The child painted black

The Softest Song, the Loudest Truth


The child painted black
Lips shudder as his thoughts
were sketched in tears again,
devouring memories as if
they were drugs of choice...
He opens his mind with shards
of mirrored insecurity as
the reflection distorts and
fades into his own bruised shivering skin;
Screams flood the ears of
the deaf, falling upon nothing but
silence and decay, he tries to
run from himself but the path has been
riddled with fear and cradled in
flames of childhood picture frames;
In his mind their throats unlock
to reveal a million secrets from
tongues drenched in a sea of
years spent carving their names in
hollow bitter roots; The stems
of time grew like cancer in the womb,
giving birth to a stench so rotten
even the flies dare not enter it's grasp...
He repeats the words...
"why did you paint me this way"
over and over until his voice cracks within soiled speech;
Daddy was an engineer of broken dreams,
forcing venom into the veins of clean canvas as
he picked the stars from the
sky to craft a pitch black sonnet of shadows

Night crumbles,
Footsteps freeze frame motion...
stairs creak in fear...
He's here, He's here!

Enter sandman...
Under the sheets he claws the soft
white innocence, blood shot eyes linger
towards restless heart beats and glimmers of
hope... Yet hope is shattered by an all
familiar scent of stomach churning
whiskey breath clinging tightly to
every bead of sweat trying to escape
the forehead of sadistic pleasure;
A stampede of fists charge at cliffs of bed covers,
falling off the edge of reason and snapping
shaking bones in half... silence is only broken
by breathless throats dying to scream a thousand
melodies of truth... Drunken stance,
a whisper pulsates deep into the unconscious
atmosphere, it rings out... "I only do it because
I love you, this will make you a man!"

Quiet, soft melodic chord change...
over at last, sleeping in red carpet blues,
The softest song, the loudest truth

This is the first poem I've read start to finish in awhile. I figure that means I should leave a reply.
What you do really well is tying together phrases and words to create an image. The 'mirror' extended metaphor is a good example. The words you use, like shards and distorted, are cohesive with the intented meaning of the metaphor. Illustrating the insecurity and self-consciousness of your poem's subject, you're able to express it in an implicit way. Nothing is too abstract that I can't find meaning and not so direct that I can't pull a deeper meaning from it. You do it again with the growth-time double, seamlessly transitioning from an image of a flower/plant to a child. You also have good use of personification - the picture frames are able to speak to the subject, etc.
There were a few typos and misspellings (stampede, rotten, creak) that of course can be fixed. I also found the use of ellipses redundant and some of the language, although mostly consistent, was repetitive. The italicized narrating stanzas also detracted from the strength of the main verses when I read it. Althogh they provide a counter-point or illumination on the verses, they are altogether different in style from the rest. I especially mean the "quiet, soft melodic chord change" line. That line and the 'enter sandman' line just seems
Besides those few things, I like this. I think your voice is pretty strong and the word choice is, for the most part, excellent in conveying emotions without comprising the intelligence of your devices. Good job.

Haha yeah I should have checked the spelling before posting!... Thanks alot for your feed, and I'm going to get to yours later. The reason I put those little middle parts in was more to break it up a little, seeing as the tone of the piece is pretty heavy, so bringing a slightly more fluid interval from that was more my intention. cheers dude

Daddy was an engineer of broken dreams,
forcing venom into the veins of clean canvas as
he picked the stars from the
sky to craft a pitch black sonnet of shadows
lol that painted a dope picture for me, lol i fucking hate you poeta....but truly missed your writing, spelling error's? didnt really notice them because i myself am indeed a typing spelling error! anyways the imagery hear was full of art really! the decriptiveness of this piece was encouraging, some okay metaphor's here, and the concept overall was appreciated with the story you told! anyway's im going to hop off the nutsack now....enjoy faggot.

http://www.rapbattles.com/forum/show...347/index.html
rtf:love:

i agree this piece is very visual, i was interested from start to finish and just based off this i would forsure read anything else written by you. I love the feeling you create, the words are intelligent and well fitted, "why did you paint me this way", pretty kool, cant wait to check out more !

Thank you... I really enjoyed reading this.

I liked this Poeta, you had good language and it was executed very cleanly. Probably one of my favourite poems I've read lately. You had good use of literary techniques and it had a really emotional vibe to it. Damn you for writing this... :mad: lol Especially liked this part;

'"why did you paint me this way"
over and over until his voice cracks within soiled speech;
Daddy was an engineer of broken dreams,
forcing venom into the veins of clean canvas as
he picked the stars from the
sky to craft a pitch black sonnet of shadows'

Great imagery in this piece, I really enjoyed it and I'll nominate this for hall of fame if it hasn't been already, which it probably has, nice work. :rolleyes:

You long poem, writing ass, mother fucker! Better hit up my new collab with Baron.


Anyway, dope poem my friend. We need to collaborate sometime. Anyways. the wording in the poem was absolutely beautiful, the first stanza was flawless. I read it thoroughly, twice, as it just flowed right off my tongue like saliva. Nothing sketchy, nothing made me think twice (at least in a negative way) and the imagery was wonderful. Sandman stanza comes in and gives me goosebumps. This topic was definently something that kept me interested and entertained the entire read through. Awesome poem, nom'd.

This was really visual. I would say this a very entertaining write. You put words together so well to express your emotion that it only encourages me to read more. I would only be repeating what everyone else said above If I kept on, but here is the part that caught me.

"Lips shudder as his thoughts
were sketched in tears again,
devouring memories as if
they were drugs of choice..."

Got me from the beginning my friend. Again good write.

You use diction very cleanly and fluidly. Technically this is a very decent write in a lot of ways, but the imagery lacked an emotional resonance for me. You have a good eye for a good alarming phrase, and there were quite a few impressive lines in there, but some parts were also very cliche ("the stems of time grew like cancer in the womb"), which made me question how in control of the imagery you actually were. The italicized sections were like stage directions, right? I felt like that trivialized the imagery of the poem, because making the reader feel as if he is reading a movie screenplay or a play removes him existentially from the... 'action', as it were.

I did like the last line, inserting dialogue in the final line of a poem had a certain climactic feel to it that worked well.