It's all on paper
in black and white.
I know that it shouldn't
still, it cuts like a knife.
The words that you said,
the way that you said them.
Seems like a million times,
that I've re-read them.
But no twisting, no turning
has changed the meaning,
examined the lines,
there's nothing between them.
No way to read them but,
the way they appear.
On paper, in black and white,
it's so perfectly clear.
There's no knife,
no cut I can see.
Still... I bleed.
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
Please Workshop this poem
Comments
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Simply style that still manages to portray a good image; I found one or two lines to be a little cliché;
“cuts like a knife”, “examined the lines, there’s nothing between them”,
and the repeated use of “them” somewhat of a distraction.
I’d also move away from feeling you have to have some form of punctuation at the end of each line by doing this you break the flow of the poem and it becomes almost like reading a shopping list.
The second stanza needs a little clean up; the ellipses shouldn’t be there as they are used only to show a trailing off of a sentence, a simple gaping comma would have been better and still given you the pause before those final words. I have noticed that people use ellipses as a way of creating a longer pause between words and although it may seem right it is in fact an error.
All in all a nice piece that could be improved by placing the punctuation where it would have most effect, and perhaps looking to substitute some other word for “them”.
Good luck
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Wow!! Wonderfully written!!
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The rhyme and beat both taper off as the poem goes on. Also, the background is hurting my eyes, but that doesn't have anything to do with the writing. For the first 12 lines, the meter sounds fine, and for the first 8, he rhyme works. I'd change the rhyming words some, as them is overused.
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