Programmed Cell Death

[insaneflyingmonkey]

Okay, so I stole the title from a Biol*1030 lecture, but I was rather fascinated by those words (and much less by the actual process, but that's irrelevant). Ayways, I haven't been on in a while, but will try to be around more for the next while, so crits will gladly be exchanged. Thanks.

Programmed Cell Death

This streetlight at night
is my only star
in the sky and
it ain't the North Star, but
it still points where I'm going,
and I'm not going home.
But it's here in
the city where
people keep disappearing
as I watch

(from the elderly men
arguing in Eastern European
dialects and accents
amid the sugar sweet scent of
burning ethnic food,
to the teenage girls with
middle-age wombs
and the frail white-haired woman
shrouded in a too big
jacket, waiting,
in faded prestige and past dignity,
to go to a home
she left
fifty years ago)

leaving behind
little more than inaudible whispers
and that bitter stain
of stale cigarettes
to linger in the air.

And I keep waking up
spitting blood
through bleeding gums
and cracked lips...

disappearing too.

[insaneflyingmonkey]

Oh, I get it, it's so perfect that you guys don't think there's any need for improvement and thus, didn't comment (30+ views, not one comment). Why thank you.

Ok, I'm not special, is it really that awful? Because thats what seems to get a crit-shun around these parts. Please help... something? Anything.

[Surf]

Sorry, I was going to get to this sooner, but I completly forgot.

Anyway, the problem I had was that I started reading it, thought it was alright; the first verse was good, but not outstanding. Then I got to the second verse and from about thereon you just kicked *** basically. The third and forth stanzas are also good, but not much can touch the second to be honest.

So, the first stanza. Whereas the second verse and everything after it was filled with great detail, this verse felt a tad dull. Nothing truly original, the odd phrase here and there, but it was pretty basic. Try to lively it up a bit, bring it up to the standard of the rest.

My only other comlaint would be the title, which could be better. But you've explained that, so I'll let you off. Nice writing man.

[insaneflyingmonkey]

Why thank you, I'm flattered. Would you like me to test my powers of crit-itude on anything of yours?

[Grumpy the Cat]

I thought it was really good for the most part but I think there are parts where it could've been better.

"from the elderly men
arguing in Eastern European
dialects and accents
amid the sugar sweet scent of
burning ethnic food,
to the teenage girls with
middle-age wombs"

I like the end of this but not the beginning because the way it starts off doesn't feel very poetic. The last two lines are an example of the type of figurative writing which I think sounds really good but everything before it is so blase it just kills the rest of it.