Natasha Avatar
A prose poem by

Natasha

Submitted Feb 18, 2002, 4:02:25 AM

A New Paradise

As a breeze comforts my cheek,
I awaken and open my eyes.
I see but stains of frustration and defeat,
As a dusky shadow attacks the colourless skies.

An atmosphere of endless silence and fantasy,
Come about as unimaginable visions.
They control all thoughts of pain and sympathy,
Taking over your mind and decisions.

An agonizing flame covers the water,
As hot steam rises to melt the darkness.
Your worries are blazed over by the golden fire,
As hurt and damage is endured by the overcoming of obscureness.

Death quickly lifts itself,
As clouds of relief casually surround each bound.
I see quick flashes of my past life as well as my troubled health,
For I am not only lost, but will never be found.

Life, a treasure I once had,
But was given to me without warning, time limit nor clue.
So I shall cry forevermore, and stay sad,
For I was too young to be forgotten, My time was not yet due.

Comments

AlexScribe Avatar

AlexScribe

Commented Dec 11, 2017, 12:37:30 AM
OK, Riley, so this struck me as a dream, or rather a nightmare, where even the most extraordinary events seem acceptable. It generated a sense of dread that grew and grew -- but then kind of plateaued for me. It's hard to hold a high level that long: it either has to grow more or subside and then grow again, in waves that peak higher each time. In the best horror stories/movies the fear is not constant but cycles: it's bad; no, it's OK; no, it's really bad; no, everything's all right; Oh No, it's terrible...

A few nits:
... cheap cheese powder covered popcorn. Strings of modifiers need punctuation: commas, hyphens. Else the mind takes a second: cheap-cheese or -popcorn? cheese-powder? & breaks the flow.

The figure turns their head towards you,... figure/their singular/plural
... jumps onto one of the gunmen and proceeds to punch them out.... one/them singular/plural
... undoubtedly a talisman of good luck. Redundant: talisman is a good luck object by definition.
now cowering infront of him on his knees.... in front

On noticing a few more singular/plural instances, I belatedly realized you may a PC person using plurals to compensate for the lack of suitable gender-neutral pronouns in English. There aren't any good solutions to that problem yet: I would suggest 'shem' for he/she/it/them/whatever in all cases (both meanings). Granted, the word has been used, but how often does Noah's son come up in conversation? And then it is capitalized. Your solution is being used more and more, but it really grates on older eyes and ears to the detriment of your story for me. My solution, until 'shem' becomes the new standard, is to re-word to avoid the problem: "The figure's head turns toward you,..." "... jumps onto one of the gunmen and proceeds to punch the attacker out." Sometimes awkward, but that way you don't disrupt the flow for the traditionals among your readers.

You judge how active the site is: it has helped me immensely. Waiting to see more from you.
rileyFNV Avatar

rileyFNV

Commented Dec 11, 2017, 9:13:53 AM
Thank you very much for the feedback, I appreciate it. I'll definitely keep the flow in mind for next time, and I too honestly felt that the overuse of They starts becoming very apparent in the story. Will do my best to see if I can work around it in the future.
kt6550 Avatar

kt6550

Commented Dec 24, 2017, 8:50:40 PM
Alex is correct. It is not good enough to build tension. At some point, the tension must be released. You never do that. You can also release tension in such a way that it leads to more building of tension. Stephen King is excellent at this. You could try that.

I would also do an outline of this story. You have some holes in your plot, and an outline would help you to find them. Just a suggestion. Then you could fill in, and make the story a bit smoother.