I like the surgical metaphor you’re using throughout and the line “violent like a car crash, as delicate as rose.” I think you leaned into the violent part, it could be cool if you did more juxtaposing with the delicate as well. Just my thoughts. Nice job!
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Very true! I didnt even notice that, i couldve used thick rope and soft silk being woven together or something of the like.
I like yours, reading it i felt lik i was instantly transported to a urban landscape. With the face rising like smoke on a crumbling sidewall, reminds me of my time roaming the graffiti ridden walls around Austin texas
I love this. It is such a great picture of a place that humans built, then abandoned. And now nature is taking it back, but with the artifacts still in place. Vivid imagery and strong sensory language! The stale urine mixed with the smell of nature is really superb, and brings back the whole cyclical theme.
Graduate Paddles
As the graduate paddles out of college, the river of the real world widens, the sound of innocent playing along the banks fades to a distant echo in the increasingly isolated vessel. Frantic strokes try to meander a meaningful course, punished by biting cold splashes that urge her to conform to society’s trodden thalweg. The craft is stable when in harmony with the lapping rhythms of convention, why risk drowning in the chilling depths of individuality? The waves grow steadily larger as the bow crashes through their relentless attack. But all rafts are eventually welcomed by the same nonchalant ocean of inevitability.
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Heartbreaking stuff! There is no emotion more painful than the unrequited love which you are touching upon, and I think you have made it very real using the senses. I would be interested in exploring this further.
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“Violent as a car crash, as delicate as a rose” 
I am obsessed with these sorts of antithetical couplets. I think they deserve a whole thread because they are just so impactful in songwriting especially.
I really like the metaphor you have found here, there is something eerily romantic about it. It reminds me of a Tim Minchin song (since you are from Victoria) called ‘Grew on Me’.
There are such powerful sensory words in here! It’s made me realise that my one is not nearly sensory-based enough. You’ve painted a really visceral scene, well done!
I still see sensory things in here!
and these lines
“chilling depths of individuality; nonchalant ocean of inevitability; increasingly isolated vessel”
are brutally beautiful!
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The nautical ties throughout are superb. The tension between tradition and individualism is a cool internal sense that you drive here. I like that. That feeling of being a victim of fate, unfulfilled desire, that is really great. I do think you hit on some really good sensory words here, especially considering your noun and verb. You set up a challenge and met it.
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Piano Operates
The spotted chestnut bench let out a long creak as I sat down. The sun peeked through thinned calico curtains, and the air was thick with must and time. My eyes traced the deeply grooved patterns in the floorboards, and lonely blue loveseats past their prime.
In front of me sat a very sad, worn piano, with ivories of dingy grey matte.
My finger touched the middle c…it was smooth and cool to the touch, and the pitch sounded lost underwater. I lightly stroked a few more keys, in ways I didn’t remember I could, and my head flushed with warm nostalgia. In the blink of an eye, I heard voices, and laughter, and felt a hundred moments; summer, mixed with snow, and watermelon and tears. I swallowed hard, pushing back against the emotion crawling out my throat. I paused, then played again, this time, allowing the off key, broken music to work it’s way through me, bringing back to life the things I’d forgotten.
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That first sentence is a great way of drawing the reader in: it has specific visual images, the sound of the creak (auditory), and the time passing sense (long/as I sat down). The “as I sat down” is interesting because it shows an act in progress. Lonely blue loveseats is another really neat image, because it is somewhat of a juxtaposition, one would think loveseats being used by folks who want to be close, and now it is lonely. That is powerful. I don’t think you need to tell us that the piano is “very sad”, I think it shows through the imagery. Really cool tactile and auditory tension in the line describing the middle C sound. I really love the line about playing some keys “in ways I didn’t remember I could”… That is crazy real, the feeling of habits or instinct taking over. It provides a little instability but also hope. The nostalgiac memories allow us to interact with the piece. Another really well done writing.
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So, one thing I really appreciate about this site, and all of you here, is that you voice back to me the technical terms for what it is you are experiencing in the piece. I’m not very strong in my language skills, or grammer, or understanding all the technical terms… which is why I struggle to give feedback on pieces as well. I’m a little lost. If you asked me to write something with “tactile tension” I wouldn’t know what that meant, or how to do it, but I still did somehow… by writing what I was experience in the moment. Anyway, its just an odd thing to me. So often, you pick up on things I didn’t purposely mean to add to the piece, but was still “feeling.” So, I think thats pretty cool, and it’s helping me learn. So thanks! (if any of that made sense)
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That does make a lot of sense and I certainly have found that when you find the technical term for something that you are aware of intuitively it really helps to clarify your understanding, and then you start spotting instances of the thing in all sorts of other places which further develops the understanding and so it snowballs from there! Sometimes songwriting theory, or music theory, gets a very bad rep as being overly analytical when you should just follow your instinct, but it is all a matter of balance. You should absolutely be led by intuitive aesthetic judgement but theoretical concepts and terms can be incredibly informative in describing what is going on!
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Vocabulary is not super important, it just kind of helps us communicate. When we say “tactile”, what we mean is maybe something like “skin feeling”. Like, picking up an ice cube is tactile. You talk about touching the middle C, we can feel the resistance of the key, you also call it smooth and cool, those are tactile sensations. Does that make sense?
Edit: @WLDFLOW3R when we use “tension”, it means a conflict of sorts. The tactile (touch) sense is pleasant in your example (smooth and cool are words that are generally associated with comfort), then your auditory (sound) phrase (sounded like it’s lost underwater) is not so pleasant (being lost and underwater is kind of frightening and disorienting). That tension works really well because it takes the reader from calm and comforted to unstable in a snap. Then, you resolve the tension by giving the reader comfort comfort in letting instinct take over (playing a piano in a way you thought you forgot). Altogether, that makes it powerful.
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Feels like some more telling rather than showing, but did what I could in my 10 minutes!
Fire Soars
Burn ban but they strike anyway. Match cracks, a whip fledging their consciousness, underhanded like a peewee baseball tournament. Swing and a miss as the newspaper catches the flame, the slow burn begins. Smoke stirs, soup slurps, the marshmallow browns, the deer lurking nearby, the foreign smell filling the air. Red wine droops the eyes as they sleep. Awakened by another crack as the swing connects, the fire soars in the air, as the tree catches fire around them. They realize their mistake as they run home, certainly not a homerun.
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There is plenty of showing in there, and the most important thing about these exercises is to get into the habit of pouring words down onto the page. The cracking and the whipping are great sensory words, and I really like the baseball metaphor you have structured the piece around. You’ve actually started doing what the next set of exercises is about, which is deeply exploring a domain (baseball) and applying as many words from that field to your target (fire), such as the newspaper catching the flame. I like how you have built the tension of the impending disaster with the dramaticism of the home run, and shrinkingly that final chiasmus is a nice touch. Great stuff!
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angels paddle
the clouds separate in clumps of soft matter as angels paddle in the baby blue sea of a warm sunny day. sometimes i feel their oars, beams of light, peeking through the clouds as they break apart and wither into translucent whirls of milky dew. sweet honey sunshine makes me sticky when i sweat. my skin is warm and humid i watch a stroller on the sidewalk rattling over rocky terrain and cracks in the grey that shift like tectonic plates. that kids teeth are probably chattering or
sidenote
i was rly into this prompt concept and it started nice so i psyched myself out.
i got into a weird mental spot i find myself in often when working on music—i just get too scared about “messing it up” to add anything, so i sort of freeze up and stop writing.
i was aware of this and tried to return my focus by painting the image i saw in my head even if it wasnt as pretty or glamorous. in retrospect i think i went to the sidewalk since it contrasts the imagery i started with. i think i subconsciously wanted to detach myself from it since the only way i can usually work on old stuff (or any wip) is if i totally switch direction. is this a coping mechanism that is a roadblock or is it the road itself?
anyway sorry for musing. im open to discussion
Letters soar
Comforted by the soft rubber grip between my fingers, the smooth lined canvas rubbing against my wrist, the smell of steaming coffee and the assurance of a clutter free workspace, I begin. My desk fan hypnotises me with whizzing white noise and a subtle rhythmic rattle. I’m in. I have entered the new world, the focus world. My pen is now a part of me and letters soar onto the page.
VERSE
“flush out it or keep it in”
don’t know how but i’m trying
i wanna love i wanna live
and let it linger in the open
but where i was at 17…
well my heart needed protection. so
“flush it out or keep it in”,
i kept it in.
CHORUS
and feeling things was just too hard
so i plugged the sink, turned the water off
and it didn’t flood but it didn’t drain, oh
feeling things was just too hard
VERSE
“flush it out or keep it in”
there are moments when i’m able
i let myself wear very thin
then power up the cracking cable
but where i am at 20 now
i am ready for the motion
“flush it out or keep it in”
now i wanna flush it…
CHORUS
but feeling things was just too hard
so i plugged the sink, turned the water off
and it didn’t flood but it didn’t drain, oh
honestly was i to blame?
feeling things was just too hard
so i took the highbeams out my car
and i couldn’t see but i couldn’t stop, oh
feelings things was just too goddamn
BRIDGE pt. 1
hard to be a person with capabilities of waging war of chasing storms of letting
ocean currents move your arms
BRIDGE pt. 2
what a goddamn waste it is to
live a life this way
what a shame to have a heart
and just ignore the weight
and it once was all the colors
and it once was everything
but the worse part i discovered
was catching it back, after throwing.
CHORUS
and feeling things was just too hard
so i plugged the sink, turned the water off
and it didn’t flood but it didn’t drain, oh
honestly was i to blame?
feeling things was just too hard
so i took the highbeams out my car
and i couldn’t see but i couldn’t stop, oh
feelings things was just too goddamn-
Operating star
The time is 4:44 in the morning as I turn my head to the sky and observe the stars operating in the pitch black ocean above the sky. The stars are always operating above us somewhere light years away into the galaxies in the vast ocean of nothingness. It’s impossible to see the bright shining stars operating from our world since the distance is too far but if you somehow got close enough to these stars you could see how they operate. Up close you’ll notice that the star is shooting across the star spattered neon and purple galaxy but the galaxy is moving as well. If you get even closer somehow, you would see the streams of burning gas flowing and morphing into itself as it heats up the surrounding planets and breathes life into them from its operation/