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One,
pinging sound as the metal falls to the cold wet ground.
body not breathing in a pool of blood that surrounds.
Two,
hands are trembling violently and this night is why.
blue eyes praying for a signal to come from the sky.
Three,
sirens blaring in the distance not so far from me.
cars searching streets for the person who must not be free.
Four,
police officers now survey the scene of the crime.
strong arms will pat him down because he ran out of time.
Five,
miles and a trial from what his life will become.
minutes are not enough to erase the deed he's done.
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I love the format you set up for this poem. It sets a good intense feeling after every number count, and every line ran smoothly. Keep up the good work!
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if you remove all the couplets with a cliche your basically left with
one
two
three
four
five
i may be stretching it with 4 and 5 but those are prose and very unpoetic
try and actually show us something, who why what when how
in the distance, not far from me is a contradiction
sirens blaring close by
or
sirens blaring in the distance.
both of which are cliche
how do they blare
sirens caterwaul in the distance
(07-17-2013, 10:02 PM)TheWall0912 Wrote: One,
pinging sound as the metal falls to the cold wet ground.
body not breathing in a pool of blood that surrounds.
Two,
hands are trembling violently and this night is why.
blue eyes praying for a signal to come from the sky.
Three,
sirens blaring in the distance not so far from me.
cars searching streets for the person who must not be free.
Four,
police officers now survey the scene of the crime.
strong arms will pat him down because he ran out of time.
Five,
miles and a trial from what his life will become.
minutes are not enough to erase the deed he's done.
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Joined: Jul 2013
ireland4scots, thanks a lot! I was trying to make it intense, suspenseful, whatever you want to call it.
billy, thanks for the criticism. I guess I don't normally think of cliches when I am writing but I can see why my work would be more powerful without them. I'll try to work on that.
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I love the dark and morose tone of this poem. I'm not sure why but my favorite line is 'two hands are trembling violently and this night is why' LOVE! I also like that you left the story of why this murder was committed untold. It makes it mysterious. I agree with billy as far as the cliches, perhaps find a more original way to express the same sentiments. And also the 'sirens blaring in the distance not so far from me' is a little clumsy. But all in all I like!
One,
pinging sound as the metal falls to the cold wet ground.
body not breathing in a pool of blood that surrounds.
Two,
hands are trembling violently and this night is why.
blue eyes praying for a signal to come from the sky.
Three,
sirens blaring in the distance not so far from me.
cars searching streets for the person who must not be free.
Four,
police officers now survey the scene of the crime.
strong arms will pat him down because he ran out of time.
Five,
miles and a trial from what his life will become.
minutes are not enough to erase the deed he's done.
I really enjoy the visuals; you have strong imagery working in your favor in this poem.
My suggestion would be to take out the list. The couplets alone give us enough information to see a sequence.
In addition, you may want to redo some of the cliché’s as been brought up before. I always tend to have clichés when I write poems, but I try to flesh them out during revisions. "sirens blaring" "survey the scene" "pool of blood" these can be reworked.
Try and use present tense instead of present participle, it makes for a greater effect/affect. For instance: "pinging sound as the metal falls to the cold wet ground." could be "metal pings the cold wet ground."
If you have lines that seem distant or the speaker is unsure of his/her proximity to the image/description, you can always add metonymic or metaphoric devices to clean up the ambiguity. For instance, "sirens blaring in the distance not so far from me" could be "sirens in the distance like the arm of a nightmare pulling me towards the alarm" or something like that I guess. I really like billy's suggestion of changing "blaring" to "caterwaul." Just be careful not to use words if you don't really understand them, it could come off pretentious.
Great draft. I look forward to reading your revision.
