01-04-2026, 02:28 AM
Your moniker, I assume, means night frost. Very cool. The title, "Actuality" feels a little soft and non descript in English at least. I would not stop to read a poem titled "actuality" on title alone. Existential would be more likely to get a read - maybe some play on words, not sure.
Our narrator is an observer and their target (I will call them n going forward) is being spoken to them in second person. I am assuming both the walls and the winter are metaphorical based on the title, possibly allegorical as well.
second line - padding: many and long. If you are double modifying a noun, you chose the wrong noun.
"true" freedom is twee - freedom is strong enough.
4th line - horrible is padding. Nightmares are horrible by definition.
"daydream frontiers" is the first interesting concept in the poem
your meter held up in S1 but starts breaking down here
L1 --' --' -' -' should be --' --' --' --'
padded it might look something like this:
Every wave that is crashing up against the dark shore
this is just an example and not a particularly good ones, for future metric anomalies I will just state the line and meter
L2 meter. "Of the heart" - cliche "in the chest" - pointless. stiffen and petrified is a dangling modifier. i supposed "stiffened" would fix it
L3 meter. The shore/or is problematic because it doesn't work without an awkward promotion on "OR"
L4 - meter. Heartly I think is a mis spell of heartily.
For content, this is a continuation of the first S - oh no, life can be tough, comes at you in waves - dark stuff I guess
What happened to our narrator though with his second person POV?
You have a dangling participle leaving me wondering WHAT will crumble? It reads as if time itself will crumble which is fine but then or the other doesn't make sense
Your meter is back on track here for the most part.
L3 - same problem with the participle so it sounds like time is stumbling.
not sure what flats means here without context. With windows preceding it, it sounds like n is switching apartments but that is really not cohesive with previous stanzas.
Also, pay attention to how much filler you use through here:
To, some,will, This, When but, Simply
looks of your eyes is awkward in English, we would never say this.
L3 meter
L4 meter
For content, we have made it pretty deep in the poem and I don't feel we are moving forward. Yes, life is still bad, but would it make sense to take a single image and use it for a metaphor that encompasses all of this?
ok, unsettling lexical gore made me laugh. It sounds like it should be in a limerick.
I have decided that for the remainder, I will skip the meter and give you time to make any corrections based on what I already wrote, same with the filler.
For content - 4 or 5 stanzas in and I think we have moved past the heavy existentialism to perhaps what our central metaphor is: writing to deal with the dread.
I feel that this could be enhanced with bridge metaphor as well as stronger word choice.
"Will too" - not English I am afraid
I feel like I have given you a lot to work on here. First pass you might want to clean up the meter and any awkward phrasing. Second pass work on stripping these filler words out of there.
Well what can you replace them with? Strong nouns and verbs that point back to your metaphor.
Images.
Look, the poem is great for translating from another language into metric verse, I couldn't do it. The result doesn't work as an English poem yet.
Thanks for posting in the intensive and serious forum
(12-31-2025, 10:32 PM)Nachtfrost Wrote: Only walls are around and winter's outside.ok, starting with the meter. Because you mentioned amphibrachs in another post, I assume you are shooting for amphibrachic tetrameter here. Just a note, I commonly refer to this as offset anapestic tetrameter because it is the exact same meter, with a starting catalexis and anapestic is considered more common.
Only, there's no way out, for many long years
You chase the mirage of true freedom and hide
From horrible nightmare in daydream frontiers.
Our narrator is an observer and their target (I will call them n going forward) is being spoken to them in second person. I am assuming both the walls and the winter are metaphorical based on the title, possibly allegorical as well.
second line - padding: many and long. If you are double modifying a noun, you chose the wrong noun.
"true" freedom is twee - freedom is strong enough.
4th line - horrible is padding. Nightmares are horrible by definition.
"daydream frontiers" is the first interesting concept in the poem
Quote:Every wave that is crashing against the shore
Of the heart in the chest, stiffen and petrified,
Makes it just ever harder to have any hope or
To heartly believe in good turn of the tides.
your meter held up in S1 but starts breaking down here
L1 --' --' -' -' should be --' --' --' --'
padded it might look something like this:
Every wave that is crashing up against the dark shore
this is just an example and not a particularly good ones, for future metric anomalies I will just state the line and meter
L2 meter. "Of the heart" - cliche "in the chest" - pointless. stiffen and petrified is a dangling modifier. i supposed "stiffened" would fix it
L3 meter. The shore/or is problematic because it doesn't work without an awkward promotion on "OR"
L4 - meter. Heartly I think is a mis spell of heartily.
For content, this is a continuation of the first S - oh no, life can be tough, comes at you in waves - dark stuff I guess
What happened to our narrator though with his second person POV?
Quote:To believe that some time or the other will crumble
This realm tightly chained in perpetual pain.
When the time doesn't heal you, but aimlessly stumble
Simply settling on windows of new flats again;
You have a dangling participle leaving me wondering WHAT will crumble? It reads as if time itself will crumble which is fine but then or the other doesn't make sense
Your meter is back on track here for the most part.
L3 - same problem with the participle so it sounds like time is stumbling.
not sure what flats means here without context. With windows preceding it, it sounds like n is switching apartments but that is really not cohesive with previous stanzas.
Also, pay attention to how much filler you use through here:
To, some,will, This, When but, Simply
Quote:When the genuine stars are burning above you,L1 filler: genuine
But their flicker disdains craving look of your eyes;
When you long lost the road back home from your tired view,
But, alas, only now managed to realise
looks of your eyes is awkward in English, we would never say this.
L3 meter
L4 meter
For content, we have made it pretty deep in the poem and I don't feel we are moving forward. Yes, life is still bad, but would it make sense to take a single image and use it for a metaphor that encompasses all of this?
Quote:That you're no longer able to pull back together
Yourself, 'cause there's nothing to pull any more,
Losing your mind to the hungering nether
You write down unsettling lexical gore —
ok, unsettling lexical gore made me laugh. It sounds like it should be in a limerick.
I have decided that for the remainder, I will skip the meter and give you time to make any corrections based on what I already wrote, same with the filler.
For content - 4 or 5 stanzas in and I think we have moved past the heavy existentialism to perhaps what our central metaphor is: writing to deal with the dread.
I feel that this could be enhanced with bridge metaphor as well as stronger word choice.
Quote:This is all Actuality, piercing your daydreams,So daydreams is just wrong in this case. We have already beaten the dreams concept to death I fear.
Fills your fantasy world with its nightmarish show.
This bitter poison trapped in the blood stream
Will too never save you from this dreadful foe.
"Will too" - not English I am afraid
Quote:And you shall be breathing with smell of the summer
And alike with raw blanket of damp autumn earth.
It shall feed you the night dressed in very same glamour,
As the ships that were burning in skies for you both.
You shall gobble this wind interwoven with trickles
Of smoke from as if namely those cigarettes,
And web of the cold will again catch the ripple
Of the same winter morning's white light in its nets.
Every little detail rings with most bitter longing
And digs into the chest with a venomous sting.
Soul won't ever know peace, it is still firmly holding
This dire remembrance that no single thing
Could be ever brought back, not a day, not an instant,
Only mere spectral wraiths of ethereal dreams —
Its equivalent here just can not exist, and
As this life has died, so have you by all means.
I feel like I have given you a lot to work on here. First pass you might want to clean up the meter and any awkward phrasing. Second pass work on stripping these filler words out of there.
Well what can you replace them with? Strong nouns and verbs that point back to your metaphor.
Images.
Look, the poem is great for translating from another language into metric verse, I couldn't do it. The result doesn't work as an English poem yet.
Thanks for posting in the intensive and serious forum


