literature

To Write of Horror

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Daily Deviation

Daily Deviation

October 23, 2012
To Write of Horror by *Anovoca
Featured by thorns
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Literature Text

To paint a scene of mythic horrors
Take dim lit room and darkest corners
Find a child huddled there, cradled tight in his despair
Silent here for not his murmurs,
murmuring out a prayer

He asks the keeper keep to keeping
While all his guardians tucked in sleeping
Ignorant of the shadows creeping
Slow across the hallway floor, standing now outside his door
Somewhere near the sound of breathing,
breaths too heavy to ignore

Then just outside there raised a howl
A distant boom and monstrous growl
Envisions he a ghostly cowl
Afloat across the yard in prowl
Come to steal his soul away, curtains hold the fiend at bay
With scrapes across the window scowls,
scowling out in its dismay

The shutters joined the fray with flapping
Hard against the walls their rapping
While all around began a tapping
With no relent unceasing clapping
the pitter-patter's endless lapping
Solace to the boy then came, raptured from this fearful bane
Slowly drifts his mind towards napping,
napping through a night of rain

Now from this scene we shall take our leave
No horrors left for me to weave
Daylight comes, shadows recede. Weary minds no more to feed
His childish fears forced to perceive,
perceptions turned to ghoulish dreams
This was an idea I have been working on for months. The original two verses of this poem were written in a night and since then it took me F-O-R-E-V-E-R to find an ending I felt was good enough to hold up. I am still a bit iffy on the ending for this one but I am starting to feel rushed to get this out for the holiday.

This piece was heavily inspired by Edgar A. Poe and starts off using a familiar rhyming scheme for Poe's poetry. THe poem attempts to demonstrates how a child's imagination begins to run away on him when he is scared. With each verse he gets more afraid and his mind finds more noises to pick up and exacerbate his fear. This is brought across by adding a line in every verse.
© 2012 - 2024 Anovoca
Comments66
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NotenSMSK's avatar
:star::star::star::star::star-empty: Overall
:star::star::star::star::star-half: Vision
:star::star::star::star-empty::star-empty: Originality
:star::star::star::star::star-empty: Technique
:star::star::star::star::star-half: Impact

This was quite a nice work and I really enjoyed it. First, congrats on the DD. I would say that it really was worth it.

Now I won't critique stanza wise... I feel that not required here. Just a question before I start... you were inspired by the Raven either directly or indirectly? I feel that might be the case although it is in no way necessary.

Now onwards to the work. I like it. That is the most basic sentence. The rhyming scheme was enjoyable. It reminded me of Poe but the way the first 3 lines rhymed (varying in stanza's) and then there was assonance in one line... rhyme repeated and then rhyming with the assonance... it was enjoyable. It sounded aaabab with the first b having assonance.

It flowed off well in terms of meter and so technically, I found there nothing out of order. There were slight grammatical errors perhaps but to be honest I try to ignore ones that I feel the writer might have intended. Poetry shouldn't be that strict. The story is another thing that reminds me of Poe and the Raven specifically. I like it nevertheless and it follows quite well, and is not hard to understand. It has its foreboding feeling but for me it was shadowed by the "Raven" feel.

The varying stanza style was a bit of a distraction. In one there is aabab then aaabab and then aaaaabab. I felt the last one a bit awkward and it sort of disappointed me. But I guess it is a major portion of the story and you were unable to reduce it since you might have cut off some major areas that way.

Over all a fine work. Rhyming is well done (perhaps simple) but the scheme distracted me. Originality is a bit low due to it reminding me of Poe.