EULOGY

[yochva]

NOT MY FRIEND! Just a friend. As in, he could concievably be someone's friend, but he's not mine. A random, unspecified person.

 

WARNINGS: For depressingness. . . . . .and mention of various not-nice stuff.

 

 

 

EULOGY

 

Thou hadst no time to hear what I told thee,

That night so many long long days ago.

Thy mother warned, “Do not take Ecstasy”,

Thou didst not listen, so now thou must know.

 

Thou laughed at her and drove off with a vroom,

Thy ears were ringing with the sound of Rock.

The night was young and so the TV boom’d,

So was thy thought – and all thou did was mock.

 

As thou danced up a storm upon the floor,

The punch was loaded – how couldst thou not know?

They called thee names and now thou know’st no more,

At that last final party long ago.

 

Thou drove under the influence – but why?

And thou never even lived to hear us cry.

Edited February 8, 2006 by Evangeline

[Ayshela]

NICE touch in your Feedback Level, as a side note. Nice to know both what you would like, and what you are best able to provide.

 

You've got quite a bit wrapped into this piece, but it's a bit hard to find because i get sidetracked by the conflict between the very formal, and archaic, "thee" and "thou" - and "vroom" and "boom'd". I think you'd make your point more clearly and fluidly if you wrote it as you'd speak it. As a purely picky point on meter and impact, i think you'd have a stronger and smoother finish if you lost the "and" at the beginning of the last line.

 

You've got a really good concept here. I'd love to see you redo this, telling it like it is in the plain speech one friend would use with another.

[yochva]

Ah-HAH! Nothing new in your criticisms, by the by, but maybe you can give me a new answer.

 

A general note, before we get started: This is iambic pentameter, so there has to be ten syllables in each line.

 

The language: If you can find me a not-nice drug that ends in an 'oo' sound, I'll gladly accept it and change everything to 'you'. But until that point, the first line has to be 'thee', and that forces the rest of it to be 'thee'.

 

The last line: If you can find me a way to get the same idea across, and keep the ten syllables required, I'll glomp you into next Tuesday. I don't much like it either, but the idea - that they're really one sentence, separated by a hyphen, maybe - would be lost without it.

[Sweetcherrie]

I see where you're coming from, but sometimes form simply has to give way to flow, sounds, and other things that make a poem to something that really says the things you want it to say, in a way it's supposed to be said

 

Also, I still can't get the iambic and pentameters apart from each other, so I can hardly speak....I can only say if I liked something or not

 

And I really liked this one, but there *must* be a way to get all of this in there...we just haven't found it yet

 

Edit: Still looking at this, and would there simply be a possibility to change that first line?

 

For example: You had no time to hear what you were told

 

This would give you a different ending to work with, of course it would also destroy some other things, and it would make it more passive, but you would keep your syllables and rhythm, and still have a different ending to work with

[yochva]

Right... and lose the "Ecstasy".

 

I sort of like it this way, but it's still up for discussion! And fire. Bullet holes might be a nice look for it... add atmosphere and all that.

[Ayshela]

i don't have time to give this the full answer i'd like, at the moment, but before i lose the thought...

 

if you were dead-set on keeping the "Do not take Ecstasy" bit but it's not working in the rhyme scheme - move it. Put it at the beginning of the line and reference your speaker afterwards. you don't HAVE to end the line with the conversational quote, and any small point of emphasis lost would be more than compensated for in clarity and flow.

 

That's one of the more fun things about writing poetry, actually. It's much like a puzzle. The pieces can be moved around a lot of different ways, flipped over, interchanged for a different one... the challenge is finding the *best* arrangement out of many possibilities.

[yochva]

When I'm done with the newsletter, the application, three other projects on back burners and Real Life issues, I'll work on this seriously. For now, I'd still like to discuss it with y'all, I just can't toss out drafts to play with. Which makes it frustrating, but we'll see how it works.

 

 

That seems like a good idea - I'll definately consider it.

[Ayshela]

*laughs* no worries, and no timelines. i understand the frustration of not having new drafts, but we're all very well aware of Real Life demands, around here. I'll be off to the hospital to wait for Kandara to come out of open heart surgery in the morning, so i confess to a bit of relief that there *won't* be a draft here waiting, at least until i'm likely to have a chance to look at it.

 

no worries. sometimes the "back of the mind editing" time is my most productive, actually, so i doubt it will do any harm to leave it simmering.

[Quincunx]

(Rydia wiggles her ears, partway to amusement, partway to commiseration.)

 

Ayshela, there is just no one-upping you on real life crises, is there? . . .

 

Come and join us in the backwaters. . .it's a difficult first few years without the turbines chugging, but in the end it's just so. . .quiet. . .

 

(Tzimfemme, flailing at the ground: "I'll DIG my way back!")

 

. . .mostly. \o_o|

[Ayshela]

*laughs ruefully* not this year, it appears... i've felt so much like a trampoline stretched tightly trying to bounce everyone who keeps throwing themselves at the ground - and it's EVERYONE lately - i think i'm starting to fray around the edges. i've taken to hiding in Peredhil's pocket, so none of the nasties can find me. Lovely safe place! =)