blockhead

[cogs]

inevitable fate
written on walls
throughout all the block
poets' lament

like rocks in the head
nothing can grow
the vines have choked out
lines down the road

i guess i'm just like
any old poet
just laying there idle
even though famous

those odd times they dawdle
i've reached their height
this void fills my crown
it's my birth-write

[cogs]

omg, just a practice in meter, lol.

[MorpheusSandman]

It does seem like an experimental piece; I've written many just experimenting with meter, rhythms, form, rhyme, or other concepts. Some suggestions:

It's mostly written in variably dimeter but some lines are definitely in trimeter and could be easily fixed like "all throughout the block" (/-/-/) to "All through the block (/--/) and "sometimes they lay idle" (/-/-/- or -/-//-) to "oft they lay idle" (or something similar = /--/-). I also don't see the need for the the adjective/subject reversal on "at these times odd" instead of "at these odd times". I also think it's best to leave out the "so" there.

[paperleaves]

I really like this, I'm not sure what your aforementioned comment was referring to, but it's quite clever!

"so bow down to me/ it's my birth-write"
ha-ha!



love
Kate

p.s.
Morpheus, you are like, the meter master. Can you teach me your ways?

[cogs]

thank you morpheus for the meter advice! the way i speak the lines, i guess they're not the same rhythm as you said; like, 'all throughout the block', i stressed the 'through'. the reason why i changed up 'so at those times odd', was because i needed the odd for the last stress (with the addition of the 'so' for unstressed). any suggestion for reading the meter differently would help, cause i seem to see stresses differently.

paperleaves, thank you! my comment was for humor and information only.

edit: changes made from advice.

[MorpheusSandman]

@Cogs: A few things I've learned about the rhythm of the English language:

1. It's not as simply as inserting words to try and create stresses where you want them because certain words and certain sets of words are always going to be stressed or unstressed depending somewhat on syntax. Single syllable adjectives and verbs are usually stressed, nouns really depends on the syntax, while articles, conjunctions, and prepositions are almost always unstressed. Exceptions abound especially when you get into multi-syllable words and words where the stress depends on syntax and natural linguistic tendencies which can vary like:

2. Stress also depends on idiomatic language so it's not always definite.

I'm pretty sure with "throughout" the stress is always on "out". I can't imagine an instance where I'd put the stress on "through". "So at" merely becomes two unstressed words because "these" is a definite stress.


p.s.
Morpheus, you are like, the meter master. Can you teach me your ways?Hehe, Blnk Vrz knows more than me. Everything I learned came from a simple combination of Wikipedia and merely analyzing both the poems I read and those I write. You have to be willing to experiment and see what works and what doesn't and constantly asking yourself why something does or doesn't work (you may find some interesting answers or, at least, theories).