheepish hooves go trotting, There may be more to this Iine than even you realise...or am I over-crediting you? "Sheepish" does have a duality of meaning which right now gives me cause  for consideration. Nope. Don't get it.
into the deepest pitch. Pitch? Help. It could be me.
 
The cries ring shrill, Cries do that...cliches, too
creeping into daydreams.
sliver needles picking,
unraveling tender seams. Believe me, I am trying to extract meaning from this but I am not astute enough for this profundity.
The dark is winter still;
a promise of dead offerings. Er...could I tentatively point out that these last two lines seem to have been accidentally pasted here. You may want to delete them.

Monsters pray in crawling thorns.
Doe eyes plead quietly, Deer are doe, dear. Sheep are slitty things. Which is it?
hungry for dawn.
Strange beasts stalk the black, The black what? This is getting tedious
gluttonous bellies growl violently;
unleashing the demon pack. You are now lost in a miasma of incomprehensible unmatched terminology. Stop. Read. Reconsider. Clarify. Rewrite.

Whispers bleed from throats torn,
thoughts echo words unsaid. Rubbish by any definition. You have given up on this and cannot wait to end it....I suppose that is cause for celebration.
the night is stillborn;
rivers run ribbon red. No they do not. Ribbon rivers run read, maybe. Ribbon is NOT a  colour.

Well, I could give credit for consistency but that would not help you write better poetry. This is a string of emotivity. You simply MUST try to make the string into a bag so that the contents are safe and secure. The critical cry for punctuation is invariably another way of saying, politely, that your thoughts need clarification. Punctuation is powerless if the piece is nonsensically worded. The last line is telling. Do you see? I left your worshipping monsters in their crawling thorns to see if you would spot the error. If you do not, then there is not much more can be done....except, perhaps, to suggest that you READ your work out loud, hear your own words, then CHECK spelling and word meaning so that the crit can at least comment on the finer points.
Best,
do not give up,
tectak


Cotton Candy Sheep [Third Draft]

Sullied cotton candy sheep
velvet mouths wake screaming
obscenities sickly sweet

The sound it creeps into daydreams
stick needles picking
unraveling tender seams

Low hides crouch in crawling thorns
doe eyes stare blindly
hungry for dawn

Whispers echo words unsaid
the night is stillborn
rivers run ribbon red


Cotton Candy Sheep [Second Draft]

Silly sullied cotton candy sheep
velvet mouths wake screaming
the bleating is sickly sweet

The sound it creeps into dreams
stick needles picking
unseemingly unraveling seams

Tattered hides crouch low in thistle and thorn
dull eyed, doe eyes stare blindly
hungry for dawn

Silent cries echo words unsaid
the night is stillborn
rivers run ribbon red.


Cotton Candy Sheep [First Draft]

Silly sullied cotton candy sheep
velvet mouths wake screaming
the bleating is sickly sweet

The sound it creeps into dreams
stick needles picking
unseemingly unraveling seams

Tattered hides crouch low in thistle and thorn
dull eyed, doe eyes stare blindly
hungry for the dawn

Silent cries echo of words left unsaid
the night is stillborn
as rivers run ribbon red.

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tectac,
 
I agree punctuation is not my strong point...
 
I actually kinda liked this poem, its why I um, 'exhumed it' and didn't give up on it? Giving up means never improving right? I kinda enjoy writing, I know what my work is about, even if it makes little sense to the reader at present. Perhaps one day. We all have to start somewhere on a rung I s'pose, I just happen to be on one of the lower ones at the moment, lol. So uh, O' deer, you may be subjected to unfortunately reading more of my um, work? I suggest to stay away from my edited version of 'The Tide" it may traumatize readers ^_^ following critiques I even rename that poem, its called 'Prey' now. You should hear what my taste is like with books and movies. Horror primarily. Think, Dean Koonts, 28 Days Later and George Romero o.0

Soooo, perhaps I'm not astute enough in your humble opinion. Anyway, I thought to ask for advice...hey, what do you mean by "worshiping monsters"? I'm not sure I follow. See end
 
Q: Can't words be used creatively as a means to evoke a particular image...can't a sheep have 'doe like' eyes? Large, liquid. Isn't it possible to use word play as a means to provide the audience with a "visual" reference of a thing. Sure...but how does saying a sheep has doe eyes help to clarify? Have you even SEEN a sheep's eye?
 
Isn't this called a "simile" a basic example is 'the boy had hair the color of rust'....obviously the boys hair isn't made of rust. You get my point. Both similes and metaphors should be used to clarify, not osbcure. If you had said "the boy had hair the colour of paint" things would get difficult precisely because it tells the reader nothing. How much worse to say that a sheep had eyes Iike a doe when it does not. You nearly managed a higher level of obscurity with a river the colourof ribbon....so you started it
 
If candy is too sweet can't it be perceived as  'sickly sweet'. Of course, but how is that an obscenity?
 
Obviously I cannot just say, 'predators walk around at night' so it became, 'Strange beasts stalk the black'. Can't a 'belly growl' before a pack attacks? ...I'm not trying to come across as facetious, a 'hungry belly' was used as a set up or tie in for the last line, of 'a pack attacking'. Why can't you say that predators walk around at night? After all, black is an adjective,  not contextually a noun. So how the hell do you stalk a modifier? Worse yet, bellies are empty not gluttonous. Gluttonony is a sin, a facet  of  the psyche. You may think with your testicles but it is YOU who does the thinking...there is a big difference.
 
"into the deepest pitch. Pitch? Help. It could be me."  I don't understand the point you are attempting to make here, is it sarcasm? Or are you referring to your own work in that it could be you using the word 'pitch'. Why is 'pitch' a bad word, as opposed to using a different word to describe darkness or night? Same old same. "pitch" is an ADJECTIVE not a NOUN. Is this so very to understand? Difficult? You see, if you do not put the modifier before its noun the sense is lost.

I agree that:

"The cries ring shrill, Cries do that...cliches, too

creeping into daydreams.
sliver needles picking,
unraveling tender seams. Believe me, I am trying to extract meaning from this but I am not astute enough for this profundity.
The dark is winter still;
a promise of dead offerings"

and:

"thoughts echo words unsaid."

...could use a little work and may be perceived as 'nonsensical' I just figured that 'a cry could creep into a daydream,' 'piercing it like a needle.' And I betook my self to thinking, fancy unto fancy linking, sry had a Poe moment there, lol. Anyway I figured that a thought could echo unspoken words. Like in a conversation, when a person wants to say something but settles on silence...


"thoughts echo words unsaid. Rubbish by any definition. You have given up on this and cannot wait to end it....I suppose that is cause for celebration. "

I suppose things artistic are meant to elicit a response from the audience and if coming to the end of my work makes them celebrate...
 
I appreciate your critique, I agree that ribbons are not a color nor do they primarily come in the 'color red' perhaps I should have replaced the word 'ribbon' with the 'blood'? I agree that I probably need to avoid cliches, I did not know a 'shrill cry' was a cliche. I was only just recently informed that 'staring blindly' is.  I did not realize (that the majority of) this piece read as being 'nonsensically worded'. Sheep get lost, sheep get hunted, sheep get eaten....

Yep. Monsters PREY on them. See what I mean?
Best,
tectak