The Black Tea Party

[Soule]

Porcelain.
Lord knows what's inside.
Pour the tea upon two cubes of sugar
and hope the honey bites.

In the corner of her mouth
a grin begins to shine.

Five cups in and the room spins.
Her lipstick stains both sides.
She bats her eyes and hits the floor
quicker than lightning strikes.

My knife paints her flesh red;
with each stroke, adds more depth.

Pieces of beauty laid in the grass,
but something appears terribly wrong.
That's right, I've found what's missing.
A grin across the dahlia's jaw!

- - - Updated - - -

http://www.rapbattles.com/showthread.php?489931-Traveler
http://www.rapbattles.com/showthread.php?489938-the-thirtieth-year

[Soule]

Bump

[TheIllyricist]

Porcelain.
Lord knows what's inside.
Pour the tea upon two cubes of sugar
and hope the honey bites.

I like the simple beginning to all this. Idk what it is about one word opening lines, but they roll nicely with me. Opening visuals were welcoming and had me in this kind of peaceful tea-drinking state. Not sure about what 'hope the honey bites' is meant to mean. Maybe my lack of understanding tea, or looking at the rest of the story in this short piece. Could be the man pouring the tea hoping the woman bites and drinks it.

In the corner of her mouth
a grin begins to shine.

Again, simple visual, makes us feel happy and alright. Two people having tea and everything's just fine.

Five cups in and the room spins.
Her lipstick stains both sides.
She bats her eyes and hits the floor
quicker than lightning strikes.

Boom. Tea drugged? This poem just took a rather dark turn. I like dark. Five cups in and the room spins was a nice, concise way to make that development. You didn't need more than that, and you got a easy going flow with the right word choice. Particularly 'eyes' and 'strikes'. Simplistic stanza paints the picture with more effectiveness and more clarity than several stanzas could. Brevity is a great thing when mastered.

My knife paints her flesh red;
with each stroke, adds more depth.

The man's an artist with his knife, that's a great visual. I like the idea behind the 'adds more depth' line because it has layers to it but I feel the flow of that was a bit off. I'm not sure how to word this differently, but in my mind I would because it doesn't quite have the landing on the reader it could. Keep the knife artist theme though, that was really cool.

Pieces of beauty laid in the grass,
but something appears terribly wrong.
That's right, I've found what's missing.
A grin across the dahlia's jaw!

Black dahlia? Nice little touch there. Dahlia is also a flower so the 'pieces of beauty laid in the grass' line has multiple potential images there and makes it all the more unsettling. Could there be a better line than 'but something appears terribly wrong.'? It bridges the message and does its job, but I wonder if there was a puzzle metaphor you could have used to go with 'pieces of beauty'. Regardless, this was a nice piece of poetry overall. I enjoyed the read, man. Looking forward to see what's next.

[Soule]

For sure man. I can't tell you how many times I re-read that 'terribly wrong' line and thought "fuck... this could be so much better." In the end I just sat on it though. Thanks for the feed man. I rarely do poetry but enjoyed this poem.

[Emily]

what a stunning display of imagery Mr Hardy. Lovely wording choices you've picked here.
The flow is natural, melts in your mouth. The content is seductively enticing and propels me
to want to read more. If anything, I wish you'd of lengthened this piece, just to suit my pure curiosity as to what happens next. You've still got it. You're a wonderful poet Mr Hardy. It's a pleasure to have you back. The descriptions are straight forward but romantically inclined, in such a paradox of a piece, the flip side is always enticing when there's more than meets the eye.
I have nothing bad to say about this.
I enjoyed this a lot.
Beautiful Read.

[Soule]

Thank you, Ms. Emily.

[Atti]

so i'm not sure, it could be my own ignorance but i didn't know of any scenario revolving around drugging victims prior to the acts in the dahlia murders so that was a bit weird for me - to read a story building up to a reveal based on factual event but having non factual aspects involved.

the first stanza was fine - the hope the honey bites was strange from a wording sense. i think i get that you mean the honey as the girl bites as in takes the bate which is the drugged tea? but even still, using honey as a female identifier didn't really fit the tone but that could just be because of my own bias and where i've heard the term used that way most often

the third stanza i liked because it's where you started trying to build an engaging image. the one part on this stanza that i liked and didn't like most was the "her lipstick stains both sides." either that was literally meaning her lipstick was painted on her face or it was metaphorically speaking for the slashes on her mouth. if it was the former than i like that image - but it contradicts the ending of the piece where you proclaim the grin hasn't yet been applied. so its fine as a stand alone image - it makes a much stronger metaphor though. it just needed either some placement help or overall consistency touch ups to make it hit as it could have.

the closing stanza did a good job of wrapping up. again my only issue was that because the details in the beginner weren't actually a part of the true events, i could have never started building an idea or piecing together the poems direction enough to where the end would really kick me as ' oh shit! i should have seen that coming '

i think ultimately overall i would have liked to see some stronger metaphor and detail to really bring these images to life. you would start, touch the surface and then back away. i'm not sure if its because you were tight on time or because you restricted yourself on some time of desired format and meter. so it was a good start but it felt a little bare to me.