The .44 Caliber

[A_Perfect_Sonnet]

Ben Stivers
12/7/05

The .44 Caliber In the Top Right Desk Drawer Told Me I’d Be Saying Goodbye

How am I to mourn any less?
A glass coffin with crystal nails,
The fragility of life left on display.
Torn away by the bullet, through a barrel of a gun.
The puncturing of the flesh,
Entranced by accessible escape.

I gave to her the petals of a rose,
And blew the seeds into the garden.
To take hold of the soil and start again.
I planted the roots to build a new life,
And forget the sorrow, to build new hope.
I burned the stem to start,
Start the coals to smother the cold,
Only to put them out with my chest,
Pounding a solid rhythm.
And through the dust I saw the rebirth,
On the wings of angels,
Her spirit lifted through the smoke.
Ghosts, yeah we’ve all got ghosts,

They’ll tear you from your legs,
With no base on which to walk upon,
With the tragedy closing in on,
And with wolves, biting at her heart,
She collapsed into the fire.

After the accident
I stood for hours pondering direction
Without sight.
Follow the east,
The constructs of a life..
And when you follow the west,
Continual sunset,
No stars… just twilight.

[MidnightHysteria]

I think this would be better if it were continued until, finally, the story returns to where it was at the beginning and the first stanza is repeated as the final one. Also, I don't like the last line of the second stanza. It seems much less sophisticated than the rest of the piece. Still, it's quite a good bit of work overall. 7/10.

[xKONRADx]

i really like where you take this. but i dont like how every other songwriter and his mother uses the imagery of a bullet and a gun, especially a .44

[schwypees]

I like it a lot. Have some suggestions for you, but time doesn't allow me to get to them right now. By the weekend I'll write a full length crit for this song.

[A_Perfect_Sonnet]

i really like where you take this. but i dont like how every other songwriter and his mother uses the imagery of a bullet and a gun, especially a .44

It's more a song about the aftermath of suicide than anything. Someone I know recently killed themself. The .44 is just for title purposes.

[schwypees]

How am I to mourn any less?
A glass coffin with crystal nails,
The fragility of life left on display.
Torn away by the bullet, through a barrel of a gun.
The puncturing of the flesh,
Entranced by accessible escape.


Pretty good first verse. Introduces the idea and uses some good imagery. My main suggestions for this would be the improve the flow. It looks well written, as a poem, but when I read it out loud it seems a little choppy.
Try changing "how am I" to "how could/can I" in the first line.
Second and third lines are brilliant.
Next two lines are somewhat awkward - "barrel of a gun" is so overused, try to find a newer, more subtle way to show a gun. Also, "the puncturing of the flesh" really breaks the flow. But there are so many ways to depict the shot that I doubt you'll have a problem replacing it.
I love what you're saying in the last line, but the words (accessible) just don't fit. Try "Lured by such an easy escape" or something like that.



I gave to her the petals of a rose,
And blew the seeds into the garden.
To take hold of the soil and start again.
I planted the roots to build a new life,
And forget the sorrow, to build new hope.
I burned the stem to start,
Start the coals to smother the cold,
Only to put them out with my chest,
Pounding a solid rhythm.
And through the dust I saw the rebirth,
On the wings of angels,
Her spirit lifted through the smoke.
Ghosts, yeah we’ve all got ghosts,


First four lines are great - awesome imagery and very well written. Only suggestion is that "I planted to roots.." - 'seeds' fits a lot better there, but maybe you didn't want to reuse it, which is a good idea. But find a new word for roots, its a little awkward.
Next couple lines are good. "Start the coals to smother the cold" is great, i love the way it continues your metaphor and sounds so good. "Pounding a solid rhythm" is okay, but it is not as good as the two before it. Instead of "solid rhythm" try saying non-stop or continuous or something like that.
Last four lines of this section are awesome, great transition - both lyrically and metaphorically. The "ghosts" line is fantastic.



They’ll tear you from your legs,
With no base on which to walk upon,
With the tragedy closing in on,
And with wolves, biting at her heart,
She collapsed into the fire.


Really well written. Interesting transition from heaven to wolves, but all that I can critique is the lyrics and those are great.



After the accident
I stood for hours pondering direction
Without sight.
Follow the east,
The constructs of a life..
And when you follow the west,
Continual sunset,
No stars… just twilight.


"After the accident" is just so... flat. Especially after the last two sections were such beautiful metaphors, this really disrupts the flow. Try "Its been days/weeks/months" or something like that. Next three lines return to the flow of the song, they're good. "The constructs of a life..." is weird, and if your trying to say what I think you are then I think "The foundation of a (new) life" might be better.
Ends with three awesome lines.

Well, thats the line-to-line crit, and I hope it helps direct your writing. Overall, this song is awesome. Its only major flaws are the lines with the barrell of a gun and "After the accident". Other than that, I loved it.

Nice job, keep it up.

[white_riot]

Really great song, the first verse is great because you have used good imagery and I can really see what the song is about. 2nd verse you again use rreally good imagery and metaphors. The ending is brilliant, i can see how you felt about this person. Well done, I wish I could write a song as good as this.

9/10

[Something_Vague]

Ben Stivers
12/7/05

I see that you're one of the big boys on this board, so might start off to try and impress you. Here's my crit:

The .44 Caliber In the Top Right Desk Drawer Told Me I’d Be Saying Goodbye

How am I to mourn any less?
A glass coffin with crystal nails,
The fragility of life left on display.
Torn away by the bullet, through a barrel of a gun.
The puncturing of the flesh,
Entranced by accessible escape.

I think the vocabulary is really cliche here. The fourth line reminds me of that lame Shinedown song which means, you deff. need to change that. I really think the ideas could have been worded better, it seems so, general and typical. I really think you can have made the cliche words less cliche and the thesaurus words less....thesaurusy. I don't know, it just needs re-working.

I gave to her the petals of a rose,
And blew the seeds into the garden.
To take hold of the soil and start again.
I planted the roots to build a new life,
And forget the sorrow, to build new hope.
I burned the stem to start,
Start the coals to smother the cold,
Only to put them out with my chest,
Pounding a solid rhythm.
And through the dust I saw the rebirth,
On the wings of angels,
Her spirit lifted through the smoke.
Ghosts, yeah we’ve all got ghosts,

Sixth line, burned is not a word. You need to use burnt. This is much better than verse numero uno, It still seems like you're forcing cliche when you really want abstract. I think if you read this aloud and really thought about it you'd understand where I'm coming from. It's like I like the meaning behind all of this, I just don't like what I'm reading. It's really weird, but the wording is mainly where it needs changed.

They’ll tear you from your legs,
With no base on which to walk upon,
With the tragedy closing in on,
And with wolves, biting at her heart,
She collapsed into the fire.

I like parallel from cold to fire in this verse from the last. This had a pretty strong verse, and the 3rd and 4th lines were quite strong. Best verse so far.

After the accident
I stood for hours pondering direction
Without sight.
Follow the east,
The constructs of a life..
And when you follow the west,
Continual sunset,
No stars… just twilight.

The ending was much better that, say, the rest of it. It really didn't tie much together, but the content in that last verse was better than anything else in the rest. Really not too strong at the beggining, but the end really gets you to second base. It really could have been a homerun if you had done better with the first 2 verses.

Not bad though, not bad.


Check out mine, it's the one with a long title,"

Robot Beta Blah blah blah blah, you'll find it, should be near the top.