Hunter S. Thompson

[Ryan_w_r]

Hunter s. Thompson truly chased the dragons tail,
While captaining a ship of madness powered by a cocaine sail.
He pulled up anchor and left behind sanity,
In search of his treasure, the dark underbelly of humanity.
Hunter sailed upon LSD wishes and mescaline dreams,
Only to find the world isn't quite as beautiful as it seems.
He took in the undesirable, he took in the bad,
He translated it all through his pen, and onto his pad.
Hunter left us to soon, no more stories for him to make.
Forever sailing upon a limitless sea of booze,
Leaving only genius in his wake...

[Charlesjoseph]

Hunter s. Thompson truly chased the dragons tail, (your title tells us who this is about so you could possibly begin with the second line.)
While captaining a ship of madness powered by a cocaine sail.

He pulled up anchor and left behind sanity,
In search of his treasure, the dark underbelly of humanity.

Hunter sailed upon LSD wishes and mescaline dreams,
Only to find the world isn't quite as beautiful as it seems.

He took in the undesirable, he took in the bad, (both equate to the same thing)
He translated it all through his pen, and onto his pad.

Hunter left us to soon, no more stories for him to make.
Forever sailing upon a limitless sea of booze,

Leaving only genius in his wake...

Hey Ryan,
I see a lot of redundancy here. I feel like the rhyme scheme kinda boxed you in and you use a lot of descriptors. My advice is cut it back to the meat and watch the cliche's. Also, when you write lines that rhyme think of it in terms of music. Pick one of your favorite songs and listen to the beat. it's structured to keep time.
Ex. One and two and three and four. So if you write a line that goes (one and two and three. your next line should follow suit.)

Written example.

let's have fun
lets all run,

blah blah blah blah.
blah blah blah blah.

You can mix things up to suit you, but tight lines are more musical.

I like the subject matter of your poem and i hope you edit this cause i'm a mini fan. Where are the Guns? He loved his guns.
Be well
Chazz

[tectak]

Hunter s. Thompson truly chased the dragons tail,
While captaining a ship of madness powered by a cocaine sail.
He pulled up anchor and left behind sanity,
In search of his treasure, the dark underbelly of humanity.
Hunter sailed upon LSD wishes and mescaline dreams,
Only to find the world isn't quite as beautiful as it seems.
He took in the undesirable, he took in the bad,
He translated it all through his pen, and onto his pad.
Hunter left us to soon, no more stories for him to make.
Forever sailing upon a limitless sea of booze,
Leaving only genius in his wake...

Hello ryan,
I want to say that there is much wrong with this but in languishing uncommented upon I wonder if there is just too much to comment on...but then again, there is some good stuff, too.
The first 2 lines are interesting meter-wise. It is just possible to read them both rhythmically in a Ginsbergian breath, but examination to discover "classical" meter just fails. You write with confident swagger that defies peurile crit but little things let the piece down. L3/4 scans not at all. L4 particularly is extended past its base and topples. Way too many feet but no sense of balance. Perhaps you want prose-praise?
Sorry. It is just too clunky. (Note the t-o-o)
You make it worse by writing good words then capitalising every line so that the confusion of oratory is increased. Read it all out loud. I do. It is like trying to read the label on a rotating vinyl LP. ( How old am I?!)
Content wise it is probably a fair call. HST didn't flip my switch in the same way as say, Alan Wicker, but what the hell, thinking is the best way to travel(sic and quote and cliche).
Tighten it up. Lose the cliches. There is, on average, 0.75 of them per line!
Best,
tectak

[Graystar]

Hunter s. Thompson truly chased the dragons tail,
While captaining a ship of madness powered by a cocaine sail.
He pulled up anchor and left behind sanity,
Try something that ties these two lines more smoothly:
In search of treasure he left behind sanity
finding the dark underbelly of humanity.
In search of his treasure, the dark underbelly of humanity.
Hunter sailed upon LSD wishes and mescaline dreams, I like this line
Only to find the world isn't quite as beautiful as it seems. This is blah
He took in the undesirable, he took in the bad,
He took in the undesirable and...say something stronger here like languished in the bad
He translated it all through his pen, and onto his pad. I like this
Hunter left us to soon, no more stories for him to make. Too
Forever sailing upon a limitless sea of booze,
Leaving only genius in his wake...Why genius? Would the reader draw this conclusion or agree?

Ahoy Ryan! Sorry, couldn't resist. I like much of this and like Tectak and CharlesJoseph said there are holes in it. I don't want to see it sink. There are several lines I liked a lot, L5 and L8, and others that could stand a tweak and be excellent too. Keep writing!

[alatos]

I am a novice myself, so I always fear being to opinionated as far as critiquing goes. But, I do feel like, as a few others said, the rhythm, if you're going to rhyme, should probably be something regular. And the last line introduces that he is a genius, then ends. Maybe you could expand on this? Or maybe it is meant to be provocative, which I would totally get.

[tomoffing]

Hey mate,
Firstly, I'm a total novice myself so take anything said with suitable skepticism.
Good subject matter and you have the bones of something, but you need to trim this substantially to bring some rhythm to it.

As an example, here's a suggested edit of your first four lines.

"He truly chased the dragon's tail,
A captain driven by a cocaine sail.
Upping anchor he departed sanity
To explore the underbelly of humanity."

And some more general explanation below;

Hunter s. Thompson truly chased the dragons tail,
As someone else has already mentioned, you don't need to identify Hunter having done so in the title

While captaining a ship of madness powered by a cocaine sail.
Captain and sail are sufficient to strike up this image.
I particularly enjoy your cocaine sail image btw. Nicely captures both the tautness and looseness.

He pulled up anchor and left behind sanity,
In search of his treasure, the dark underbelly of humanity.
Its tough to get the tongue around these lines. Need to be trimmed (as suggested above). I also found the treasure/dark underbelly references conflicting.
Hunter sailed upon LSD wishes and mescaline dreams, Need to remove the repetition of sail. Try and find something more tumultuous, LSD/mescaline are rarely plain sailing (pardon the cliche).
Only to find the world isn't quite as beautiful as it seems. too cliched
He took in the undesirable, he took in the bad,
He translated it all through his pen, and onto his pad. I understand your intent here but the lines are weak. Look for a more subtle way to explain this aspect of his character. Perhaps something that also captures the opposite aspect. Him being drawn into the undesirable as much as he took it upon himself.
Hunter left us to soon, no more stories for him to make.
Forever sailing upon a limitless sea of booze, Sailing repeated again.
Leaving only genius in his wake...


As I said, all suggestions only. I really enjoyed reading this. The nautical theme gives you a host of vocabulary and imagery to expand this.
I'm sure you'll work this into a fitting tribute to the man he was.

Thanks for posting.