Semantics Riding Shotgun

Nero - HBK fan

New member
I feel like I should put this out as a disclaimer, these are written as spoken word and that's how I present them. I read them out loud at open mic nights or where ever something similar is going on. No music is accompanying the worRAB.

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A carefully constructed timeline of chaos and anachronistic decay, a combination together that make the present feel like yesterday; the minutes instead became hours spun back in retrograde.

We scream danger and use our hanRAB to hide our face but we dare not turn away because we’re so afraid but equally addicted to this dreadful place and all things that strangers say.

Constantly rewriting our lives, so scared of what we’ve hidden between the lines or what’s to be found on the next page; visual stimulation, a portrait and an expression left for guessing on our face. The question that’s left is what it’s meant to portray?

Keeping our mouths shut only because we’re meant to sit quiet and offer no say, instead we let our demons set the price we can be bought at and how it’s paid.

Pushing semantics aside before our mind becomes at risk for flight as we ride shotgun sitting beside the monster that controls our lives, the ones created in dreams and nightmares alike.

Nobody really knows where the endless roaRAB go, where they wind or which corners to take slow.

These are the semantics cast aside that eventually became part of sadness in a heartbroken soul in need of repair, one that becomes aware as we let it delve deeper into a manufactured state of despair.

So, when it’s time to pick up and go we’ll have to gather up our things whether we have anything to show how far we’ve gone and how much farther we’ll go.
 
I liked this better than your last.

I still believe it would have more impact if presented in a different manner, regardless of the context in which it's usually presented. But i guess that's just personal preference, i'm a fan of line breaks in poetry/spoken word.

Most of it read quite nicely and some of the rhymes felt quite natural, but in other places it seemed like you were rhyming just for the sake of rhyming, this might go over better than i imagine due to an exceptional delivery when performed, but i still think it deters from the read occasionally.

I didn't particularly like this line - "It’s in this search that we surrender to the endless desperation reincarnated from our wanton destruction."

Looking at the piece in general, it's good, but it doesn't blow me away, there's nothing there that's going to stick and have me remembering it in a few weeks time. The title might be the thing closest to achieving that though, i did like that.
 
i quite like what you have going here, but exactly as bowl of oranges said, it would read better if it was presented differently (ignoring the fact it's meant to be spoken word). maybe just divide each stanza into 3 lines, that seems to integrate well into the way I think it's delivered. great imagery in some of them as well.
 
I'm not a fan of breaking things apart into separate lines because again they are spoken word and when I do read them, there are certain parts I over emphasize and some parts that I need to have a longer pause at, et cetera. Thanks for the crit =)
 
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