Chris?..

[Cody Phoenix]

This is about my brother. And is spoken word.

God has given you life and within you his eyes, yet you cover his face.
thinking our mother's to blame for the world throwin' you under it's train,
stomach full of truth serum and too inebriated to plead the fifth,
how is it you can still bare to be seeing this beneath "it" Chris?
you HIDE the truth and LIE to You, always begging to find "This" proof,
behind all of your problems, wearing "this" mask failin' to realize it's you,
we hear the deception in your voice that's darkened your mind,
I can even see the spark in your eyes starting to die,
your face is emotionless and looks like you're breathing the ocean in,
drowning in thought; choking where no solace is,
now the coldest, grim, smolderin' memories are coaxing in this depression,
impulsively battling these euphoric struggles, throwing fists of your vengeance,
always unfocused and misdirected, wandering aimlessly in hope of affection,
you're lost in the boldest aggression and feeling nothing but the coldest of essence,
you only live once, so tell me why do you limit yourself, why am i givin' you help,
do you really live with your health? Why is this stage of your life a mimic of hell?
I've seen you back when you lived in a cell and when you were grippin' the twelve,
when i held your life in my hands, fate was ringin' a bell and God was in me to tell,
the night you overdosed, thought your life was over bro, almost cried with no control,
habit took over my mind and overthrown, scared of the thought where your soul will go,
Mom was crying, tiffany's frozen, dad's givin' me notions, but i wasn't givin' you roses..
we are confined by the limits we've chosen, and i hope one day you'll live in the open,
so gimme your focus and listen, when the night has come and you think life is done,
'cause you had problems with the girl you tried to love,
Just remember man, you a better man, you'll get a second chance,
and we all know you'll get a new girl better than you ever had,
but if you ever need help from me, just ask and i'll lend a hand,
And I'll guide you thru God's stellar plans in this hellish land ...


"Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away.."

[Magpie]

Hi Cody Phoenix,
I think you've done a good job with this poem, and although it is obviously a very personal poem to you, I felt that it also invited me "the reader" in to be part of it, and therefore understand it. I think this is mostly due to the way you wrote it, as you would say it to your brother. This made it flow very fluently. Also you have some wonderful phrases such as "your face is emotionless and looks like you're breathing the ocean in" good line. The phrase "we are confined by the limits we've chosen" should sound cliche, but to me the tone of the whole poem enables you to carry it off without sounding cliche.
A couple of points, now and again at points I noticed that it did slip into rhyme, which for me affected the rhythm of the poem, especially at the end where it sounds almost a little bit corny. But all in all I thoroughly enjoyed reading this.
Thanks
AR

[Cody Phoenix]

Hi Cody Phoenix,
I think you've done a good job with this poem, and although it is obviously a very personal poem to you, I felt that it also invited me "the reader" in to be part of it, and therefore understand it. I think this is mostly due to the way you wrote it, as you would say it to your brother. This made it flow very fluently. Also you have some wonderful phrases such as "your face is emotionless and looks like you're breathing the ocean in" good line. The phrase "we are confined by the limits we've chosen" should sound cliche, but to me the tone of the whole poem enables you to carry it off without sounding cliche.
A couple of points, now and again at points I noticed that it did slip into rhyme, which for me affected the rhythm of the poem, especially at the end where it sounds almost a little bit corny. But all in all I thoroughly enjoyed reading this.
Thanks
AR

I am glad you liked reading this, I appreciate the feedback. Thank you very much, I'll be sure to post more sometime!

[billy]

feel free to put an audio of it in miscellaneous (use an mp3)
i'm betting it sounds good as a spoken word poem, alas all we have here is text. some greet lines in the poem, some good images. here's a thing, if it's spoken word, why centre align. for me it doesn't add anything, to some extent it detracts from the poem, the first thing we see isn't the poem but a nice shape. while you do have a lot of good stuff in here, it's wordy (which is probably why it's okay as spoken word)

how is it you can still bare to be seeing
how can you bare to see.....

thanks for the read

This is about my brother. And is spoken word.

God has given you life and within you his eyes, yet you cover his face.
thinking our mother's to blame for the world throwin' you under it's train,
stomach full of truth serum and too inebriated to plead the fifth,
how is it you can still bare to be seeing this beneath "it" Chris?
you HIDE the truth and LIE to You, always begging to find "This" proof,
behind all of your problems, wearing "this" mask failin' to realize it's you,
we hear the deception in your voice that's darkened your mind,
I can even see the spark in your eyes starting to die,
your face is emotionless and looks like you're breathing the ocean in,
drowning in thought; choking where no solace is,
now the coldest, grim, smolderin' memories are coaxing in this depression,
impulsively battling these euphoric struggles, throwing fists of your vengeance,
always unfocused and misdirected, wandering aimlessly in hope of affection,
you're lost in the boldest aggression and feeling nothing but the coldest of essence,
you only live once, so tell me why do you limit yourself, why am i givin' you help,
do you really live with your health? Why is this stage of your life a mimic of hell?
I've seen you back when you lived in a cell and when you were grippin' the twelve,
when i held your life in my hands, fate was ringin' a bell and God was in me to tell,
the night you overdosed, thought your life was over bro, almost cried with no control,
habit took over my mind and overthrown, scared of the thought where your soul will go,
Mom was crying, tiffany's frozen, dad's givin' me notions, but i wasn't givin' you roses..
we are confined by the limits we've chosen, and i hope one day you'll live in the open,
so gimme your focus and listen, when the night has come and you think life is done,
'cause you had problems with the girl you tried to love,
Just remember man, you a better man, you'll get a second chance,
and we all know you'll get a new girl better than you ever had,
but if you ever need help from me, just ask and i'll lend a hand,
And I'll guide you thru God's stellar plans in this hellish land ...


"Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away.."

[Cody Phoenix]

feel free to put an audio of it in miscellaneous (use an mp3)
i'm betting it sounds good as a spoken word poem, alas all we have here is text. some greet lines in the poem, some good images. here's a thing, if it's spoken word, why centre align. for me it doesn't add anything, to some extent it detracts from the poem, the first thing we see isn't the poem but a nice shape. while you do have a lot of good stuff in here, it's wordy (which is probably why it's okay as spoken word)

how is it you can still bare to be seeing
how can you bare to see.....

thanks for the read

This is about my brother. And is spoken word.

God has given you life and within you his eyes, yet you cover his face.
thinking our mother's to blame for the world throwin' you under it's train,
stomach full of truth serum and too inebriated to plead the fifth,
how is it you can still bare to be seeing this beneath "it" Chris?
you HIDE the truth and LIE to You, always begging to find "This" proof,
behind all of your problems, wearing "this" mask failin' to realize it's you,
we hear the deception in your voice that's darkened your mind,
I can even see the spark in your eyes starting to die,
your face is emotionless and looks like you're breathing the ocean in,
drowning in thought; choking where no solace is,
now the coldest, grim, smolderin' memories are coaxing in this depression,
impulsively battling these euphoric struggles, throwing fists of your vengeance,
always unfocused and misdirected, wandering aimlessly in hope of affection,
you're lost in the boldest aggression and feeling nothing but the coldest of essence,
you only live once, so tell me why do you limit yourself, why am i givin' you help,
do you really live with your health? Why is this stage of your life a mimic of hell?
I've seen you back when you lived in a cell and when you were grippin' the twelve,
when i held your life in my hands, fate was ringin' a bell and God was in me to tell,
the night you overdosed, thought your life was over bro, almost cried with no control,
habit took over my mind and overthrown, scared of the thought where your soul will go,
Mom was crying, tiffany's frozen, dad's givin' me notions, but i wasn't givin' you roses..
we are confined by the limits we've chosen, and i hope one day you'll live in the open,
so gimme your focus and listen, when the night has come and you think life is done,
'cause you had problems with the girl you tried to love,
Just remember man, you a better man, you'll get a second chance,
and we all know you'll get a new girl better than you ever had,
but if you ever need help from me, just ask and i'll lend a hand,
And I'll guide you thru God's stellar plans in this hellish land ...


"Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away.."

The reason I center align it is because of habit, I'm used to writing "structured verses", matching syllables and what not from rap forums. And I shall attempt to make that an audio real soon. thanks for the feedback!!

[Heartafire]

Hi Cody, you invited me to take a look here and I am more honored to do so. A very personal and passionate piece. Strikes close to home for me, it is hard for me to be objective re substance. This is well written and I think Billy is right, would make a nice audio.
Heart

[knicodemus3]

Hey Cody,

This is some pretty impacting spoken word man. I really am honored to read it! But I am assuming you still want critique so I have a few minor things. I agree with Billy, line 4 can use some clarity. Line 14, this is a minor grammatical thing, but I think the way you have it worded it would have to be "coldest of essences" since it's the superlative of a group. So maybe you could alter it somehow (i.e. "coldness of essence," "coldest essence," etc.). In the next line, line 15, I heard in my head "you only live once, so why are you killing yourself," just thought I would share that since you mention limiting oneself twice. Last, line 20 tripped me up a little "habit took over my mind and overthrown." I wasn't sure what overthrown was referring to, "Mom" or "my mind." It may sound different when spoken but maybe "habit took over mind" isn't really necessary either. Overall, you had some really awesome imagery and soul-jerking wordplay!

[Cody Phoenix]

Thank you all for the wonderful feedback! I am so glad you all enjoyed it.