untitled poetry, pleased to be having critiques and stuffs

[onemorecup]

i'm trying to write poetry again. probably i am terrible, so i welcome anything anyone has to say to improve the way i'm writing. here it is. untitled poems are like babies you didn't care enough to name, these are some of my b*****d children.

.

once again i am a bishop
revisiting a borrowed room
with chessboard floors.
so finding myself in a place
that feels so much like home
my feet tingle and want to step forward,
but i can't, so i slide diagonally
away from the old spit bonfires
the spirits in cheap dimestore cups
the red gummy smiles from the natives
that seem more like sneers to me.

outside this tiled room there's a whole town
waiting to tell me if i didn't move away
nothing would have changed.
pawns can only inch forward which is what my old school friends did
now they live in a trailer if their mothers are lucky
but they sparkle they make sure of that
comb the sand from their hair and just let it fall
wherever it will.

nostalgia seeps its way through my feet-
when they hit the cold linoleum
i get a jolt that smells like wet cement at night
when we were walking downhill to the beach

[2pound]

onemorecup

once again i am a bishop
on the shores of a chessboard beach
nostalgia seeping its way through my feet

instead of "seeping" seeps? and instead of nostalgia, how about something more relevant to chess?

Quote:

when i walk on the cold hard floors
of this borrowed bedroom
by the sea.

you begin the chess imagery but then you move on too quickly; i was hoping you'd develop some more before moving; that said, this verse and the next one feel disjointed when you all of a sudden switch back and forth between chess and what seems to be beach/romantic imagery.

Quote:

i'm bishop because i slide
always shifting to the diagonal

yeah, take out "to the" because it feels awkwardly worded. you'd expect "always shifting to the" either right or left. another thing, sliding and shifting are two different things and i think you should use one or the other (i'm leaning towards sliding if you want to keep the chess imagery strong, but if you put shifting i'd like it to mean more than just shifting a bishop piece and make it shift something greater like there's a change in the poem from here on).

Quote:

the first few times i thought
i was so unpredictable.

this part feels undeveloped; i think you need a little more detail before you can say whether or not a bishop is unpredictable. sure, bishops are always diagonal and can never change the color of their squares, but i think that this should be connected to something and made into a metaphor.

Quote:

i think about everything on a dark spit,
fall in love with everyone,
just by peeking out from underneath my hair,

this part to me feels the weakest because it's not related to the imagery from before and i don't see how it is relevant to the poem.

Quote:

and surrounded by the chirps and slaps
salt water hitting rock.

again another awkward word here is "slaps" because if you take it out you get a sense of romantic/beach imagery but surrounded by slaps doesn't fall in either category and feels rather random.

overall, this is a very rough first draft so i suggest you expand on the imagery, mainly on the chess and beach/romantic imagery, and improve your wording so it isn't awkward. i'd also like to see some type of symbol like what does a bishop represent in chess? and could it represent it in a romantic way? i'd also like for you to elaborate on more details that show us, not tell us, more about the characters involved.

i hope this helped.

[onemorecup]

2pound

onemorecup

once again i am a bishop
on the shores of a chessboard beach
nostalgia seeping its way through my feet

instead of "seeping" seeps? and instead of nostalgia, how about something more relevant to chess?

Quote:

when i walk on the cold hard floors
of this borrowed bedroom
by the sea.

you begin the chess imagery but then you move on too quickly; i was hoping you'd develop some more before moving; that said, this verse and the next one feel disjointed when you all of a sudden switch back and forth between chess and what seems to be beach/romantic imagery.

Quote:

i'm bishop because i slide
always shifting to the diagonal

yeah, take out "to the" because it feels awkwardly worded. you'd expect "always shifting to the" either right or left. another thing, sliding and shifting are two different things and i think you should use one or the other (i'm leaning towards sliding if you want to keep the chess imagery strong, but if you put shifting i'd like it to mean more than just shifting a bishop piece and make it shift something greater like there's a change in the poem from here on).

Quote:

the first few times i thought
i was so unpredictable.

this part feels undeveloped; i think you need a little more detail before you can say whether or not a bishop is unpredictable. sure, bishops are always diagonal and can never change the color of their squares, but i think that this should be connected to something and made into a metaphor.

Quote:

i think about everything on a dark spit,
fall in love with everyone,
just by peeking out from underneath my hair,

this part to me feels the weakest because it's not related to the imagery from before and i don't see how it is relevant to the poem.

Quote:

and surrounded by the chirps and slaps
salt water hitting rock.

again another awkward word here is "slaps" because if you take it out you get a sense of romantic/beach imagery but surrounded by slaps doesn't fall in either category and feels rather random.

overall, this is a very rough first draft so i suggest you expand on the imagery, mainly on the chess and beach/romantic imagery, and improve your wording so it isn't awkward. i'd also like to see some type of symbol like what does a bishop represent in chess? and could it represent it in a romantic way? i'd also like for you to elaborate on more details that show us, not tell us, more about the characters involved.

i hope this helped.

you're amazing, thankyou!

[onemorecup]

well, i edited, but i'll come back to continue editing later tonight

[onemorecup]

listening to country pop and feeling like an arsehole

.




january is still my favorite month

that unique sadness
forces me to think about you

even though my feet are unintentionally
rooted to the mainland, the roots go deep underground
to connect me
and you, you on that big island
with your beautiful girl
your job i don't know what you do anymore

in a small fishin' town we both
call home when we're feeling nostalgic

my reality shifts so effortlessly on rainy days
right away i'm back inside your small cold car
with a pipe in my hands and smoke in the front seat
we're listening to daft punk and radiohead

we kissed as it rained outside
i wasn't sure if it meant anything
even now i still waffle when i think about it

[onemorecup]

lazy writings

i live inside an empty beer can
claustrophobic and sticky--
sweaty, when your
shoe, cutting through the shady field,
kicks it into the sun.

i can sense that there's something!important
in the red haze, the embarrassing mist
that makes people ask why
i look so worried..

things i could never feel
in my sweaty boiler room life
that come to me in dreams
arpeggios that rise, then wane
into a small whisper
caught by a small girl
the other kids were too blushed
to talk to

then

a hundred helicopters falling from the trees
onto the patio as i sat there
with my eyes as open as i could keep them
i was trying to take in something
i hoped was there

but then
back on the mainland,
the strange feelings subside

slam slap
my kicks on wet cement
october again

[2pound]

onemorecup

lazy writings

i live inside an empty beer can
livin on dew and grass
listenin to italian opera
shiverin, sensing the beauty
etc.

after so many years of ignorance,
i'm alright with
how easily i am moved

abstractions; these things either need to be avoided or need to be redefined by the poem and used effectively. what do you mean exactly by beauty and ignorance? I can only think of Little Wing and institutionalized racism but I'm sure that's not what you meant.

i guess, don't be afraid to be specific; for example, if you do mean institutionalized racism, that's something worth talking about but since it's a very touchy subject, you might get called a racist or you're stereotyping. well, nobody should judge you and instead should educate us all on whether or not it is racist on the specific context of "ignorance."

same goes for beauty but I'm sure you're not going to be called an "ugly-ist" for that one so don't be afraid of committing a poetical crime; we're here to discuss your poem, not your preferences.

Quote:

etc.
things i could never feel
in my sweaty boiler room life
that come to me in dreams
arpeggios that rise, then wane
into a small whisper
caught by a small girl

i like this part and i have no criticism.

Quote:

as you walk like an elephant down the cement sidewalk
slam, slap
wet, grey
you half-heard. as you pushed forward.

this part, on the other hand, is rather meh. i don't know about slam, slap but i like how slap, slam sounds because the m sound would resound when spoken, like the actual noise in my ears are more visceral when you say slap, slam rather than slam, slap. this is just my opinion.

however, from the elephant line and on, it is awkwardly worded especially with the size of the lines going from longest in the poem to short to medium; i don't know what to suggest because i was just lost in this part. clarify? or better yet, can you tell me what you were trying to do here? i don't think you accomplished it or maybe you did but i didn't realize it.

[MidnightMisery69]

2pound

Loved your critique, mind critiquing me?
Pandora's Letter

onemorecup

i really liked where you where headed with the chest imagery, cant wait to read it after another edit or two