Black Ooze

[John]

This is the first poem I have posted for critique, I look forward to hearing feedback.

Black Ooze

He smiles scarred tracks on ice, cracks in the earth’s crust, cut into brown dust cheeks, protected in a barbed wire moustache.

Black treacle gathers in the skin cracks of his chin.

Tar dribbles at the sides of his mouth, strains onto his chest, madness circles into his nostrils, black smoke in his brain, a charred bird’s nest.

His melted and burnt form, gritty grease gets caught in his teeth.

A caustic sour chemical tangles his mouth, his tongue, his hair. Hot melted black bin bag stretched over his forehead, mat shining plastic, boarded with a crusted smear of black gravel.

His tongue sinks in a thin pool of ink, bubbles on his teeth cause fierce pain under his ripped lips.

The skating smile from his hole razors through his face, slashed spirals, twirls, dots and blotches, deep stains through the skin’s soul.

A tearing of plate territory, violence cuts into features.

Fluid flows as charred lava inside his husk. It rides the slopes to his eyes. Through the veins of his white domes it soaks into his pupils, black clouds in dusked water.

His dead face, pleased of any sensation. Rotting clotting black, gushes out his portals.

The stretching aperture holes of his Halloween mask smile with lunacy, they tare as its chin falls off, creating piles of singed plastic.

The lacerations, argue its face, collided to cause further physical distress.

His blade smile a compulsion, a nervous sickness. The black gold of the ocean, spewing out a rig. Severed arteries out of his neck create this repulsion.

Black ooze spews, unable to break monotony, convulsions out of a mass.

I stopped after the first line, then read and re-read the whole multiple times. I wanted to understand it, but couldn't.

It's not poetry, but rather a series of disjointed and unintelligible sentences. That's the mildest comment I can give you, but thanks for the opportunity to read it.

Cheers

[Todd]

Hi AckeleyP, welcome to the site! Let me try to give you some comments that might help you move this forward.

It's hard to place your meaning, but I think it's locked in the last line. Perhaps the idea of someone dealing with the monotony and conformity of the crowd. 

This is the first poem I have posted for critique, I look forward to hearing feedback.

Your line lengths and spacing between lines is a little all over the place, and while I like some of the imagery it doesn't feel connected and it doesn't build on itself well in my opinion. 

Black Ooze

He smiles scarred tracks on ice, cracks in the earth’s crust, cut into brown dust cheeks, protected in a barbed wire moustache.

Let's try looking at these lines a bit differently. Let me do a few minor adjustments.


His smile is a scarred track on ice,
cracks the earth's crust,
cut into brown dust cheeks,
protected by a barbed wire moustache.








by isolating His smile on the first line you draw attention to it. You imply that the smile is false. You do that in your longer line but it lacks emphasis. I would draw your attention to protected. I can see how that could be the right word. Confined also may be a good choice depending on your meaning.



Black treacle gathers in the skin cracks of his chin.

Tar dribbles at the sides of his mouth, strains onto his chest, madness circles into his nostrils, black smoke in his brain, a charred bird’s nest.

Be careful of words like madness. You're just telling us its there. Its too abstract of a concept to just convey without telling us. That's not as effective.  Also circling INTO the nostrils is hard to envision. Tie the concept directly to an image and than let the image convey the madness without having to say it directly.

His melted and burnt form, gritty grease gets caught in his teeth.

A caustic sour chemical tangles his mouth, his tongue, his hair. Hot melted black bin bag stretched over his forehead, mat shining plastic, boarded with a crusted smear of black gravel.

A caustic sour chemical has way way too many modifiers. Again find a way with fewer words to convey what you need to say. When you see this many modifiers it says you haven't figured out what the right words are. This actually reads as vague.

His tongue sinks in a thin pool of ink, bubbles on his teeth cause fierce pain under his ripped lips.

The skating smile from his hole razors through his face, slashed spirals, twirls, dots and blotches, deep stains through the skin’s soul.

A tearing of plate territory, violence cuts into features.

Fluid flows as charred lava inside his husk. It rides the slopes to his eyes. Through the veins of his white domes it soaks into his pupils, black clouds in dusked water.

His dead face, pleased of any sensation. Rotting clotting black, gushes out his portals.

The stretching aperture holes of his Halloween mask smile with lunacy, they tare as its chin falls off, creating piles of singed plastic.

The lacerations, argue its face, collided to cause further physical distress.

His blade smile a compulsion, a nervous sickness. The black gold of the ocean, spewing out a rig. Severed arteries out of his neck create this repulsion.

Black ooze spews, unable to break monotony, convulsions out of a mass.

Since this is mild. I'll just leave you with this. Less is more figure out how to express what you need in as few words and images as possible. This feels overdone and not to good effect. That is not to say that you couldn't develop it into something.

I hope some of that helped.

Best,

Todd

[Mark A Becker]

Hello A.P.

Welcome to the Pen. I hope you find the "vets" helpful...

It was a wise choice to place this piece in the MILD section of the farm, because the SERIOUS hogs could really chew this one apart. That would've been a really rough way to start off.

A.P., my friend, you may have set a new record for cramming as many disjointed images onto a single page as possible. Please don't take pride in that. The "less is more" axiom is going to be tossed your way... probably by everyone.

You can only throw so many words at my eyeballs before the words just start to ricochet off my retinas.

I cannot critique what I can't understand, but I will repeat that "less is more". Please put down the machine gun and I bet you'll hit the target more frequently, and more cleanly. Right now you're blasting through the entire shooting range and killing everybody in it.

Something tells me that you DO have a way with words. Just use less of them...
... Mark

[Cousin Kil]

Hey AP,

I was interested by the first lines, but less than halfway in I didn't feel like finishing. That's bad. I don't want to rip into you or this poem, but here are some thoughts on how to continue with this...

1) You have some cool imagery here, but you don't make it work for you. Imagery is there to pull the reader in, make them connect to what you're saying, and make the idea you're sharing vivid. The point of poetry, or at least sharing poetry, is to make your reader feel and connect to something. For instance, maybe you were trying to tackle the imperfection of humans in this one, but the way you've arranged and written this poem is so disjointed and abstracted that it's pretty much impossible to feel connected to it. You can't have catharsis or anything of the sort without hitting us where it hurts, where we feel. Make your imagery work for you and make it resonate with us.

2)Consider what you want to communicate by your arrangement. A crit wrote before, in looking at your last line, that what you may be after is a disgust for conformity (or something along those lines). If so, why are your lines fitted the way they are. If you want to display the malevolence in conformity, why not fit all this black tar imagery in nice perfect little boxes, or a classic rhyme scheme or poetry form, perhaps. There's a contrast there that's really valuable and can clue us in on what you're saying. Just thoughts.

3) Finally, Mark A. Becker wrote that he's sure you DO have a way with words (paraphrasing), and I'd say I agree with him. These images are not dead ends, just severely disconnected. Rework them into what you want to say, cut where it's necessary, and make something really though provoking. It's very possible, so don't be discouraged by these first critiques of your work. There's promise here.

That's the farthest I'll go for now, this being in Mild, and I hope I didn't bash too hard. There were just some things I thought should be voiced to give a little direction going forward.

Don't shy away from this, it could be really dope.

Best,
Cousin

This is the first poem I have posted for critique, I look forward to hearing feedback.

Black Ooze

He smiles scarred tracks on ice, cracks in the earth’s crust, cut into brown dust cheeks, protected in a barbed wire moustache.

Black treacle gathers in the skin cracks of his chin.

Tar dribbles at the sides of his mouth, strains onto his chest, madness circles into his nostrils, black smoke in his brain, a charred bird’s nest. "black smoke in his brain, a charred bird's nest" is the one line I could really picture. Out of all of these disjointed images, this is the only one that doesn't feel repeated/that I'd really like to see in the further steps you take.

His melted and burnt form, gritty grease gets caught in his teeth.

A caustic sour chemical tangles his mouth, his tongue, his hair. Hot melted black bin bag stretched over his forehead, mat shining plastic, boarded with a crusted smear of black gravel.

His tongue sinks in a thin pool of ink, bubbles on his teeth cause fierce pain under his ripped lips.

The skating smile from his hole razors through his face, slashed spirals, twirls, dots and blotches, deep stains through the skin’s soul.

A tearing of plate territory, violence cuts into features.

Fluid flows as charred lava inside his husk. It rides the slopes to his eyes. Through the veins of his white domes it soaks into his pupils, black clouds in dusked water.

His dead face, pleased of any sensation. Rotting clotting black, gushes out his portals.

The stretching aperture holes of his Halloween mask smile with lunacy, they tare as its chin falls off, creating piles of singed plastic.

The lacerations, argue its face, collided to cause further physical distress.

His blade smile a compulsion, a nervous sickness. The black gold of the ocean, spewing out a rig. Severed arteries out of his neck create this repulsion.

Black ooze spews, unable to break monotony, convulsions out of a mass.

[Grace]

This is the first poem I have posted for critique, I look forward to hearing feedback.

Black Ooze

He smiles scarred tracks on ice, cracks in the earth’s crust, cut into brown dust cheeks, protected in a barbed wire moustache.

Black treacle gathers in the skin cracks of his chin.

Tar dribbles at the sides of his mouth, strains onto his chest, madness circles into his nostrils, black smoke in his brain, a charred bird’s nest.

His melted and burnt form, gritty grease gets caught in his teeth.

A caustic sour chemical tangles his mouth, his tongue, his hair. Hot melted black bin bag stretched over his forehead, mat shining plastic, boarded with a crusted smear of black gravel.

His tongue sinks in a thin pool of ink, bubbles on his teeth cause fierce pain under his ripped lips.

The skating smile from his hole razors through his face, slashed spirals, twirls, dots and blotches, deep stains through the skin’s soul.

A tearing of plate territory, violence cuts into features.

Fluid flows as charred lava inside his husk. It rides the slopes to his eyes. Through the veins of his white domes it soaks into his pupils, black clouds in dusked water.

His dead face, pleased of any sensation. Rotting clotting black, gushes out his portals.

The stretching aperture holes of his Halloween mask smile with lunacy, they tare as its chin falls off, creating piles of singed plastic.

The lacerations, argue its face, collided to cause further physical distress.

His blade smile a compulsion, a nervous sickness. The black gold of the ocean, spewing out a rig. Severed arteries out of his neck create this repulsion.

Black ooze spews, unable to break monotony, convulsions out of a mass.

Hi! Parts of this made me think of a cautionary tale to be read before you light your next cigarette, otherwise I don't have a clue what the poem is about, except maybe black ooze being oil. I'm confused. A suggestion is to find an alternative title that ties together the disjointed images. Grace.

[billy]

it's too full strip away 75% or more of the images and use a narrative that can be understood, all i got from it was oil spill and i think i was wrong

[Brownie]

Hey Ackeley
I'm not sure why this wouldn't be considered poetry. I thought is was good poetry, but like others have said, it has too much imagery. I'll offer my thoughts on this below:

[quote='AckeleyPhillips' pid='195641' dateline='1439830194']
This is the first poem I have posted for critique, I look forward to hearing feedback.

Black Ooze

He smiles scarred tracks on ice, cracks in the earth’s crust, cut into brown dust cheeks, protected in a barbed wire moustache.

Black treacle gathers in the skin cracks of his chin.

Tar dribbles at the sides of his mouth, strains onto his chest, madness circles into his nostrils, black smoke in his brain, a charred bird’s nest.

Boom! Stop right here. This is a great series of imagery. The following lines are too much though. Some may want to be omitted or rearranged.

His melted and burnt form, gritty grease gets caught in his teeth.

A caustic sour chemical tangles his mouth, his tongue, his hair. Hot melted black bin bag stretched over his forehead, mat shining plastic, boarded with a crusted smear of black gravel.

His tongue sinks in a thin pool of ink, bubbles on his teeth cause fierce pain under his ripped lips.

The skating smile from his hole razors through his face, slashed spirals, twirls, dots and blotches, deep stains through the skin’s soul.
Omit these lines would be my suggestion

A tearing of plate territory, violence cuts into features.

Fluid flows as charred lava inside his husk. It rides the slopes to his eyes. Through the veins of his white domes it soaks into his pupils, black clouds in dusked water.

His dead face, pleased of any sensation. Rotting clotting black, gushes out his portals.

The stretching aperture holes of his Halloween mask smile with lunacy, they tare as its chin falls off, creating piles of singed plastic.

The lacerations, argue its face, collided to cause further physical distress.
Omit these lines too

His blade smile a compulsion, a nervous sickness. The black gold of the ocean, spewing out a rig. Severed arteries out of his neck create this repulsion.

Black ooze spews, unable to break monotony, convulsions out of a mass.

So it reads like this: less is more as stated above

Black Ooze

He smiles scarred tracks on ice, cracks in the earth’s crust, cut into brown dust cheeks, protected in a barbed wire moustache.

Black treacle gathers in the skin cracks of his chin.

Tar dribbles at the sides of his mouth, strains onto his chest, madness circles into his nostrils, black smoke in his brain, a charred bird’s nest.

A tearing of plate territory, violence cuts into features.

Fluid flows as charred lava inside his husk. It rides the slopes to his eyes. Through the veins of his white domes it soaks into his pupils, black clouds in dusked water.

His blade smile a compulsion, a nervous sickness. The black gold of the ocean, spewing out a rig. Severed arteries out of his neck create this repulsion.

Black ooze spews, unable to break monotony, convulsions out of a mass.

[John]

Thank you all so much for your notes and feedback. This is the first piece of work I have exposed anywhere and I really appreciate the community input.

The purpose of the poem was to create the image of a bogey man, a thing of many forms which created fear, a subject of a nightmare. I wanted the style to be like a Dali painting, a cascade of imagery that did not make sense, with the imagery of black ooze tying it together. I intended for it to be the description of a man made from oil.

The feedback has been incredible to recieve and will go into my revision. It deffinitely goes on to long and it has no structure or flow, I wanted to get the Ooze into the rhythm of the piece, this has not come across and will be what I also work on.

Again, thank you.
Ackeley

Hi, AP,

Just to add to my first post. You used a plethora of adverbs and adjectives, clearly with the intent of graphic imagery. In that respect, you've plenty of material to develop. But your graphic imagery has to be understood by the reader, or it's all for nothing. It's the reader that matters.

If you recall what you said here -

I wanted the style to be like a Dali painting, a cascade of imagery that did not make sense...

I can see where you're coming from, but unless writing only for yourself, it must make sense. That's why some of us have only seen a jumble of words.

For me, you've a promising body of material that I'd look forward to reading redeveloped.

Cheers.

[velvet_morph]

Hi,

Yeah, just on the same lines as the other feedback. I really liked all the juicy words, but just had trouble taking them all in and making them make sense. I left it thinking it had something to do with oil, and oil rig workers (sorry!).

I think a bit of trimming...quite a bit, and you'll have a winner. As a wise man once said "Please put down the machine gun and I bet you'll hit the target more frequently, and more cleanly. Right now you're blasting through the entire shooting range and killing everybody in it."

You have tons of stuff to work with so finding content seems not to be a problem.

[kaxtar1]

This is the first poem I have posted for critique, I look forward to hearing feedback.

Black Ooze

He smiles scarred tracks on ice, cracks in the earth’s crust, cut into brown dust cheeks, protected in a barbed wire moustache.

Black treacle gathers in the skin cracks of his chin.

Tar dribbles at the sides of his mouth, strains onto his chest, madness circles into his nostrils, black smoke in his brain, a charred bird’s nest.

His melted and burnt form, gritty grease gets caught in his teeth.

A caustic sour chemical tangles his mouth, his tongue, his hair. Hot melted black bin bag stretched over his forehead, mat shining plastic, boarded with a crusted smear of black gravel.

His tongue sinks in a thin pool of ink, bubbles on his teeth cause fierce pain under his ripped lips.

The skating smile from his hole razors through his face, slashed spirals, twirls, dots and blotches, deep stains through the skin’s soul.

A tearing of plate territory, violence cuts into features.

Fluid flows as charred lava inside his husk. It rides the slopes to his eyes. Through the veins of his white domes it soaks into his pupils, black clouds in dusked water.

His dead face, pleased of any sensation. Rotting clotting black, gushes out his portals.

The stretching aperture holes of his Halloween mask smile with lunacy, they tare as its chin falls off, creating piles of singed plastic.

The lacerations, argue its face, collided to cause further physical distress.

His blade smile a compulsion, a nervous sickness. The black gold of the ocean, spewing out a rig. Severed arteries out of his neck create this repulsion.

Black ooze spews, unable to break monotony, convulsions out of a mass.

HI.  SO IN RETURN FOR YOUR FIRST POST, I'LL GIVE MY FIRST FEEDBACK.  

I have an unintelligent question, did you mean mask at the end?  I just don't understand mass.

So as far as I can tell there could be multiple interpretations for the poem and I'm frankly too overwhelmed to find one, so I'm taking the verbage at face value, that was fantastic.
One issue you're running into is the exact opposite of what Dickinson did, your word choice is fantastic but spastic.  You could argue that this grants more lunacy to the lunacy of the man but let's face it, we're not that type of artistic laziness.  Read some of Dickinson's poems, personally I think she's a great poet and a shit artist.  The poems she writes show how verbs need to LINK together the sameness in the poem.  Look at all the feelings you have in your poem, it's caustic, smooth, rough.  Don't get me wrong, clearly you're bubbling (like the dude's teeth, heh) with talent, your poem shows that and shoves it down my throat.  What it doesn't shove down is a point anyone could latch onto.  Most people here would probably mention that it doesn't make sense, because frankly, it doesn't need to.  But, what needs to be figured out is if this shotgun approach actually DOES anything.  If it doesn't, cut it out and conclude more strongly, otherwise, I love what you wrote and would love to see more from you.