Pick A Poem?

[moonbird]

These are a couple of poem's I've been considering submitting to a magazine. Which of them, if any, do you think are good enough as is, and which need some work? Specific criticism please. Thanks! :)

Soul-Eater

There is a creature that has no eyes
Eyes ripped from bloody sockets
And replaced with stones
Cold
Unblinking
Unseeing
Seeing all

There is a creature that has no face
Like chunks of meat, mutilated
Shredded and clawed
Ears hang in ribbons
Flesh rotting away
Blackening
Sick with decay
To dirt, to worms

There is a creature that has no soul
Blown away in the wind
Wispy
Delicate
Like tissue paper
As the sun sits bleeding
And dying crows wail

There is a creature that lives in death
Animation suspended
Choked off, life corrupted
Tainted, stained
Ripped open
Sewn together
Mutated
Ravenous
As it eats


Bittersweet

Release me, Bittersweet.

Your blackened tendrils
like frostbitten fingers
leave scars round my throat,
burning and red.

So many times
it has been wrung,
and like a moth-eaten rag
surrenders its murky water
to a wash-lady’s hands,
I have coughed up my secrets,
the shameful phlegm
that slimes through my past
and haunts my memories.

I remember the sunshine, Bittersweet,
the warm autumn sunshine
that filtered through the leaves
and the fruits that you picked,
like little red hearts,
and stabbed through the center,
and made them into
sweet crimson wine,
and I drank it.

With a parched thirst
I drank your cloying venom.

Release me, Bittersweet,
for the sun has gone away
and only thistles remain.



Betty

Silly old woman.
If only she could hear how positively insane she sounds.
Getting on in the years, I suppose.
Honestly! I don't know what she could have against dear Betty.
She's only five, after all.
Get a new maid? No, I've never considered it.
Perhaps I will, if Gladys keeps scaring my little girl.
Oh, she says many cruel things.
That she's a demon, or a ghost.
That I'm crazy.
(Ironic, isn't it?)
On her worst days, she'll screech at me about Betty being dead!
Poor child, she's terrified of Gladys.
Have you met Betty?
No? Well, I must have you over some time.
Perhaps after we've drunk our coffee, if you're not busy?
Ah, splendid.
What's that?
No, Betty's not been sick in months.
Cancer? My goodness, where did you hear such a thing?
Yes, odd how rumors appear sometimes.
Drink up now, my friend.
Betty will be so pleased to meet you.

[Delta40]

I'd choose Bittersweet. It has a better flow and is not as dark as Soul-Eater.

[Hawkman]

I think I like Betty the best, mainly because it's so original. You've posted it before, I think, as I remember bits of it. I'm not sure who'd want to publish the other two, a Goth fanzine, possibly.

Soul-Eater comes accross (to me anyway) as sort of teenage wallowing in the dark-side, perhaps a little too self-conscious a catalogue of woe. Not keen on wailing crows, in my experience crows scream (albeit croakily) but they don't wail. There is some nice imagery in Bittersweet but it's a well worn subject and might be better for a bit of a prune.

Good luck with the submission.

Live and be well - H

[Bar22do]

Soul-Eater is blood freezing, Bittersweet, donno... I spontaneously chose Betty, disquieting but strong and as Hawkman says, very original. Cross my fingers for publication. Bar

[Catamite]

Betty is by far the better of the three, the others have a 'sixth-from poetry' feel, but Betty is funny and enjoyable; it is the most likely to get accepted I think.

[hillwalker]

'Betty' gets my vote as well - though I'm not particularly keen on the first 3 lines...

The expression 'positively insane' doesn't seem to fit the voice of the narrator - and there's no need to set the scene quite so unsubtly imho.

H