Young Writers Society

The Bus
by Dan Sanders

Another siren wails through the air
peircing it, like a sword peirces flesh;
its just an ordinary day
wailing, wailing, like the mourners at tomorrows funerals
phones ring constantly
"Did you ride the bus today?"
"No, no, Im okay"
How long can life go on this way?
With guns and bombs replacing shovels and hoes
You see it in all its gory glory,
the bus, mauled, into a twisted, burning, hulking wreck of steel
twisted, and violently, too;
on the ground, at its base, a pool of blood
with human remains lying
in the street
be strong, they say
we must be strong, and together,
we'll carry on
so thats what we'll do, but for all the rest
Shalom and I'm sorry
we'll meet again;
someday

Wow... That really made me think. The imagery was great and even made me a bit uneasy. I love the last three lines, too... Nice job.

Yeh, I felt the power behind it and the emotions came through strong; but not overwhelmingly, which was great. Some of the enjambement is a little dubious, but I'm sure that can be sorted out pretty easily, just to make to flow better. I don't really have any other suggestions apart from to correct peirce and peircing to pierce and piercing. I assume it's about the troubles in Israel?

I felt the emotion behind this it made me think for a while. Is this an expierience you have had?

I thought this was really good and really captured the emotion well. There were just a few things I didn't like...

Firstly, my pet peeve is spelling, so I would like to point out a few spelling and grammatical errors.

peirce is spelled pierce (I know Firestarter already said that, but oh well)

wailing, wailing, like the mourners at tomorrows funerals

tomorrows should be tomorrow's because it is being possessive

Here are some lines that just didn't sound right:

You see it in all its gory glory,

Gory glory? I'm sorry but that didn't sit right. They sound too much alike

the bus, mauled, into a twisted, burning, hulking wreck of steel
twisted, and violently, too;

the second line didn't sound right; it sounded strange. 'Violently twisted' would sound better than 'twisted and violently too'

Other than that, I thought this was a very good poem, Nice job!

I thought this was great. Just one little thing:

the bus, mauled, into a twisted, burning, hulking wreck of steel
twisted, and violently, too;

I agree with Writersdomain: the second line doesn't sound right. Also, I don't think the adjective "twisted" needs to be repeated twice. And the comma after "mauled" seems out of place. Maybe:

the bus, mauled into a burning, hulking wreck of steel,
violently twisted.

Other than that, excellent.

'Another siren wails through the air
peircing it, like a sword peirces flesh; '

Kind of clunky, which is not good, especially in the first two lines. Play with the words a bit and make it crisper: 'Another siren pierces* the air like a sword [cuts through or something to that extent] flesh.'

You can space that however you want.

Only one or two words shorter, but it's a start, huh? With poetry like this, that's supposed to make you (emotionally, of course) feel like you've been hit by a bus, too. You want to pack in as much of a punch as you can in as little space as possible. Cut out as many words as you can, find synonyms for long phrases and all that other crap your english teacher taught you.

* I got rid of the 'wails' because everyone knows what a siren sounds like. And, as a perk, the reader can make the awesomely awesome connection to it in the line 'wailing, wailing, like mourners at a funeral'. Which is, awsomely enough (:P) a really good thing 'cause they'll get involved in the poem.

Skipping...skimming...blah blah...I agree with Writersdomain about the 'gory glory' bit...just glory would be fine...blah blah...

'the bus, mauled, into a twisted, burning, hulking wreck of steel
twisted, and violently, too;'

This is really cool, but very long, so we lose interest by the time we get to the end.

You can pretty much get rid of mostly the second line in that section, it's just excess, repeating what we already know. The word 'hulking' is awesomely awesome, so if you put it near the start of the section, the reader'll go 'hey, this guy knows what he's doing.'

Try something like: 'the hulking bus, mauled into a violently twisted, burning wreck of steel'.

Again, only a couple words shorter, but it's a start. And see, see, I carried over the word 'violently' so you get the same effect but you don't need the second line to house it. And we (or I, rather ) put 'hulking' at the beginning like I suggested so it sounds really cool, and shorter.

'so thats what we'll do,'

I would completely delete this line. It's just excess, again. Like you thought you knew what you wanted to say but didn't know how, so you just put a random phrase there. It flows nicely, but we're going for impact, not prettiness, right?

'Shalom and I'm sorry '

This line is uber-cool, and so is the proceeding lines. You didn't really start with a bang but you sure ended with one. I'm not going to pick on it because it really is very awesomely awesome. Beauteous, m'dear.

There were a few lines a liked a lot...

the bus, mauled, into a twisted, burning, hulking wreck of steel
twisted, and violently, too;
on the ground, at its base, a pool of blood
with human remains lying
in the street
be strong, they say
we must be strong, and together,
we'll carry on
so thats what we'll do, but for all the rest
Shalom and I'm sorry
we'll meet again;
someday

I like all of this EXCEPT "human remains lying." I think you should stick to poetic imagery instead of flat out saying "human remains." Tell it more poetically, because it doesn't flow with the rest of the piece.

I didn't like "gory glory" either, though I appreciate the effort. It's a good intention, but it just doesn't sound as good as it should.

like the mourners at tomorrows funerals

Not so fond of this line...can't tell you why (besides the missing apostrophe...). It just...I just don't like it.

Overall, this is a good poem. Like everyone else said, there's a power and honesty behind it that makes it good.

-Sarah