Young Writers Society

Photographs on the wall
of glory days long gone.
They laugh and mock me,
but their eyes are hollow like letters to an ex-lover;
the only thing their hearts beat now
is the dust that shakes from fake flowers
stolen from a graveyard
and the malt venom that drips
from the shards of an intentionally-broken glass.
They have it easy I suppose.
Their knuckles aren’t cut to the bone,
with chips of glass and some kid’s teeth stuck in,
and their guts aren’t spread all over town
where carrion pick them off like it’s some sick game.

Sirens still sing,
but they’re at the bottom of the river,
pinned down by boulders lazily discarded,
and images of the sky and ill-
considered enjambment.
Self-aware jokes can only stand up so long,
and mermaids and scotch under the rocks
run out of breath too fast.

There is blood on my hands,
but I’ve forgotten who it belongs to.

holy crap bro. this is like something edgar allen poe would write. I really like the name. I take japanese and I felt so cool that i knew what that kanji meant and it's very aptly named. the imagery in this gives you just such an image of pain and death but also guilt and almost a victory of sorts? idk but it's awesome. keep it up.

I know very little of poetry but the first thing I notice is a very weak rhyme scheme. It's almost a mixture of Chaucer and Shakespeare. In my opinion for the style Chaucer would have been more fitting, but I'm old school to say the least. The imagery though was rather tasteful but it felt somewhat lacking as though you wanted to develop it into a story I saw the narrator's pain but no true resolution. I'm an actor so I guess resolution is significant to me without it necessarily being required. I also question what it seems to be a comment on it almost seems a socially commentary against violence or perhaps the destruction of fantasy and nature. It almost feels as though the second stanza could have been an opening to another poem. Regardless the ending is rather well placed and goes great with the first stanza. All of that said it's a great poem and I wouldn't change a thing.

Wow. I read this, re-read it and then just kind of looked at it for a bit. I'm in shock, I think. I can't believe you fit so much talent into such a small place. I mean; I don't do poetry much. I'm more a novel girl, but gosh, I think I can recognize talent. And this goes beyond.
You're like a modern Shakespeare or something. Every word you chose is perfect and the last stanza is incredible.

There is blood on my hands,
but I’ve forgotten who it belongs to.

I seriously can't get over that one. Amazing, dammit.

The language is emotive and you take advantage of the use of imagery. I loved that. I love how you wrote about death and pain but the poem itself didn't give off a hard vibe. It's almost as if you have a euphemistic undertone. I stopped reading, feeling breathless, rather than depressed.
I don't know how you pulled it off, but seriously. It's incredible.

If I was immature enough to use the word, supercalifragelisticexpealidocious then I would use it just to push my intention of how much I adored it.
What the heck.

It was supercalifragelisticexpealidocious.

NightWriter x

mother of god. one of the best damn things i've ever read on this site! i love your metaphors and poetic stature, you're writing style is clearly influenced and matches the techniques of edgar allen poe and his eerie tales. I'm not sure where to begin! I think i'll start at line one and continue my array of compliments from there haha.

Karzkin wrote:Photographs on the wall
of glory days long gone.
They laugh and mock me,
but their eyes are hollow like letters to an ex-lover;

Can i just say that metaphor made me read it over about 8 times before I finally digested it? Impeccable. If you ever publish a poetry book some day, I'm buying. This was beautiful.