Poem, or a jumble of ideas. You tell me!

[drumass04]

Hey everyone, haven't been around as much as usual, but see this as my return.

I'm not sure whether it's actually single piece, or whether it's just a load of jumbled ideas. Not my best by a long long long way, don't know if I like it at all to be perfectly honest. The idea's nice, but whether it's worked I'm not sure.

Crit for crit as usual.


Wrinkled fingers screamed in anguish,
As a creator's strangle grip tightened.
A foregone conclusion it seemed to those
with fists clenched, to broken breasts.
The sounds in not so distant lands
of dulcet tones, from singing blades.

Views on a helpless race, of fires and
warmed deckchairs beneath aged defences.

Idle chattering on Broadway, Insanity personified
in the strobes of Hollywood. False hopes encaptured
In tungsten lamps of the West End.
On sand plains not just the flicker of moonlight
across tireless waves, tell incarnated prose.
The slicing blades of cursing bodies, trace a smell;
Fear from your elders as battens sway,
From the proscenium arch.

Thrusts from crooked bayonets
spout intricacies from weathered hearts.
Crawling tanks and jumbo jets mow down sodden bones,
Dissecting the land, creeping ever close,
To a younger generation, fuelled by faithful renderings,
Spread by those before.

A defence staked in place by a council of youth,
Crumbling retirement hiomes; transform to pristine barracks.
A monthly stipend of prawn cocktail,
and a Caesar salad to start. Shows the prejudiced politics,
of a failing nation. A single altruistic emotion,
Or modern moral; sent back to prehistoric chronologies.
As the old, are sent to war.

Tim Peacock
10/03/06
©2006

Cheers,

Timmy P

[DeadReligion]

Certainly a jumble of ideas, each stanza is different, but still beautiful, they just don't belong together. You spelled homes "hiomes". I've no complaints beyond that, once you get them into their own pieces, I'll hook you up with some crits. So, you've decided to be a poet and not a musician? Cool. I always thought you'd be a better poet anyway. If you want to crit me back for the nothing I've given you, check "Modern Past" Or the one I posted yesterday, its name escapes me.

[StandardStringReject]

I think all the ideas do go together, but there's just no flow from each idea to the other. every couple lines it switches, but u need to put in something that will tie it all together so that ppl will know what you're talking about.

[Nightvision]

Cheers for the crit on mine Tim. Returned, as promised. :)

Wrinkled fingers screamed in anguish,
As a creator's strangle grip tightened.
A foregone conclusion it seemed to those
with fists clenched, to broken breasts.
The sounds in not so distant lands
of dulcet tones, from singing blades.

This flowed beautifully until 'broken breasts' - it felt a little awkward. I see what you were trying to do, and it's a nice idea, but it just didn't quite come off. The last two lines I particularly liked.

Views on a helpless race, of fires and
warmed deckchairs beneath aged defences.

Meh, this didn't really connect with me. Just felt a bit extraneous.

Idle chattering on Broadway, Insanity personified
in the strobes of Hollywood. False hopes encaptured
In tungsten lamps of the West End.
On sand plains not just the flicker of moonlight
across tireless waves, tell incarnated prose.
The slicing blades of cursing bodies, trace a smell;
Fear from your elders as battens sway,
From the proscenium arch.

Oooh, I didn't like 'insanity' much. It's just a pet peeve of mine. It's a word that's used far too easily, and loses some of it's effect here. The next three lines are damn near close to perfect, although the line after that feels a bit clunky, possibly due to 'tell incarnated prose', which doesn't blend in very well.

Thrusts from crooked bayonets
spout intricacies from weathered hearts.
Crawling tanks and jumbo jets mow down sodden bones,
Dissecting the land, creeping ever close,
To a younger generation, fuelled by faithful renderings,
Spread by those before.

'Jumbo Jets' is a bit childish... there are better words for planes than 'jumbo jets' - ones that will look much less out of place as well. Nothing else really to add to this stanza - nice work.

A defence staked in place by a council of youth,
Crumbling retirement hiomes; transform to pristine barracks.
A monthly stipend of prawn cocktail,
and a Caesar salad to start. Shows the prejudiced politics,
of a failing nation. A single altruistic emotion,
Or modern moral; sent back to prehistoric chronologies.
As the old, are sent to war.

Haha, the line with the cesar salad was a gem - that was some sharp wit there. :) 'Prejudiced politics' feels a bit off - as if you were trying a bit too hard to alliterate, and had to settle for a word that didn't quite fit what you were trying to say. Still, otherwise this is good. Nice final line too.

Overall:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the first thing I've critiqued of yours I think... If that's true, then I apologise, as I'm not sure how I've managed to miss your stuff for so long. You've got a great grasp of language, but you do seem to be trying a little too hard to alliterate in places. Imagery-wise, you're more or less one of the more solid writers on here. You certainly paint a picture with your words in this piece. Overall, a soild piece, but from reading this, I'm almost certain you've got a hell of a lot more than this in you.

Score:

78%

[drumass04]

Thanks everyone :)

Sorry I haven't replied quicker I've been ill and in bed the past few days.

DR; I'll certainly look at creating a few pieces out of it, probably do it so that they follow on from each other, or something like that anyway.
I'll crit your pieces in a minute, haven't done one of yours in a while!

Thanks StandardStringReject, I thought that was the case, but as I said I'm not too good at judjing my own pieces.

Jason; Thanks for the detailed crit, it's much appreciated :) I'm going to take all of your points into account when I re-write it or make it into seperate pieces. There were a few forced alliterations in there I must admit, and thanks for the compliments :)

And yeh, I think it was the first of mine you've critiqued, but don't worry about it :P

Thanks again

Timmy P

[mutt]

very tom waits spoken word esq...dunno how youd fit that to song otherwise...I really like the mood you setup and develop throughout the piece.
From a destruction theme, to chaos theme, to war both offense and defense..

as a poem 8/10 very
as an iron maiden song 6/10 because you need to tie it into history somehow by mentioning a real place or something...mybe a little more detail if you are going to the fictional side of things. And judging by the mention of broadway...you want this to be metaphoric a bit, so somewhat real...so id say relate the insanity of broadway to some stupid war over tea or something.

[drumass04]

It's more of a poem than a song. My writing has too little structure to become a song.

Part of the idea for the piece, came from a stupid conversation me and a friend had during a geography lesson studying population distribution. We realised that all the old retired people were around the coast; we then thought this was some kind of plan by the government so the old people were defending the country, and the enemy would have to wade through the elderly before they reached anyone the government considered to be important, i.e the young. I changed a few bits and wrote the poem.

Timmy P