>>24725288
who the fuck are you obama minion to ask this of me?

>>24725288
I awoke to find that I had actually pissed myself. I had an erection which I attributed to the explicit rape dream, but after seven hours it didn't go away. I had acquired priapism and went to the emergency room to get my penis drained of blood. I sat there for a whole hour without so much as a nurse aide coming in to check on me, so I hopped off the surgical bed to see what was up. I saw all the staff and patients gathered around watching the small TV in the waiting room. I saw the second tower collapse. Even my erection knew it was a dark day for America and went down much like the World Trade Center. Every 9/11 I take Trazodone and watch the towers go down.

>>24725288
A man trips and falls
Trips and falls
Down he goes, terrified
"This shouldn't be normal, was it my fault? I shouldn't have to deal with this," he tells himself
He thinks of his work, it fills him with guilt
He thinks of his family, it fills him with dread
He thinks of his life, it fills him with regret
Down he goes, weeping
It's a long fall, a moment stretched into a lifetime
He takes a moment to pray
The one returning to the many, the infinite stuck within the finite, the end meeting with eternity
Down he goes, laughing
Splat

>>24725364
not too bad

>>24725377
Thanks I came up with it because I had an impulse to push obama minion down a staircase

>>24725288
>Can be an interaction between two flies
Two flies land on the rim of a toilet bowl.
The first fly says, "How long are you gonna stick around?"
The second fly says, "Until I get pissed off."

>>24725361
Nice. I was just listening to the audiobook of Ham on Rye on Youtube, and read yours with that guy's voice, which fits nicely.

It was my last day on the job and the new guy was fully settled into my old seat. I had gotten several heartfelt goodbye's from everyone, from my boss to my subordinates.

My replacement was not new, at least not new to the work. He had started his career many years ago as a front line employee, just like the folks I was formally in charge of. Some said this gave him the virtue of understanding their work, others complained it didn't necessarily make him good at being in charge.

My replacement was a hard working, aggressive, but friendly man. He seemed to only have two settings: full stop or dead sprint.

Some of my subordinates worried his addition would be an unwelcome and sudden change to a position that I had historically run with a modest and relaxed tempo. This brought me a sick sort of relief.

I was selfish, and very conflicted. The rational side of me wanted him to succeed, but the lowest part of me wished that everyone would chafe under my replacement and long for the time that I was in charge.

I am still embattled by these thoughts.

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Wrote this for a thread a little while ago; rule was to keep it in reply length and use only a single period.

>Come hurtling out from Wawa
On the endless boreal corridor of the Trans Canada you will begin to go too fast, seeing nothing but the narrow band of highway between the green pine flanks of infinite forest, below a flat grey overcast sky, having many hours ago accelerated the box truck beyond one-hundred, one-ten, one-twenty, one-thirty kilometres per hour, making no discernible difference as you follow the blurred white and yellow lines keeping you tethered in, no birds, no deer, no cars, just hours of sky and trees and highway alone in the truck lugging yourself and all your possessions ever eastward across the continent, thinking "..." speaking "..." thumbs drumming ". . ." at 10-and-2 on the steering wheel, for how long just . . . and . . . and . . . on and on, the same thing, until a corner comes and then---breaching the view like some titanic whale come cresting out of the woods---you see the lake again, and the cliffs which drop down the hundreds of feet into it in long rocky walls obliterated below and suddenly revealing your own height way up there above Lake Superior and its oceanic vastness on your tiny sliver of highway where only three feet of guardrails pen you in as the second corner comes and your one-thirty plus the speed gained hurtling down the hill is suddenly palpable in the way the truck resists and tells you with its weight heaving to one side as if being sucked towards the now visibly endless and shining lake restlessly beating way below you, slight lift of the tires, slight lift of your stomach, eyelids peeled back, white-knuckled grip trying to tend gently to the wheel not wanting to go those hundreds of feet down where the marks of your crash would be only a fresh set of petroglyphs for that lake to wash away in the endless time it has, the highway pulling one way, that lake pulling another---which you do resist---and it vanishes now behind you again, as the highway straightens, the forest yet again closes in, the lake once humongous then a sliver then gone, the top-heavy truck now steady and flat though your heart beats in your ears and somewhere below it the lake whispering---always---"shhhhhh."

>>24725394
Best post by a mile but I only like it if I ignore that it's a pun.

>>24725288
For sale: chastity cage. Never worn.

>>24725288
We had left in a hurry lest we miss the next part. We had our good reasons packed in our bags with minimal clothing items crushed under intellectual and emotional baggage already so all it took to depart was to pay whatever was left on the tab and scrammed without saying good byes. Slithering between the cracks of the salted earth, following what ever remained of the roads that were left, he was escaping from the great wurm. "Im too young to die, I got so much more to live for." He kept droning on and on, questioning no one in particular about whether if he was influential enough or not. I was trying to find a shredder big enough to rip apart my crumpled up soul. We were driving a crippled convertible that couldn't convert no more. The red finish of the car had been blasted away by innumerable particles of sand. We left behind us as a cloud of sand with the occasional small bug as we took turns in the winding and spiraling roads. Chromium tip at the front, the manufacturers logo a non specific small statuette of a nondescript animal, cut the dust suspended in the air like a knife through water, only for the dust to swallow us back from the behind. We had a set of circular lenses for whomevers turn was it to see, that is whomever was driving the car at that time. Cracks in the windshield gave way to streaks of sand slipping into the car like an hourglass before being scattered everywhere in and around the car by the useless AC system that kept blasting scorching heat directly into my face. He was better dressed for the occasion while I had on what you would usually wear to beach to loiter around and not even swim. I guess some of the sand that gets in your eyes also finds its way to the brain, my mind felt heavier. We had unanimously agreed to turn the radio off for the remainder of the journey as all thats on it was mind numbing political discourse and show-tunes. He said; "lets stop here for a second i have to readjust my foot before it gets glued to the pedal". We found a sliver of shade under a road sign that had its paint stripped away a long time ago, though it was still triangular, that went away the second we managed to parallel park the car underneath it. I checked the gas and the water tank, we were running suspiciously low on water, so I washed my mouth with a handful of gasoline just so i could get the blasted sand out of my mouth. This was one of the reasons why we didn't talk much on the road. He asked me whether itll be night time soon, the sun was directly above us, I nor he was casting a shadow anymore, neither was the sign. Contrary to what you might be inclined to believe, the nights were much harsher because of the cold and the wind, so it felt like you were still going in insane speeds, but you made no progress and ate basically the same amount of sand.

>>24725900
We also had to cut up small pieces of wood from the cars interior finish to keep us warm when the sun was lacking or too lazy to do so, we had gone through almost the entirety of the dashboard. Whoever knows where the sun goes. I asked him where we were. He pulled out the map and unraveled it. It was a parchment with a small x on either the top right or bottom left, we weren't sure so we drove in a zig zag most of the time. The gasoline had made me a little light headed so i fell on the ground that created a small cloud of dust and sand. The back side of my pants were now burnt due to heat radiating from the ground, i was to drive bare assed for the remainder of the way, so in a trade to protect my ass rather than my head, i put my hat on the drivers seat while my sand filled brain slowly cooked from the inside. A skull is the natures greatest pressure cooker. He tried to lean on the sign in what i would call a rookie mistake, leaving a strip of his skin on the metal. Guess he had at least as much as sand in his skull. I asked him what was so bad about being sacrificed to the wurm, he snapped back; "you know how much it costs to live inside a wurm?". I didn't know actually I never really had paid rent or bougt groceries or anything like that. Prior to this i was living off of whomever was closest to me until they all had it up there and gave me the boot, but i digress. He lowered his gaze, and asked me "remind me why is it that you're here again?". I did not entertain his stupid game and got my ass on the sizzling drivers seat where my hat all but had melted all over. By virtue of being born, I was void of reason and origin. This was not news to me of course, but i never felt the need to share this factoid about my nature so i declined most personal questions. A sort of last man situation wherein i was neither the last nor a man though certainly in a situation. It was my turn to drive and i was slamming that pedal. In fact it seems i had slammed it so hard it had slammed itself stuck at the cars floor. The speedometer was doing weird circular almost hypnotic movements. My ass was positively stuck to the seat, thanks to my molten plastic hat, which actually helped to keep me stay low and more aerodynamic. Here we go i thought, this is one of the better ways to get to the next part. Born out of horizon i saw a figureish shadow appear, we were in trajectory to collide with it. I zigged till we got closer to it and collided with what i managed to glimpse as a personoid figure right immediately after my zag.

>>24725900
>>24725907
I don't understand what you were aiming for with this. At best it reads like a clumsy riff on the intro to Fear and Loathing, except without any implication of significance or direction.

>>24726109
yea true to be honest and but this is from my shit folder which is what obama minion deserves. Basically written just to write something that day.

>>24726115
That's such a limpdicked answer. If you have something you actually think has merit and fits in a couple of posts, I'll read it right now.

>>24726131
Not a short story but heres a poem i have been working on;

Everyone that left above was all there was.
Those under perhaps did not have cars.
Styx is long and winding
Spent my life commuting

Wandering, wasting, wanting
A slight drizzle had collapsed.
Smell of rotten eggs haunting.
Compline time had just elapsed.
Beyond the windmills that see,
and declare through two or three;
tones and a buzzer whether
your age or coin will lever.

How the ones Quixote fought?
Sort of like that or whatnot…
Now single file ranked, phalanx.
Like sphinxes guard river banks.
Get through all that.
To get where it's always dank
Where everyone always stank
Where the incorporeal
lady commands for ever.
World prison, soup primordial.
Digested in the guts under.
Contorted twisted gyres.
Additional charges it requires.
Typically a sea of sorts.
Commonly swallows the ordinary.
Connecting terminal cases

Someone wearing Burberry.
And sweating profusely.

There it lays everywhere, unseen
Pitch black quieter than nothing
Even though If ones shrouded
Lend an ear, hear it through the veil
Slithers down low, gains form

Bum smoked a chimney for warmth

Other pilgrims do not mind
Seen only by those inclined
It said to me, with no words;
“Do you hate it here?”
I don’t hate it.
I tolerate.

Some lady forgot to die
Who knows where she’s been this time
However she spent her dime

A thing of fur.
Then and here.
It laid, curled up in shadow
Being there.
Occupying space.

A drowned man washed up
Trying to get over break up

Said; I'm the soul here and there
I eat hope and swim in concrete
I don’t sleep, I rest my eyes
In some occasional times
Whatever did you ask had I not given.
Like for all before you had striven.
Maybe you’re right and maybe I'm wrong
Know this puppet.
All this was a ruse to fool you.
And my bidding you did do.
But an elusive exhausting of many
For quite some is worth a penny.

Stared in me and lashed on my lap.
Next thing we’re standing.
Moving through moments.
Getting to the motion.
Everybody always has somewhere important to be.
And I saw that I knew.
Been there all along.

Couple eternities later.
The great wurm arrives at last.
Smell of cheap plastic and silver wind.
Unseen ferryman.
Charon mounts the opposite head of Maquizcoatl.
I say; Think this is me.

Trying to get a last grasp
Next to swinging monkeys
Panels close.
It's gone.

>>24726145
>To get where it's always dank
>Where everyone always stank
I want to drop this right here but I'll keep going.

>>24725288
It was on one of my most sordid of days that I, too ashamed and too full of self-hatred, bit my left hand and kept pressing my jaws harder and harder, untill the metallic taste of blood filled my throat. Immediately, I vomited my own epidermis onto the ceramic floor of the bathroom, along with what once was a generous serving of fried chicken and fries which I bought and ate in celebration, now turned positively nightmarish by that sole, monolithic and gargantuan fact - I was the man who killed my own wife. The autopsy, conducted on my demand no less, left no place for doubt - secondary syphillis ate away at her body and caused the crash on the day she told me we'd finally be parents. I looked up and the mirror accused me, reflecting my gaze - the same shame I felt that night when I cheated on her. My hand smashed the glass and more blood gushed from the wounds. A shard landed in the sink. A quick swipe across the neck and I was on my way towards oblivion. I woke up, of course. Piece of advice: never commit suicide in a hospital bathroom.

>>24725394
excellent

>>24726145
>I don’t hate it.
>I tolerate.
Want to drop it again.

>Whatever did you ask had I not given.
>Like for all before you had striven.
>Maybe you’re right and maybe I'm wrong
>Know this puppet.
>All this was a ruse to fool you.
>And my bidding you did do.
For a moment I thought this was going to be a joke that I'd read your bad poem.

This is even clumsier than the first thing you posted, because here you at least hint at some kind of pattern but constantly fuck it with a weird line or a hammy sequence of rhymes. I also don't get what you were going for with full stops after so many lines, which sometimes seem to bisect an idea you were going for.

Then there's the clearly deliberate contrast between high and low language, the portrait of something ugly and mundane out of classical allusions; all I pick out of it is voyeurism on a commute, dwelling on the narrator's wasted time* alongside various forms of low-class people on a subway (took me some re-reading to figure this out, like what you were going for with the windmill thing and "age or coin" about turnstiles). You never stick long enough to one image to make things clear, so it's a lot of half-thoughts that build up and make a mess. Maybe it'd be better if you stuck to the literal image then concluded it with an allusion, or the opposite via obscured description through allusion that you then clarify at the end with a literal image. As it is it seems like you spend part of the poem distracting yourself one way or another, spitting out a bunch of allusions before you get carried away with an opaque/guarded literal image.

*In the end I take it that there's a realisation that the narrator overcomes this notion of "getting somewhere in life" and realises his life is not suspended en commute, but being wasted away
>Everybody always has somewhere important to be.
>And I saw that I knew.
>Been there all along.
But I'm doubting it now because this doesn't feel like an idea that's built up towards. The last line is missing him missing his stop, or everything on the subway closed behind; I think that's a nice way to end it, but you could have done a much better job leading up to it because the subway imagery feels too guarded for how important it is.

I also don't get the "drowned man" bit. I get the impression of a beggar or a con man, like the sort of top-of-the-world fake beggar you find in a subway. But it's another thing that cuts in then out, and isn't developed. You could take a stronger idea like that and use it for more effect throughout; you have the perfect opportunity to cast him as Charon, actually, and use one constant figure as a guide through the subway while you explore the surroundings and other people. That sort of clear original metaphor could set you up to be looser later on, i.e., nobody is guessing that you're trying to depict a subway through classical imagery so you can afford to be less transparent.

Last: do you read your poetry aloud to yourself?

>>24726230
This is actually good criticism so i sincerely thank you.

>I also don't get what you were going for with full stops after so many lines
Thats to differenciate between whats happening in poet personas head and what he sees.

>I also don't get the "drowned man" bit.
Thats a drunk guy.

>nobody is guessing that you're trying to depict a subway through classical imagery so you can afford to be less transparent.
You're saying be even more vague? Honestly you are one of the few that caught on the turnstiles so i don't know how helpful that would be, though again I don't know who im writing for.

>Last: do you read your poetry aloud to yourself?
No

>>24726281
Read all of your shit out loud to yourself. You'll pick up on a lot more problems that way. Using full stops to demarcate perspective shifts is not a good way to go about it unless you can incoporate them properly into the lyricism.

Read it all out loud and if it doesn't sound right you need to re-write it until it does; imagine a reader who is not you, who needs to be told with every word and punctuation mark how exactly the line is meant to be ennunciated. If you can get a line to flow, then the reader has a much easier time following the concept as they aren't encumbered by stumbling over words.

>Thats a drunk guy.
Okay sure, but it's not clear how he figures into the narrative or idea of your poem. Was my conman idea close to what you were getting at? What's the point of his little speech? What significance does any figure have to the setting or the narrator? You can't just drop in figures you think are important, you need to give the audience some idea of why.

>You're saying be even more vague?
No, only that you can be less transparent if you've clearly set up the subway/commute setting in advance, and that's just one way to approach it. And your shit is already really vague. If you clear things up in advance all of your allusions are already placed in the subway and the reader doesn't have to do so much guessing, and can take them more at face value. If it had been made clear to me at the start that you were on a subway, I wouldn't be asking myself
>what's the deal with the windmills?
>what the fuck are the swinging monkeys?
>what's the deal with the closing panels?
I think the best route for you is to clarify the subject at the start, but you can also do what I suggested before about being literal then applying an allusion as metaphor at the end, or the other way around. The problem you have (among others) is lack of clarity.

(On subject clarity from the start: this way not everything has to be literal. In that case there's no need for everything to point towards "subway," and you could throw in looser allusions without having to worry about misleading the reader, and that would give you more dexterity.)

If you wanted to start over with this poem, I'd suggest you first ditch the allusions altogether and just focus on the lyricism and imagery. Can you paint a clear image of the subway and all of these characters and feelings while being lyrical? Don't concern yourself with trying to steep it in high-minded stuff until you can nail the first parts down.

I only caught on to the turnstile thing because I was piecing through all the other images and returned to it. A casual reader, when put off by your lack of lyricism and unclear imagery, will simply carry on without a further thought to find something better to read. You need to earn attention.

>I don't know who im writing for
You're writing for someone who is not you, who does not know what you know. Assume as little as possible. That's how you should start.

Are you ESL?

>>24726339
>Are you ESL?
yeah

Have to say anon those are some ideas which ill consider. I understand where some of my ideas didn't pan out as you thought the drunk guy was the one talking whereas i imagined a city soul type of being disguised as a cat doing the talking to the poet persona. I guess you're right though. Its better to be concise than attempt and fail to seem "smart". Thanks for your time.

>>24726356
No problem.
>a city soul type of being disguised as a cat doing the talking
I did not see that at all; the "thing of fur" is this, I assume, but it's not given a relation to the text after. But I think you get the point, just focus on clarity and lyricism, and yeah, be concise.