VV: The recurring theme here is that you write an excellent, technical verse with fantastic vocabulary and a great take on the topic at hand.. only to take a .50 caliber howitzer shell and blow it all to pieces with a telegraphed cliched twist that leaves the taste of a bum's asshole (quote Carlin, not me) in my mouth. Guess what happened again? WHY DO YOU KEEP DOING THIS? Not only that, but you expound way too much on your twist. It's like you know what it is doing to me yet insist on twisting the knife in deeper. I love everything about what you do except that. I seriously have no other criticism. I wrote Frank off in my mind right before you made it obvious where you were going (unfair to Frank, obv).. I was that much into your take on this. Everything tied together so great. And then that. Goddamnit.
Frank: I am fully convinced that nobody tells a story better than you. You also write in a way that doesn't get stuck in the mold of a "text" piece. I can hear this being rhymed in my mind's voice, a cautionary, emotional tale from an album. You know how to pull the heart strings and you don't have to get overly complex in vocabulary or scheme to do it. I agree with some of the above where it feels like you meander for the sake of extending your verse - which would be okay if it added anything to the story, but it is usually just showboating your storytelling abilities. If your verse made me connect with the topic in any way, I think you'd have taken this one. But it didn't. The only loose connection I see is that his purpose on Earth was to make that baby and give you the feels when you reminisce... and that's a really forced link. I have to wonder if this guy was sitting in a notebook somewhere waiting for you to post it.
At the end of the day, it's a topical league. VV wrote to the topic and despite his ending, his technical talent overrides Frank's seemingly unrelated (but still fantastic) story.
v/ VV
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