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Where the Shadows Run · Poetry Short Short ·
Organised by Anon Y Mous
Word limit 100–2000
Show rules for this event
#1 · 2
·
Time to wax poetic... with a vengeance.
#2 · 2
·
*Sliding in under the wire*

Nothing to see here folks, move along. Poems to read and all that.
#3 ·
· on We're Complicated
I wish I knew what happened in this, but it's a bit opaque for me to figure it out. Someone's trying to be the voice of reason and mediate between the other two, but I'm not sure of the situation. On one hand, it sounds kind of like a marriage counselor, but on the other, it's giving me images of a DM solving a dispute between players. I like the tone of it all; I just can't discern the plot.

Structurally, you did quite well, with all the constraints you put on it. One line is short of syllables, one has a typo, and there are numerous places where the predominant iambic stress pattern doesn't quite work with the words' normal pronunciations. There were also several places where the internal rhyme in the first half of each line is pretty weak, which most often happens in the first line of a stanza. Initially, that made me think you didn't intend to have that kind of rhyme in the first line of each, until the third stanza finally had a good one and the next few kept it up.

To borrow an analogy from gymnastics, you have a high starting score due to difficulty level, but there were some deductions for execution. Overall, good effort.
#4 ·
· on The Autopsy of the Lover
I'm on the fence as to whether this is just a grim look at love in general or a depiction of someone enduring a breakup with another person they're not over. The imagery is brutally stark here, and I like it.

Structurally, eh, it looks like a poem, but as many of the decisions landed with me as didn't. "Space" sitting by itself, for example, makes sense, but I don't know whether I'm supposed to get any meaning by having "rib cage" on its own line.

On language use alone, this gets a thumbs-up.
#5 ·
· on Riddled with Care
Ah, riddles. These are nice for some variety, but they're going to be hit or miss, depending on whether the reader enjoys this kind of thing. I could solve the first two. Well, I could solve the first (heart) on its own, but I needed the hint of how many letters the second (absent) had to get it. The fourth, I think I have (verse), but I had to look at the hint of its starting letter, and it doesn't seem to fit the description that well to me. Grave and bones sure suggest something that's dead, which isn't the case for that. I really have no idea on the third. I would guess (follow), from the hint of its first letter and that it would presumably rhyme in the small ending poem, but I can't see how it satisfies the riddle's first line, so either I'm wrong, or it's going totally over my head how it answers the riddle. Well, now that I look again, I guess it does work for that first line, more literally than I was taking it.

Thin on story, but nice to see something we haven't had in a poetry round before.
#6 ·
· on Riddled with Care
My first is what is said about,
To touch another theme,
My second is a landscape fair
Behold the mighty scene!
My whole is a fugacious thought
That flattens other's dreams...

Review
#7 ·
· on We're Complicated
My sword is bright with inner light, but can it lead the way?
The lines I slice may not suffice to my intent impart,
But in the end my foes and friends may both stand in dismay,
When with my care, and sternum pared, I show my beating heart.
#8 ·
· on The Autopsy of the Lover
Incise the clean blank page
With sharp black lines
Peel back to show
The hole inside
Where words curl
With desperate
Energy