Karma sips from her cup
awaiting for me to make a mistake.
Again.
Her eyes search wall to wall
like place to place
in a mixed message sort of way.
She lays in my bed
but theres not much sleeping
not much living.
A dead angel...a cliche'
The blood and metal smell
The smoking hole in her head
didn't stop her.
She's here to stay.
Author notes
“PLEASE WORKSHOP MY POEM!”
- Rhyme and Meter Workshop group list • next in list
A contest entry
- THE WORKSHOP CONTEST-BIG POINTS!!!! by Amy Meneses.
1700 points, ended April 12, 2008, 19 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Any good?
Comments
1 - 7 of 7
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Outstanding
This hasn't got any rhyme but I like the way you talked about karma or destiny- almost as something to be afraid of:
awaiting for me to make a mistake
I thought you did well with this poem as it works on several different levels. I thought it got slightly confusing towards the end. Maybe you could clarify your meaning and make it clearer. Otherwise I thought this was entertaining and interesting to read.
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[Rhyme and Meter Workshop Comment]
I won't make extensive comments because this is free rather than metrical verse. There is rhyme, and it works, subtly (way, cliché, stay).
The poem is a little hard for me to follow. Is Karma a person, or a concept? If she's dead, with a smoking hole in her head, why is she sipping from a cup?
Now, it's likely that I'm just dumb and don't "get it." I may not be your target audience for this poem. If you were trying to get a message through to any reader, though, I'm not sure it came through as clearly as it could.
I like the imagery, though, and the overall mood of your poem. -
You have a very interesting concept, but it seems hindered by wordiness, as my fellow judges have mentioned. What you have here so far is good, and the tome of the piece really shines through. It's just not as effective as it could be due to the wordiness. Also, the end feels vague -- not that ambiguity is a bad thing, because it isn't -- but it leaves a lot to be desired and could be strengthened with imagery or other poetic devices. That last line is fantastic, by the way.
"She lays in my bed
but theres not much sleeping
not much living."
It should be "there's"... anyway, great lines.
Overall, good start!
-hiraeth -
I agree with Fug-azi but I think the major point here is you have a short piece that is flooded with unnecessary words. "Karma sips from her cup" would sound so much more powerful as "Karma sips her cup" second line "awaiting for me to make a mistake" is really wordy, you can simplify it to "awaiting my mistake." To make your images pop, you should really try to cut back on these unnecessary words. I also agree that you have something great to work with here. Don't forget to add "rewrite" to your rewritten piece so we can know it is your second attempt. Thank you for entering our workshop. This was a great starter piece.
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The initial idea for this is very good but I can see a few places where I feel things could be improved;
1. I would “flesh out the bones” a little more, a short piece works best if you are forcing the image(s) into the brain, a bit like surgery with a chainsaw .. here I feel you have fallen short of that.
2. I would remove the full stop at the end of line 2, it breaks up the flow too much, use “,” instead, this would allow a partial pause before the word “again” but not as long a pause as a full stop represents, adding more emphasis to it.
3. Grammatical error in line 7, “She lays in my bed”. Lays what? Lays is what a chicken does ie lays eggs. Would sound better with “lies”
4. mistake in line 8 .. should be “there’s”
5. Line 10 you have used ellipsis which indicate something has been left unsaid, but then continue the line with “a cliché”, if you are looking to break the line abruptly then the use of a dash “-“ would be more appropriate, this indicates a strong interruption from the rest of the line and I feel would work better in this instance.
6. Overall you have left out some punctuation but included others, I would choose one or the other, either write the poem with correct punctuation throughout or don’t use any at all.
7. Break the poem into stanzas, each one giving a complete thought, picture etc, this will help your audience read the poem without losing track.
So in conclusion you have the basis of something very good here, but I feel it needs more work and thought before it can be called complete.
Regards
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Extra surreal...
This is a wonderfully odd and dark write. Well done! You have some very powerful imagery stacked up here. I love the scene you've created. This is an incredible beginning, I would like to see you open up the story a bit more with not necessarily explanations, but metaphors could serve very nicely to illustrate the scene. Thanks for sharing your vision and good luck in the contest! -
very witty
Luz, I enjoyed this poem except for the "A dead angel...a cliche".Karma is not awake or asleep, she gets shot in the head but is still here and she is nervous. I think you have to either have to explain why others think she is a cliche or why you believe she isn't. A quick way would be to make that line questions, then next line "I think not!" or something like that.
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