[oats]

Split:

a semblance of close as different as treasure and cove,
a sense of remembrance so vivid, it's an extension of home.

I didn't care much for the "semblance of close" description, seemed faux-poetic. Comparing treasure and cove was meaningful, though, worked well for the photograph (cove) that housed the memory (treasure). Extension of home is a straightforward, impactful line. Overall strong start.

cyan. printed on redness. a red eye. the bedside,
a light I leave on right by my post- & abandonment easens.
to my lighter i'm senpai. CONFESS- I cancel my evenings to manage my demons,
and plan to confide in the handful I don't. Beauty and cameras can lie

red imagery worked to evoke old, possibly weathered pictures, good homage to childhood memories/the past. Photograph as a nightlight is dope. Being master of your lighter is fun, faute de mieux a more literary (and less patronizing) way to say I liked it. But that's just how it made me feel, like a modern day Prometheus, except I don't want to share my stash with the rest of humanity, mostly just a friend or two. I like the play off of red eye.

I hope the CONFESS wasn't a reference to dead man's verse in the OM lol, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here, not your fault that I thought of that upon seeing CONFESS in all caps. The CAPS and - combo helped the rhyme though. I really love the last bit from "I cancel" to "cameras can lie." The vanity and insecurity that we all shrivel from and confide in, depending on where we're at at the moment. Insightful and honest. Cameras lie, looks can deceive, etc. Dope.

regress into the cure of a cancer I breath from. I could sample my throat,
bleed, and ramble for evenings, with every gram that I smoke,

Nice play with the words "cure" and "cancer," shows the dichotomy interacting here, the self-loathing stoner. I can certainly relate. Dependence on smoking to ease the pain of...something? I tend to leave my footprints all over others' work, so I've injected nostalgia as the driving velocity of the character's demons, likely a nostalgia for a simpler time when smoking wasn't as central to his happiness as it is now.

then coalesce to a vanishing point to let the impending develop.
Send a sad little note I had stashed- I've a preference for relics.
Polaroid photo attached, know why I chose it- to stow in the past.

I think what was missing for me was the clarity of the photo. I'm guessing this was a risk you took to create a more powerful visual and strengthen the interplay of smoking and the photo itself, but ultimately I feel a little lost about the central conflict of this character. It's clearly a pained yearning for something in the past. But what it is, I don't know. I was hoping for a final reveal, even just a glimpse, in this last part, but it pulled back even further to talk about generalities of coalescing into a vanishing point etc, which was dope photography imagery, but didn't help me to access the verse. Overall, I thought this was a dope verse, if not unsatisfying in some ways. The writing, the content, was all on point, I just wish we a slightly more concrete look at what was pulling the character from within.


Yoda:

memories worth a thousand words, printed in negative light
daydreaming extended exposure. with perspective on bright
monocle & hour-glass. one minute to shoot; rifle frames the soldier
digitized optical mass. where eyes glued became the beholder

The first couplet was a good welcoming into the verse, makes it clear that this is more of a meditation on photography and its place in life/how it's representative of it. I like the idea of the camera being the rifle and the photographer being the soldier. The last bit is a bit unclear to me, didn't know if that meant that the subject of the photo was the audience? Which makes sense to me, and is a dope perspective, to flip the medium on its head like that. So I'm sticking with that interpretation. Dope start.

most say numbers lie. corner stone appeal til' the hero is sung
time-stamps read the binary our life defined in zeroes and ones

At first, I didn't like the "numbers lie" bit, but you helped me suspend that disbelief by following up with the binary code reference. Like here are the 0s and 1s that make up our photograph, this is life! But it's not. Photography, like any art form really, can be so hollow a representation of real life. Good couplet.

hypnotic shutter cycle.
ricocheting luminescence, risk displays of absolutely pleasant blooming presence
to give away the thick vignetting, of river glaze where ink connects a blue fluorescence

Here's the Yoda we all know and love. Barrages of rhymes. Good blurring of life and the art that tries to capture it, indicating the areas of overlap and the borders. Dope.

cigarette burns stain the altar, where..the sun gave it's luster
patented by clouds of smoked butter, & tobacco paved in its structure
chromatic deliver. most dabble the 'what ifs'. photographic absence of tincture
I grew fonder of my heart locket that didnt feel the same with half of our picture

Cigarette burn as the sun, like you're pissed off at the picture and rubbed a lit cig on it. Clouds of smoked butter was really descriptive of how the photograph in the locket was aged. The third line was hard for me to place in the verse tbh."Most dabble the what ifs" was a little rigid for me. And I'm not sure what the "absence of tincture" refers to. The final line neatly wrapped up the verse, though the wording was again a bit rushed to me, usually your penchant for strong rhymes and smooth wording are more pronounced, this seemed a little sloppy by your standards as far as the writing goes.


Vote: This is really difficult, because both had up-and-down verses that seemed opposite each other. What I mean is, Split had the smoother writing and better concept, but lacked some key points of clarity, whereas Yoda had the better rhymes and was more clear with the content, but the concept was less engaging and he ran into some wording troubles sporadically. Once again, this is one of those push and pull matches where I really see personal preference deciding the final verdict. In this case, I appreciated how Split attacked the topics of nostalgia and pot smoking (the highs and lows of it, if I must) compared to Yoda's representation of love and love lost via a photograph, which, while perhaps better executed, wasn't as impactful to me on an emotional level, which both verses appealed to. This is on par with Eng-Cake imo for the amount of dope crammed into 24 lines, difficult to arrive at an obvious winner. Dope match gentlemen, also potential BOTW.