/lit/ - Literature

>>19244139
>I need a title and is their anything I can do to improve this poem. Its part of a larger series (sorta).

She's
In my head
It goes unsaid

We've, never met
Bet, I'm consigned

Because I singed
My sanity
Away

Please pray

>>19244158
Oh how thy glowing eyes will see
A deep pertubrance to be
Oh diary of weekend pens
Beneath thy book rotting wood lends
Oh soaring heights of stolen hells
Take heed and hear the ringing bells
Oh heavens call, rejoice, revoke
For last sin is a speech not spoke
Oh silence void requires a voice
And shall thy sing to fill a choice
For if you dont, a crime will be
Talent wasted, for all to see

>>19244158
Pray/10

>>19244158
Too facile.
>>19244678
Outdated and not particularly inspired.

>>19244695
Eh im drunk, mispelled protuberance and more

The face disappears
Leaves swam over it like flies
The body becomes forest

>>19244715
I'm not talking about your misspellings, anon. Those are forgivable. What I'm talking about is your anachronistic style. I'm going to guess you're 19 or 20.

A death of tangible thought
All feeling stretched outward
Fleeting from a prison all know
Nobody else knows this, though
Nobody decomposes like so
All help couldn't reach out
To something so desperate
A final cry of longing is made
Before energy beseeches itself
And drifts away and fades.

>>19244727
Thats a great insult and lit wont know why it landed

Noose, neck, hanged,

my corpse spreads, yellow-blue sent,

then selfish depression, hidden like bitter cancer under salty stone,

now shame open for world to see

>>19244726
It feels like its not complete
>>19244158
a bit cliche but short and catchy

>>19244857
It's a haiku

>>19244726
I don't like it. Things are disappearing, who cares?
>>19244678
Flows very well indeed. I prefer something a little more comtempary personally. But for what it is it is good.
>>19244857
To many metaphors. Does not read well outload.

>Now
>The noose on my neck

>I am hanged
>Well?
>>19244678
>Pray/10
Thanks. Keep me in your thoughts and payers.
>>19244695
>Too facile.
Does it need to be super complex?
I think its a good ending to a series I have been working on. But I think it stands on its own. How would you make it more complex?

>>19244139
>Sneed's Feed & Seed is
>no longer Chuck's Fuck & Suck
>old man Simpson knew

>>19244997
how about this

Noose, neck, I hanged,

Then selfishly hidden, like cancer under stone,

Now, shame, open to see.

>>19245071
Its better. Still not perfect or anything.
I would change the last line.

>>19245083
I'l keep it like this

Noose, neck, hanged,

depression hidden, like cancer under stone

crawled out free

>>19244139
>bump

I thought
Her ass is fat

I like that
BUT NO!

She a small ass, hoe
Though

She's here
And I ain't queer

“Come here”
Boo

Give me sex
Unlike, your ex

>>19245490
A yellow nigger youre not
A blank face trigger ive got
Life leeching out, scratch your ass
Fuck you niggers, my hall pass

Its really distastefull what i typed but meh fuck you for reading it

>>19244139
bump

For many nights I’ve spent away I’ve come
To want you more, my love. That time we met
By chance; Or by fate, whatever God must
Have nudged, when you became a memory.

When I upon your eyes have come across,
My beauty, whose black jewels want of mine,
My girl, your assets,

>>19244139
how are people not afraid someone will steal their work and use it as their own?

>>19245490
that's from a thread a couple days ago when someone asked us anons to write poetry about a whore's ass

For many nights I’ve spent away I’ve come
To want you more, my love. That time we met
By chance; Or by fate, whatever God must
Have nudged, when you became a memory.

When I upon your eyes have come across
Your beauty, whose black jewels want of mine,
Your slave, Your eunuch, and - ‘till I be tossed
Myself - a poet for your divine eyes.

Original, Mandelbaum & Longfellow:

https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine-comedy/purgatorio/purgatorio-9/

>>19247886
It's a bit bland and void of imagery. It's also too short and the form and overall language are dated and I don't see an attempt to integrate it (linguistically) into the contemporary context.

I like the "Or by fate, whatever God must/ have nudged, when you became a memory." That's layered and evokes a more original image than the rest.

>>19245175
It's almost a haiku. I like the "like cancer under stone crawled out free", a powerful image. The rest is too choppy, like rap, but it doesn't have the length to build on that and deliver that powerful image so it feels undeserved.

>>19244743
Dark, but basic. The (visual) uniform length of each line and the capitlization of each first letter on the line seemingly draw inspiration from more traditional poetric forms, but the number of syllables is inconsistent and offsets the rhythm. This would be fine for free verse, but it feels too constrained for that, like it doesn't know whether it wants to be a traditional poem or something more modern. The subject matter is very standard, which is fine, but if you're going to write about something almost everyone else has written at some point in their literary lives, you need to break out from what you've seen and what you expect. Let go and surprise yourself with imagery and connections.

>>19244678
refer to the above, my comments are largely the same. It's gunning for something traditional but doesn't keep well enough to a specific form to stay coherent and ends up falling apart. Again, dated, with no attempt to "own" the datedness. I can see that you can do better.

>>19248012
To all anons, stop trying to adhere to your ideas of what poetry should be. You're trying to make someone on the opposite end of your words feel something, think something, and your sole concern should be "does this word, does this order of words, structure, tone, visual formatting, do all of these work to convey the concrete thing I'm trying to convey?"

>>19248012
>bland
how
I don't see an attempt to integrate it (linguistically) into the contemporary context.
why do this

>>19248070
>bland
it doesn't have a unique, identifying style, form, wordcraft or theme.
>I don't see an attempt to integrate it (linguistically) into the contemporary context.
That's a bit more difficult to answer, but if you actually want to know I'll try typing it out. Tl;dr - your poems are born in an entirely different literary, social, political, ideological world.

>>19244139
Piss poor words,
Stretches of chokes
I never, ever, ever
Write a good poem.

>>19248040
But I don't understand, because they don't feel as I am.
I look at what I write and I feel a response, but try showing it to the world. Nothing. A polite "that's nice".
And I look at most poetry and I feel nothing. I liked Wittgenstein's dragon poem, if anyone knows it...
I just use free writing as a tool to articulate emotion. Given up on writing "good".

three black country poems from a meme thread

>>19247978
>>19248075
>>19248100

>>19248151
You're on the right track, anon. It's good that you've looked at this and analyzed how things make you feel, and how they make others feel. You don't need a lot to jump over this hurdle. But you just admitted to the exact reason why this "I look at what I write and I feel a response, but try showing it to the world. Nothing. A polite "that's nice." happens.
>I just use free writing as a tool to articulate emotion.
This is both the truth and a lie. If you write to articulate an emotion you feel now, you use the emotion as a formula to generate language and text. But it's not reversible, so in five years time you are going to look at your poems and feel nothing; this might be happening already with your older poems. The trick is to do the exact opposite - use the language as a formula to generate emotion. Other people don't have access to your particular life expriences, so they can't use them to decipher the poem you wrote in the same way, hence they don't get the same reaction. But through trial and error, you can find how to write things that generate in others what you feel on the inside.

Also, Wittgenstein's dragon poem?

I’m tired; what enters whole gets torn,
gets examined, prodded, rearranged and packaged,
then formulated back together.
For once, I would like to see the dragon in the clouds.

This?

>>19248163
good kek

>>19248171
Yes, thank you, been looking for it.
Hm. I'm unsure how to write words that evoke a response, not arise out of a response.
Recently I was reading birth of tragedy and Nietzsche goes on about how words are "inferior" to music because an image the words paint is only a partial fit to what the music arises. And I'm like, ok, so what's the point of words? Do I need to describe images? I need to arise some response if I want people to like my poetry, but how? I try to copy and assimilate things that gave me a response, and stick them on the things I want to say, but something on the way jumbles out.
I'm starting to accept that I'm just a bad poet, that's fine, but I'll give it my best when I do try to write.
Oh and thanks again for Wittgenstein's. Although in my head it goes:
I'm tired; what enters whole gets torn
Examined, prodded, rearranged and destroyed.

Tired of overthinking.

>>19244726
I actually really like it Anon, even if it isn’t 5-7-5 it fits what a haiku is supposed to be really well. Very mature dealing with transience without grasping at the ache of it.

A rather long prose poem.

https://pastebin.com/cmNnvJ56

>>19248271
As I said, you're on the right track, fren. Knowing your faults and limitations is the prerequisite to growing past them. Give yourself a break from overthinking, you deserve it. Remind yourself that no matter how you do in whatever it is you do, you deserve to take breaks, to take care of yourself.

That's an excerpt from a poem of mine, which does reference Wittgenstein and his philosophy. I didn't want to post the whole thing because it's not complete yet. I am very glad it managed to get through to you. Now you're helping me down my own path, and I thank you for that.

>>19244726
This is OK, except it's hard not to feel "swam" is a typo for "swarm".

>>19248295
How many prose poems were done before 1950? It seems like a fairly new thing to me, so I wonder what other prose poems you have read.

>>19248295
that's actually really good

>>19248298
It's ok, you can be a bit mean ;)
I don't like the last 2 lines because personally I'm in the stage of being angry at the thinking itself. I would like to see clouds and stop the council of voices, jabbering away. But the more you fight them the more they come back
You put in your best efforts, day after day, without knowing if you're even helping yourself, except for the fact you see you've changed. Isn't that a bitch?
How's this:?
Today I saw a man, alone, well, except for his bike
And ammonia stains decorated his work pants,
But he was clean, very, and his hands white, peeling raw, and red below nails,
And the dogs would chase him, but refuse to come near

>>19248310
Oh yeah, that was a typo that slipped by, it IS supposed to be swarm

>>19248386
I'm not memeing you and being nice by saying that that is so much better than the other ones. I can SEE the man, I can SMELL him, I can feel the aura of his presence, and I can sense the isolation, the loneliness with that tinge of resignation.
You did it. You managed to put aside your own idea of what "should be" and you just ... let it be.
If you do this often enough, it will no longer be a battle to let go, and eventually it will become your natural writing state. It will be hard at times, but I genuinely believe in you.
Last but not least, if you've never allowed yourself to go back and edit, do so. Don't be afraid to search for a better word, to re-arrange, try out different structures for things that feel unyieldy, cut, tear, patch and sometimes even excise whole parts and keep them perhaps as seeds for another work. Don't listen to the resident /lit/ writers, editing is the bread and butter of good literature.

>>19248407
Thank you.
I like your point about making words that arise feelings. I thought, what do people feel is a bit creepy? Dogs that won't come near? White hands? In the end you read it as isolation and not as a danger sign, but atleast it carried something, eh.
No harm in using cliche stuff.
Post your work? I'd love to see

>>19248343
By name the prose poem tradition begins with Aloysius bertrand’s Gaspard De la Nuit, which then goes on to inspire Baudelaire and from many, but without name the prose poem has existed for as long as any other form of writing. By this I mean, Arabian Saj and Chinese fu are both rhymed prose poetry and they have extreme examples like the work of Al-Hariri of Basra. There’s also the fact that Hebrew poetry traditionally neither counted syllables nor had any metrical system, meaning all of the ancient Hebrew poetry has prose-rhythms, we also know dudes like Cicero, Demosthenes and many others put full metrical consideration and titanic ovidian levels of refinement to their prose styles, so at that point what is a poem and what is prose just shatters.

Personally when I write prose poems, I just write a stanza of poetry and remove the line breaks.

>>19248363
Glad you liked it!

I was assigned to write a confessional poem for
poetry class so Id appreciate thoughts before I submit it. Usually I like writing with more structure and less sincerity so this was out of my comfort zone.

Since saturday
I have three new friends.

They are metpamid, gaviscon,
and a tablespoon of ground coffee
with drops of lemon juice.

Without them
I would surely have had
Thrown up a liver.

God willing
They will never
Move out of town
Or get married
Or have kids.

>>19248128
at first i instinctively wanted it to be
>ill never
or
>wrote
but now i like the way it is
>>19247886
>Your beauty, whose black jewels want of mine,
>Your slave, Your eunuch
>divine
>fate
>god
very mediocre. there is a nice flow to the first stanza

>>19248431
Well besides that bit with Wittgenstein's dragon, I have only excerpts (for now), plus I'm a little wary of posting whole poems on 4chan.

tea room
“The first allotrope of carbon is the sign.”
Your words are laden with that plague
that eats away at me at night, and tonight
I wheeze and cough my words out clot by clot
into your waiting palm.
You say I taste like someone-stein,
like your father, then you cross the space between us
on the isthmus of my arm;
I tremble at your foreign body in my mouth.

It's from the same poem as the dragon in the clouds.

>>19248343
i like lovecrafts azatoth and rb chambers the prophets paradise

>>19248489
You really really should check out clark Ashton smith, here’s two of his prose poems.

THE CRYSTALS

Raptly as one who would divine the perilous eyes of Sleep, and the dreams and mysteries which lurk therein, I sought to fathom the gulf-enclosing orb of the crystal: Void for a time, and hollow with light it was, and transpicuous like the orient sky that is made clear for the colours of the dawn. But soon the light was centered to a star, and the crystal itself, as if pregnant with the Infinite, became a tenebrous and profound abysm, thro which a teeming myriad of shadows, vague as incipient dreams, or luminous with a glimpse of vision not prefigurable, fled in an ever-changing phantasmagoric succession about the star: From out those vortical and swirling glooms, where only the central star was constant, I saw the pallor of innominable faces emerge-faces that broke like bubbles; and forms that were strange as conceptions of an alien sun, with the eidolons of things which were imageless before, swam for a little in that phantasmic wave. But all the multifold mysteries which were manifest therein, I knew for the hidden thoughts and occluse, reluctant dreams of mine under-soul — thoughts and dreams now shadow-shown in the gulf-revealing orb of the hollow crystal...

Thus, in the crystal of Time and Space, whose gulfs contain all that we call the Infinite, may God behold the manifestation of all the multiform mysteries, and all the secret thoughts and dreams which abide in the centermost sanctuary of His Being. And naught may appear to Him but these-His thoughts and dreams forever shadow-shown in the immeasurable orb of the hollow crystal of Time and Space.

Next post will have another one.

>>19248479
>have had
'had' is redundant and sounds weird. but if you cut 'had' i believe you will need to reconsider the linebreaks of that stanza, and perhaps the words as a result.

The idea itself is nice: an illness, comfort in medication, and a bitterness for lost love and isolation. But I don't love how it is written. I do like the final stanza. If it was me, I would rewrite the first three stanzas. Change linebreaks, add and remove words. Like I said, the idea is good, and the final stanza is good, but the rest of it doesn't work for me, personally.

>>19248507
A DREAM OF LETHE

In the quest of her whom I had lost, I came at length to the shores of Lethe, under the vault of an immense, empty, ebon sky, from which all the stars had vanished one by one. Proceeding I knew not whence, a pale, elusive light as of the waning moon, or the phantasmal phosphorescence of a dead sun, lay dimly and without lustre on the sable stream, and on the black, flowerless meadows. By this light, I saw many wandering souls of men and women, who came, hesitantly or in haste, to drink of the slow unmurmuring waters. But among all these, there were none who departed in haste, and many who stayed to watch, with unseeing eyes, the calm and waveless movement of the stream. At length in the lily-tall and gracile form, and the still, uplifted face of a woman who stood apart from the rest, I saw the one whom I had sought; and, hastening to her side, with a heart wherein old memories sang like a nest of nightingales, was fain to take her by the hand. But in the pale, immutable eyes, and wan, unmoving lips that were raised to mine, I saw no light of memory, nor any tremor of recognition. And knowing now that she had forgotten, I turned away despairingly, and finding the river at my side, was suddenly aware of my ancient thirst for its waters, a thirst I had once thought to satisfy at many diverse springs, but in vain. Stooping hastily, I drank, and rising again, perceived that the light had died or disappeared, and that all the land was like the land of a dreamless slumber, wherein I could no longer distinguish the faces of my companions. Nor was I able to remember any longer why I wished to drink of the waters of oblivion.

>>19248479
That's 4 friends, liar :(
I think the third stanza is unnecessary personally.
>>19248488
Good!
I now know you as one who has wrestled with questions. Same immediate touch as your dragon excerpt.
I didn't understand the carbon line, though, sorry.

>>19248611
Thanks! The carbon line makes a lot more sense in the context of the rest of the poem, but let's say that you'll be seeing the whole poem... soon. All I can say is, in the next year or two, look for the golden mask.

Hark!
For in a year's rest,
You shall be under arrest
Unless -
China falls first

>>19248687
USA and China should fall together

>>19248899
checked, also faggot

>>19244139
Mother
An English son
Is floating in the mud
Somewhere north of Ypres
Mother it was a sunny autumn day
When he came to rest
Far from his home
An English Heart
Held by English hands
He learned the English truth of war
There’s no glory
Just kids sitting in a trench awaiting fate
And fate came from above
He faced it bravely
The shrapnel pierced his lungs
He showed no sign of fear or pain
Save one faint cry of
Mother
Oh mother

Before his soul passed on

The body stayed
And turned to dust
And fed the earth and every blade of grass
And every root
And every branch and
every leaf
of every flower
and every tree
There is a place in that field that will be
Forever England
Her ways to roam
And English flowers blessed by sun from home


Wittgenstein poem makes me very sad. Generally speaking I’m very impressed lads. Most of you wrote something I thought was very good

>>19249468
that's good, anon, I feel like I should know the specific event it's about, but it eludes me
I feel weirdly good about the fact that the Wittgenstein thing affected you so, thank you

>>19249468
Wow, I love this poem. I had to google some lines because I thought it was an old poem you had posted, but I found nothing. That might be the best poem I've seen posted here.

I am quite drunk though, so please don't let my enthusiasm go to your head too much. I've only just finished doing a faux-Mauri war dance in the bathroom.

>>19249763
I also read it oud loud very sonorously and I enjoy the sound of my own voice very much so that may have coloured your poem. Nonetheless, very enjoyable experience, even if I am not entirely sure how much your poem actually played a part in it.

>>19247786
Yea. I made it longer.

>>19248295
Congrats on the publication btw desu

>>19249972
Thanks chief!

>>19250042
>42
yeah congrfats. did you submit the yatlaboeath TROLOOLOOLOLOL one?

>>19248611
>>19248511
thank you guyss for being specific. V2 is this, but it still might need work

Since last saturday
I've made friends with
Gaviscon, metpamid
And ground coffee
With lemon juice

God willing
They won't ever
Move out of town
Or get married
Or have kids

>>19244139
> throw away poem . Can it be saved?

Youth

Innocent, yet depraved
An orgy, in a rave

We cave, to lust
Steel, to rust

And, we bust

>>19244997
My rates

>>19250086
>since last saturday

that doesn't feel like it's important to know, certainly not important enough to be the opening line. if it was included later, i might not object to its presence, but it is not an opening line.

Also, now that the stanza about throwing up a liver has been removed, I feel like there is a void there, like the lemon juice runs too quickly into the comparison to those who move out of town. I do think a little space there is good, and the liver bit filled that well.

>>19247754
You have great rhythm, the words flow like lightning. Perhaps add something more distinctively personal or emotional that opens the poem a little, it’s somewhat abstract.

>>19250118
thanks a lot

>>19250188
some poets play with a single poem hundreds of times. just keep playing with it.

>>19245175
Not him, but I liked the first two lines and only had issue issue with the last 2.

>>19250086
Of course, as the very final poem. Kek

>>19249549
>>19249763
Thank you, it means a lot fellows. I’m working on a concept album about Wittgenstein’s life oddly enough you had posted a poem he wrote that I hadn’t seen before. Again, makes me feel profoundly. Do you know the date it was written?
I’ll post more at some point, but I’ll probably lurk here for a bit, I’m hoping to get a small label to put out the album.

>>19250273
I'm still quite drunk but I really do love that poem. You never gave a title though ... does it have one? An English Son seems like the obvious title, for me.

>>19250086
This is my favorite poem of this thread. Modern poetry that excites me the most is the boiled down particulars of life strung together on a cute charm bracelet.

>>19249549
Sort of a tribute to Virgil’s Aeneid when he’s in the underworld talking to his father, except applied to the British Empire, and specifically the first battle of Ypres during the Great War. I had the first one in mind as the Dutch blew the polders and flooded the entire battlefield so the soldiers were knee deep in blood piss and mud.

Anyway It’s actually lyrics I’m hoping to have a whole concept album taken by a label. I doubt many have much interest in these things though.

I’ll Start lurking here and maybe post the rest at some point.

>>19249549
Do you have a date on that Witty poem? I’ve been quite deep into his work but didn’t ever see it. Regardless, thanks for posting it. Quite really makes me feel

>>19249763
Cheers mate. Appreciate the kind words, even in a state of happy intoxication.

>>19250320
I really like this poem. I read it out loud.

https://vocaroo.com/19PLkg3xbFo9

Forgive my breathlessness, as I said, I am quite drunk. I have read this poem numerous times now. I do not want to insist on this, because I love the poem, but just from the way I read it every time I feel there may be room to improve the poem just with a few linebreaks.

Mother
An English son
Is floating in the mud
Somewhere north of Ypres

Mother it was a sunny autumn day
When he came to rest
Far from his home

An English Heart
Held by English hands

He learned the English truth of war
There’s no glory
Just kids sitting in a trench awaiting fate
And fate came from above

He faced it bravely
The shrapnel pierced his lungs
He showed no sign of fear or pain
Save one faint cry of

Mother
Oh mother

Before his soul passed on

The body stayed
And turned to dust
And fed the earth and every blade of grass

And every root
And every branch and
every leaf
of every flower
and every tree

There is a place in that field that will be
Forever England
Her ways to roam
And English flowers blessed by sun from home

I may have just butchered your poem by breaking it up like this, but this is how I think I see it, in my head and in my voice. If nothing else I hope it gives you another way of looking at it. I really do love it.

>>19250405
Thank you, I’ll keep it this way, I’m copying it now. I had written it out loud and didn’t know how to write I down but this is much better

>>19250456
it's a really good poem you should be proud

i long for
our little lies
and out little lives
a time frozen in stasis
of inches and inch spaces

>>19250405
Great reading I’m gonna save it

>>19248288
>Haikus are 5-7-5
I didn’t know you were such a puhsood

>>19251043
Nah I know syllables aren’t morae and that actual haikus don’t even have to obey the 17 and that they have various content laws revolving around transience and so forth, but English haiku is its own tradition at this point, they’re definitely fun to see. Don’t get me wrong I like dudes like Santōka Taneda, all in all I think the poem in question was successful.

>>19244139
uppon thine seed store doth I feed
along yonder sneeding of sneeds.
Iponder now the subtle fuck and suck .
of chucks

>>19251301
What's your thoughts on Basho? I'm curious.

I sit here now
Becoming a fading memory in the minds of those who I cherished
I wish to be an ever burning star in their night sky
Yet all I remain is a weakening wisp
My colors slowly bleaching
My lines becoming blurred
The sound of my voice turns into a background murmur
The feeling of my touch is now the faintest zephyr
I peer out from my cage of memories
My pastel rot
Why must I be forgotten
Why do they not hold on
Their hands become limp and drop me
I fall further and further from their hearts
There is no other option but to forget as well
But I cannot
How could I sever my precious moments
How can I ever be rid of their smiles
I do not want to let it all go
What else can I do but release
I turn cold, to ice
I am no longer

>>19250273
>>19250404
it's an excerpt from my poem about Wittgenstein, not his, sorry if it came across that way

>>19252351
it's not even about Wittgenstein, it just has ideas and images inspired by his Tractatus, fuck I'm sorry, I just woke up and I'm still groggy

>>19250405
Are you out of breath?

>>19250194
>>19250118
heres V3. its not final but it looks good in times new roman. i have no idea why i wrote tablespoon instead of teaspoon before. a tablespoon of ground coffee might choke you.

If I weren’t friends with
Gaviscon, Metpamid,
and a teaspoon of ground coffee
with drops of lemon juice,
I would have surely
thrown up a liver.
God willing
they will never
move out of town,
or get married,
or have kids.

>>19250351
thanks. what about V3?
>What excites me the most
>Are the boiled down particulars
>Strung together like
>A cute charm bracelet

>>19248488
really good outside of the last line.
>tremble
>foreign body
very common and cheap
>>19248687
its probably worse when you know the context, but without it, i like it a lot
>>19250531
is out a typo for our? and the confusion in pronouncing "lives" (as in our lives) and lives (as in he lives) kills flow. i like the second to last and love the last line

>>19252439
I still don't like the opening line. It seems to me that opening with Gaviscon, metpamid, would be more interesting.

Gaviscon, Metpamid,
a teaspoon of ground coffee
with drops of lemon juice,

(here you should write
about how they are
your friends)

liver bit

god willing

Open with the concrete detail of the medicine. Save the explanation of what they are for afterwards.

Also, 'with' lemon juice is bothering me a little. Is there a better way of saying that? Instead of just saying 'with'? Or, actually, just cut it. Drops of lemon juice would be fine alone and would give the first stanza a nice sort of staccato edge, like a list waiting to be explained.

I also took out 'and' from the ground coffee line. It seems unnecessary. I would also remove 'will' from 'they will never' in the last stanza.

>>19252439
>>19252488
I agree that opening with the medicine is much stronger, and I completely support dropping "with" before lemon juice, poetry doesn't need all the explanatory words typical for prose and it sounds really good when it's like "a teastpoon of ground coffee, drops of lemon juice".

Thanks for the analysis of the last line with the "your foreign body in my mouth", I am going for the experience to feel cheap and superficial, the language is intentional, but if it just comes across as not written well enough instead, I'll have to have a think.

>>19252488
>>19252604
thanks again for taking the time. that listing things without a sentence device can make it sound like a parody of a confessional poem (though i guess confessional poems in general feel like parodies of confessional poems) and makes it more melodramatic when id prefer if it sounded siller, cuter, smaller... but im working on a V4 with all that in mind. meanwhile i wrote a more poemy parody of this

Gaviscon and metpamid
Are whom I’m now friends with
And I invite over for tea
A teaspoon of ground coffee

For if it weren’t for them
My mushy inner mayhem
Would then have certainly
Brought about the end of me

God Willing they will never
Leave the vicinity of my liver
And move away out of town
While I’m twitching on the ground

>>19252604
>but if it just comes across as not written well enough instead, I'll have to have a think
yes i meant the expression was cliched and cheap while everything else was unique and colorful

>>19252361
>>19252351
Oh great well done, I understood it’s meaning right away.

>>19252604
>>19252488
V4. Id like to have the lemon juice line a little longer so i can stick together all the stanzas without a line sticking out.

Gaviscon, Metpamid,
a teaspoon of ground coffee,
drops of lemon juice.

Without them as friends
I would have surely
thrown up a liver.

God willing
they will never
move out of town
or get married
or have kids.

>>19253798
That's much better, good job!
I wouldn't worry about visual line length in this poem, they're close enough to where it doesn't matter and even if it bothers you most people won't mind it. Don't sacrifice the rhythm and sound for something so minor

>>19252233
I’ve liked what I read but I’ve always felt the translations have to be destroying it on account of how many translations exist of singular poems.

>>19254070
okay thanks for staying with me till the end. ill let you know if the instructor actually reads it and makes a comment.

>>19254157
Good luck!

If you can dress to make yourself attractive,
Yet not make puffs and curls your chief delight;
If you can swim and row, be strong and active,
But of the gentler graces lose not sight;
If you can dance without a craze for dancing,
Play without giving play too strong a hold,
Enjoy the love of friends without romancing,
Care for the weak, the friendless and the old;

If you can master French and Greek and Latin,
And not acquire, as well, a priggish mien,
If you can feel the touch of silk and satin
Without despising calico and jean;
If you can ply a saw and use a hammer,
Can do a man’s work when the need occurs,
Can sing when asked, without excuse or stammer,
Can rise above unfriendly snubs and slurs;
If you can make good bread as well as fudges,
Can sew with skill and have an eye for dust,
If you can be a friend and hold no grudges,
A girl whom all will love because they must;

If sometime you should meet and love another
And make a home with faith and peace enshrined,
And you its soul—a loyal wife and mother—
You’ll work out pretty nearly to my mind
The plan that’s been developed through the ages,
And win the best that life can have in store,
You’ll be, my girl, the model for the sages—
A woman whom the world will bow before.

>>19254093
FRATER (middle name) ASEMLEN, YOU WILL RIGHT THIS MOMENT FIND AND LINK ME A DIGITAL COPY OF TELKA: AN IDYL OF MEDIEVAL ENGLAND WRITTEN BY THE SPIRIT OF PATIENCE WORTH CHANNELED THROUGH PEARL LENORE CURRAN AND OPTIONALLY READ IT AHEAD OF ME AND REPORT BACK IF ITS LEGIT OR NOT INSTEAD OF SPENDING YOUR PRECIOUS TIME ON THIS GODFORSAKEN EARTH WITH YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS (pretty pleeeease)!

>>19254201
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39076005033613&view=1up&seq=3

I’ll give it a read later.

>>19248128
based
>>19244139
I fucked my grandmother's ashes
I ate them and through my skin
I felt her burn into my heart
I shit her in the woods.

I fed her to the black widow
and felt her come to life again.
She had been there all along,
under my eyelids

in the tunnels under my feet
she was in the walls and the ground
and under the skin of all the people

>>19248479
Sorry, but every new version sounds worse than the one before, you might want to return to the thing after a break.
Here's my edit:
I have three new friends:

Metpamod, gaviscon
And a tablespoon of ground coffee

God willing,
they will never move out of town
Or get married
Or have kids
Amen.

I think all the liver stuff is unnecessary because the punch of the poem is how dependant you are on medication: throwing up is implied in metpamod, gaviscon anyhow. I think your last stanza is good because it's a heartwarming twist, like an old man's joke. I can't place my finger on what's missing, my edit is also lacking. Have a depressive edit:

I have three friends:
Metpamod, gaviscon
And coffee, ground fresh

Without them,
God willing,
I'd get married
Have kids
And even, might smile

>>19254311
my post was a prose poem which merely contained your post number, your name and the persona's request by incident and/or artistic intent, kiddo. i didnt actually want you to find the book or anything. thank you anyways i guess. i hope others dont misinterpret it so i can get some juicy feedback