Mr. J: You have a fantastic opening line, I have to give it you there because it serves its purpose exactly - hooking the reader in from the start there and drawing them in to try and find out exactly what it is you’re referring to and why.
From a technical standpoint the mechanics and rhyme scheme are all hitting, you’ve a very natural didactic quality to your writing which I’m also a fan of (and employ regularly) so I can appreciate the dual difficulty in maintaining that degree of difficulty while also keeping up the implied rhyming cadence and flow. It isn’t easy. Far from it. Hats off to you, sir.
The switch up on the fourth line is also a nice touch, deftly handled also - I think I tried something similar myself this week (though not entirely the same, I was toying more back and forth with a particular rhyme) but I just wanted you to know I hadn’t overlooked what you were doing and can fully appreciate the skill level involved behind the surface level skimming some might have missed. I see you.
I could be completely incorrect here, and tell me if I’m way off, but toward the middle section especially I started to sense that you were writing as if this verse was about the current state of the AOWL and your position within it. I actually think this could be about Universe somewhat and recent events, tell me I’m wrong here:
Quote:
They expect you to play into the bullshit and make peace
They gonna test you on the pulpit until the mistakes seen
This is not eventful, at my fullest potential they can't chase me.
Can I be outran or overrun? Where is the next culprit from?
What about plans that share exit strategies over trust...?
On the outskirts of our land I'm left with a lot to overcome
I hear the tears of the hopeless crying in the open...
The appearance of fear had their numbers sloping.
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The mention of “playing into the bullshit,” seemed to be around either voting or needing extensions without prior discussion etc and those people unable to post on time. There was some braggadocio in regard to you “unable to be outrun” etc then the whole “people leaving in tears” thing I took to mean people signing out over a loss or something. You can easily see the correlation to the league, if not the larger beer with Uni (I think he only signed out after this was posted now I think about it more?). The idea definitely resonated though.
The final line was ominous in feeling like this wasn’t Jay done with this at all yet, merely an end to battle - but not the war, his quest continues (to champ possibly?) Anyway, I definitely gauged more from that then some of the other readers by the look of the votes so far, but that was my humble take on things - rightly or wrongly.
Now, while I did enjoy both takes on this and felt this was actually a lot closer than votes make it seem right now for sure, I do have to agree that I felt Master Rock did more in the way of utilising the image to develop his story around it and build this world to house his characters with strong development and natural sounding dialogue - he was more direct in his approach, and execution, while Mr J perhaps took the larger risk here (with the metaphoric message) that perhaps went under the radar somewhat. I think there are weeks where Mr J would have won with that verse but he just came up against an in-form Master Rock this week who caught everyone sleeping somewhat because we didn’t realise he was capable of a verse as good as this. He proved a lot of doubters wrong for sure. I’m going with Master Rock. Good battle, fellas!
Keep those pens moving!