Poetry Forum

Confined to the shadows beneath the light of the day,
Hidden is the creature for who you must pay.
A featureless face and skin of sand,
With a warming smile he holds out his hand.
As you reach forth apparitions are induced,
The leash of your innocence violently cut loose.
Cowering in derangement you stagger away
And return to the sunshine beneath the light of the day.

Bro,

"Beneath the light of day"-is this like another place altogether-like Hades, a parallel world? Or am I missing something here?

Muttersin the Morning

True , we shy away from darkness. Well written,Bro.
Though I cannot understand "The leash of your innocence violently cut loose".
Maybe its just me.
Cheers.

Hi,

I'm brand new to the board and this is my first comment here.

I enjoyed reading this rhyming poem that seems to be about a "devilish" encounter. I thought the images of this fearful entity and his effect on all who see him (spontaneous apparitions, cowering, staggering) depicted the horror well. One thing for you to consider: in L2 I think it should be "whom" to be grammatically correct. I also like the parallelism of the ending line and its relationship back to the opening line. Enjoyed the twist.

Best,
ElleW

Playing around with the line breaks a bit with this one might work to it's advantage. Would love to see you ditch the capitals at the start of each new line, sorry it is distracting. Overall, enjoyed what you had to say and the coming full circle delivery. Good stuff ...

walrus

How can I put this kindly? I can't. It's pretty awful, Brother F.

Not that you should repress the poetic instinct, at all, but you need to channel it better. If I haven't asked before, what other poets do you / have you read? Whoever it is, you need to read more. As do we all.

Take a deep breath and try again.

Cheers

David

The thing i would say BF is that it all seems a bit contrived. There's so much emphasis on superlative language devices that it misses your own personal input. I feel like there's no sense of 'you' coming through, but just a babble of ideas. I feel you need to express yourself in your own words, rather than words that you think make a good piece of writing. Poetry isnt an assesment of how much words you know, it's a realisation of your own thoughts and ideas that i think you need to channel.

You obviously have great imagination, but try and make a hybrid of the two. It'll be so much better i assure you.

Dont be downhearted, hell knows i've been critiqued enough as we all have. Keep trying and it'll happen.

dl04.

Hello. I'm new, and not particularly confident in critiquing. Nevertheless, I'll give my two cents.

This work feels declamatory to me. I agree with the poster above me about the use of superlative language. I think it's the culprit on why it feels bombastic and sounds rather impersonal.

Hello BF. This too is my first post and I am going to try to be kind - I am no expert myself.

I think you need some shape to the poem. The line lengths are all over the place. I know 'we' think that modern poetry shold not adhere to such rules as feet, syllables and beats, but actually, they help hold the thoughts you are trying to express together. I would start with that.

Secondly, ditch the full rhyme for a 'half' or 'slant' rhyme. You do this once and I think it works better than the full rhyme which sounds contrived. I also think some enjambment (line run-ons) wouldn't go amiss and I agree with the point about losing the capital letters at the start of each line.

On the positive, there is some good imagery here... keep it up.

So I guess my advice is to loosen up in some areas (the rhyme and end stops) and tighten up in others (syllables per line).

Good luck x

Brotherfergus wrote:Confined to the shadows beneath the light of the day,
Hidden is the creature for who you must pay.
A featureless face and skin of sand,
With a warming smile he holds out his hand.
As you reach forth apparitions are induced,
The leash of your innocence violently cut loose.
Cowering in derangement you stagger away
And return to the sunshine beneath the light of the day.

I had to read it a couple times to understand this one, but I really like it. If my interpretation is correct, the dark side is the evil of human nature. "Hidden is the creature for who you must pay." is introduced too abruptly. I think you shold add a line about what makes the shadows so seductive. The last line also bugs me "And return to the sunshine beneath the light of the day" Shouldn't it be above or upwards? Becuase you're ascending after going into the underworld. Other than that, I really like the execution of this poem; short, eloquent, and to the point.

Gidday BroF

I have to say that I found this hard work, too. I guess I was looking for some story or overall picture to emerge from the imagery, and all I got was a confusion of thoughts.

Confined to the shadows beneath the light of the day, [not sure of what sense "beneath" is meant here]
Hidden is the creature for who you must pay. ["who" should be "whom". What creature? Death?]
A featureless face and skin of sand, [Sounds like Bondi Beach - seriously lost me here]
With a warming smile he holds out his hand. [Can't be the Grim Reaper then.]
As you reach forth apparitions are induced, [apparitions of what? Give the reader some help.]
The leash of your innocence violently cut loose. [Lost me here - sounds like rape]
Cowering in derangement you stagger away [If the creature is "SIN", then this is pretty medieval imagery.]
And return to the sunshine beneath the light of the day. [being pedantic, but "light of day" = "sunshine", no?]

So is the title a reference to "sin" and you really are in some brotherhood? That is the most sense I can make of it.

I have no trouble with rhyme that is natural and flows, but this seems a little driven by the need to rhyme. You seem to have described something here without wanting anyone to know what you are actually descibing, as though it was some sort of riddle. I suggest you spend a lot more time making sure the poem says what you want people to read into it. If the readers have a few more clues, they can appreciate the poetic effects you introduce into the poem, and also the way your mind works. Try to personalise a bit more, and express your relationship to the subject matter. At present, it seems to be some amorphous mass of words.

I hope this is not seen as too negative. You obviously feel the need to write, and have good ideas. Expressing ideas effectively is a gift, but one that can be nurtured and grow. If a comment seems shitty, think of it as fertiliser to help those ideas blossom.