i.
disassociated smiles
drip down scarred walls -
content with the vacant caricature
of their dreamless death
she wraps herself
in the putrid past,
hiding under the
seamless stench
words refuse to focus -
dribbling through slack lips
in silent syllables of
perceived imperfections
hiding betwen the lost
and the maliciously forgotten
she accepts fists of truth
with a void in her rib cage &
hardly hidden hallucinations
ii.
she blinks between
broken beats -
counting rhythms in
skipping heartbeats
(arrhythmia haemorrhages
onto bloodboards; tangling
between her fingers to
fall - )
unnoticed
iii.
she's disintergrating
Author notes
Amazing prompt and I killed it, sorry.
Prompt::
"Underneath her skin and jewelry,
hidden in her words and eyes
is a wall that's cold and ugly
and she's scared as hell.
Trembling at the thought of feeling.
Wide awake and keeping distance.
Nothing seems to penetrate her.
She's scared as hell.
I am frightened too.
Wide awake
and keeping distance from my soul.
I am scared like you."
- Cold and Ugly by Tool
A contest entry
- The Inner Circle [2] - Invite Only by Never Fall in Love.
1350 points, ended July 2, 2008, 11 entries
Gold trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Honesty would be lovely
Comments
1 - 18 of 18
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Fuck. Swear words make things seem more powerful? No. I know. I just wanted to swear on this page - something had to cause something disgusting.
This piece is cause of life.
You gave the prompt something.
Don't down yourself.
^ authors notes.
You don't deserve it.
But you do deserve that Gold.
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Ha. I love your darkness - this was excellent.
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Ooooh! I really enjoyed this. The beginning seemed to have a few more 'the's' that I normally spot with you - however for me, it doesn't hinder the impact. From the second stanza down, I found the write captivating and all together - well composed. Love the song - and this is an intriguing take on the prompted lyric. Nicely done!
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disassociated smiles
drip down scarred walls -
content with the vacant caricature
of their dreamless death
That's so brilliant.
All of your poems read like an awesome horror movie.
And it's so hard to find a good horror these days...
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Wow, I wasn't really liking the poem at all, but the last line suddenly gave the previous gibberish a meaning, it was as though the words themselves had been disintegrating.
Good job! -
Good really
Maybe not my style except you really did a great in the telling of this story. you wording, cadence and metaphor really made a good read. well done my friend. Image and Visions
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I like it, its how I feel sometimes. My favorite part was:
she wraps herself
in the putrid past,
hiding under the
seamless stench
I use to feel that way a lot but not so much now. Tool is an amazing band, awesome job!
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This piece is very haunting, and to use words used before me, eerie and creepy and disturbing. While reading it, my brain formed the image of a mental patient, especially since the first word was "disassociated" (I used to transcribe medical reports where that word was often used for mental patients). The rest of the poem just solidified that first impression. If you were trying to get a point about somebody who has gone mad, either from abuse or general neglect, then very well done indeed. If you were trying to portray a girl lost in or broken by fear, then you may have missed the mark a little (but only a little). Without seeing the prompt, this poem is fantastic and beautiful (in it's own haunting, eerie, creepy, and disturbing way), and it's quality is not diminished in my mind at all by seeing the different prompt.
Now on to the technical side. In the third line, "caricture" should be "caricature", I believe. Your use of alliteration really help to move this piece along and give it punch, especially with the line "hardly hidden hallucinations". I'm not sure if your dashes in the first couple stanzas would be better as commas or not, since the dash adds to the schizophrenic and disjointed feel. Depends what you were intending, I guess. I must agree that "void in her chest cavity" does sound a little repetitious, although I did read it as the girl's loss of heart. If that is what you meant, you might be able to rework the line so that meaning is more clear. Unless you're purposely trying to be difficult, haha. "Fists of truth" is a wonderful phrase, by the way, and can certainly lead to "hardly hidden hallucinations", since unexpected truths do often knock us on our asses and spin our worlds upside down. Well done there. : ) I love the idea of "counting rhythms in broken heartbeats", and your use of the word "arrythmia" was spot on. I'm not sure what you were trying to do with the open parenthesis, however - maybe you forgot to close it at the end? In "bloodboards" I saw medical charts, boards of sorrow, loss, and indeed blood (especially in the case of mental patients, and how often they are unfortunately overlooked (referring to "unnoticed")).
Beyond all this, I have to wonder what the structure (i, ii, iii) does for this poem. If it's supposed to be a progression, it seems like section ii could actually come before section i chronologically. But this is just my opinion. : )
All in all, this is a beautiful and skillfully crafted poem, and I wish I could write such haunting pieces. This will undoubtedly stay with me for days. : )
- Solaris
Sorry this was so long...I should learn to be more concise. x.x
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Thank you for your honesty, it's always absolutely delightful when someone isn't afraid to tell me what didn't work.
The structure is a little hard to explain for this one. The sections kind of wrote themselves and told me when to stop. It's a bit like each is a different thought process. They all relate to the one central topic but each is too different to stand with the others, if that makes sense?
The choice of dashes over commas was actually one I had a bit of trouble. In one or two cases I changed them back and forth several times, but I wanted that slightly disjointed, which is why they didn't stay as commas.
I've fixed the problems you mentioned, and a couple of others as well.
Thanks so much for not being afraid to tell me the bits that didn't feel right
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Eerie and creepy, I like it! I love a good sense of alliteration like that, giving that it is one of my favorite poetic elements, lol! I think you did the prompt justice, very well indeed! I would be surprised if you didn't do well in your contest. This was an entertaining read!
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Great job
Very disturbingly depressing. Great read. I had to read this until it was all done. Very well written. I can see the picture of the person fall apart. Right to the core of the self. Keep that pen flowing. -
The alliteration works well and there is some good imagery here, however she does sound more lethargic than scared! Perhaps a little less thought and more feeling would bring the insecurity more alive. There are a few spelling mistakes need editing but apart from that it flows well.
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Deep
This is a very deep poem beautifully crafted. It had me pulled in from beginning to end. Thank you so much for sharing it with us all and best of luck in the contest. I am sure it will do well.
Del
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Very deep, pulling a lot of things from a darker place that we all seem to have. You've made a good piece out of the promt, I think - but poets are always hard on themselves.
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This poem was great. I thought it was so deep. Do you want to be my friend? You sound really nice
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yes
yes i will be your friend how old are you
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This is amazing and I was so excited to see what you'd write for this and it's AWESHOME!
I just have a few suggestions for yooou (hope you don't mind)
Line 11 - "slack" is kind of weird for me, at least the word is. Maybe it's just because I've never heard it used like you used it. But that's just me
Line 13 - "percieved" should be "perceived" (remember: I before E except after C)
Line 15 - "forogtten" should be "forgotten"
Line 17 - You say there's a void in her chest cavity, but cavity itself means a hollow space, so it's a little repetitive.
Line 25 - Did you mean "floorboards"?
Line 30 - should be "disintegrating"
Other than my poop, this was totally amazing and I stand no chance anymore. I might have to kill you.
Kidding! (just want to make sure you know I'm kidding, because people tend to take me really serious for some reason, then get freaked out. Why do people think I want to kill them?! 
) Anywhooooo..
This was stunning and you are brilliant
Loves yooh
Jeanette*~
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Urg.
That's what I get for not using spell check.
*has the spelling ability of a ten year old*
Of course I don't mind the suggestions, it's always nice when people point out the flaws, lets me improve
I've fixed up the spelling mistakes and changed line 17, hopefully it works better now.. Bloodboards was deliberate, though I got the feeling people would think that I had meant to type "floorboards" when I wrote it. I also changed the 3rd stanza of ii, it sounded a bit repetitious when I re-read it.
Thank you for being honest hun
And don't be stupid, all your work beats mine with both hands tied behind it's metaphorical back.
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