Khans Poems

[Cuddly Khan]

Thanks guys. Means a lot.


I'll have more to post soon probably, we'll see. I don't know what's happened, but I've been writing a lot lately.

[comrade_general]

KHAAAANNNN!!!!

[Cuddly Khan]

Since i was last on this forum a lot has happened. I've been through some difficult situations and through it all, poetry became a way for me to vent, to express the emotions and turmoil in a way that was more coherent and understandable than the way i felt. I have written dozens of poems since, most of which tend to have dark undertones, but i'm proud of them. I feel I've gotten better at writing poems, so i want to share some of them here. I mever gave many of them actual titles for the poems so they stand without them for now.


Explore the depths, search the deep darkness.
To find that missing piece, you traverse the abyss.

Always looking for the shadow of something new,
Eclipsed by the past and pain that you yourself grew.

Sprouted from the doubt and guilt that was dormant.
And has once again arisen, awoken by your self torment.

The weeds of your insecurity climb up from the blackness,
And grip your heart, dragging it under into apathetic hardness.

Encasing your promises and dreams in a cage of fear,
Locking them away from anyone that may come too near.

Keeping them safe from those that mean no ill,
And guarding them from your own hope and failed will.

[Jubal]

Very nice For me poetry has always been a key way to vent emotions too.

Would you like thoughts on scansion/style on these? I know some people very much prefer to leave venting-poems as is rather than editing them, but equally I'm happy to give thoughts if you'd like. And I'd love to see more pieces! Maybe you could have a numbering system if they're all untitled? I know some poets who do that.

[Cuddly Khan]

I might organise them cronologically at some point. That sounds like a good idea. I would love some critique on any or these poems as even if they are mostly me venting emotions, I'd love to be able to inprove my poetry. Here are two more poems.

Ouroboros

Around and around in circles again
Repetition is my old new friend
With my tail in my mouth there is no end
Back to the same place all over again

From start to end and back to the start
No way to pull this cycle apart
Arrive in one second and then depart
Finding myself trying to restart


Super Nova

Super nova, a dying star
Burns so bright, fades so fast.
The brief light shows what we are
Not the first, won't be the last

Exloding in briliance and wonder
Only to dim to so quick to dark.
A raidience we can only remember
It's rays so bright they leave a mark.

It leaves a memory bittersweet
Look back to when it did shine
A moment so short and fleeting
As it burns for the last time

[Jubal]

So I think a couple of general comments and thoughts... you tend to like keeping your poetic form quite strict - and I like that, I do the same. I find that keeping a strong rhythm and rhyme scheme is quite helpful for getting my thoughts into a form that works and flows well rather than just splatters on the page. That said, I think sometimes you could make the rhythm tighter and sometimes you could break the scheme more intentionally. A line like "Locking them away from anyone that may come too near." might want tightening given that the rest of the poem has quite a strong rhythm to it. You could do this by dropping or switching out some words: "To lock them away, safe from those that come near" I think might flow better with the scheme.

With the rhythms, it's often worth speaking your poems to yourself out loud and thinking about what are the natural points of emphasis. I think you do this well naturally but there are places where thinking about it explicitly can help: so for example in "Around and around in circles again" - the yellow syllables are stressed, the orange ones are unstressed, which works pretty well. You wouldn't usually want words like "in" or "to" to become stressed because you want the more important syllables and words to stay in the reader's or listener's mind. In the above example of "Locking them away", the stress hits the "ing" as second syllable for example, which is why my rearrangement made it hit "lock" instead.

Tightening the scheme can also let you play with it a bit more intentionally. I'd be tempted with Ouroboros to either drop the last word into its own stanza, so it sits totally separately and emphasises the potential breaking of the cycle-as-rhythm, or alternatively add a whole extra "Around and around in circles again" line at the end repeating the first line to suggest its continuity. Although maybe it's best to leave it less certain, but just to highlight that you'd have those options for trying to use intentional breaks in what you're doing to emphasise the theme of the poem.

Anyway, I really like these - ouroboros is probably my favourite of these new ones so far, it's such a good image.

[Cuddly Khan]

Thanks for the feedback! I'll definitely try to keep those things in mind more as i write more poems.

Something i did with Ouroboros was have the last word of the first and last line of each stanza be the same to represent the repetition of the theme. Having more repeating aspects could be a fun idea though, especially having the first line also be the last line. I might see if i can come up with a third stanza in there to use that.

[Jubal]

Yeah, I see what you were doing with Ourobouros, but yes I think you might want to make it more explicit, subtle things like that need some more repetition than you have verses for in a relatively short poem like that?