I always like to give my thoughts on the topic first so it helps give some idea as to how I may have perceived it, what I may have done, something more tangible in this individual battle rather than me just saying it comes down to personal preference or whatever, hopefully it gives you guys more insight into why I may have leaned a particular way over the other guy and whatnot or an insight into the process that played a part in my deciding vote. I think this topic is tough, for me at least, largely as I prefer a more direct route. The choice here doesn’t perhaps speak to me personally as much as it would you guys as it’s clearly some sort of American setting, presumably a huge city like New York, and it looks to me as if it’s some sort of protest going on at first glance… it isn’t a protest I’m particularly familiar with, if it is one, so if this is some sort of famous photography that’s gone completely over my head I apologise. I don’t recognise it. The monochrome colouring could be used here descriptively, creating contrasts between the two, the black and white could have obvious racial tension angles perhaps but if this is more of a protest - like I first thought - perhaps it’s more feasible to go for something of light versus dark as in terms of good versus evil. The worker vs the system. The more I look at it, I notice the street sign with “Walk” or “Wait” and that could be used in the protest setting… You either wait around for the pay increase you feel you deserve and see if it comes, or you walk away from the situation and go get it yourself. Leave your desk. Go find it. Anyway, that’s enough from me with my initial thoughts, let’s see what we have here…
Halo:
In downtown Manhattan a chanting crowd is gathering round
south street sea port near the dock to hear some splashing sounds
the waves crashed around the waters splashing loud
the water splashed so high it scared the crowd
dumping sewage all over the trashy ground
police on loudspeakers start yelling '' clear it out ''
no one listens they move closer curious to what creatures
make such mysterious growls.
I’m not sure if it’s an accent thing, but “gathering” has another syllable to it when I pronounce it that throws the rhyme off slightly for me. It could be an accent thing, so I’ll let that pass, though generally I’m not a huge fan of -ing end rhymes at all. You masked it subtly by using it more internally here, but I tend to steer clear of those - just an odd insight into how I write I guess and a weird hill I choose to die on more than anything. The opener was good aside from those nitpicks and possibly needing something more descriptive than just “The water,” and “The waves,”. I know you’ve done it to keep the verbiage down and the lines shorter for the rhythmic cadence, I get it, I really do… but I do feel here you could have added a descriptor, even if just a brief one, to give it that tad bit more flourish and imagery.
Distant jeers abound the piers are now surrounded by every man in town
staring down into the choppy waters of the hudson sound
seconds later giant lizards with furry heads float up and down
the coast guard surrounds them but they submerge below the surface
and can't be found.
I liked the first two, enjoyed the choppy waters and mention of the Hudson, but then this “Giant lizards with furry heads,” just came from completely left field to me. It’s not just that you’re then stepping outside of the picture itself and world building, but there was this almost total shift in tone to the tale that went from something serious to something almost childlike and comical. I think the two felt mismatched, it needed to either start off on that more playful tip and then run with it or keep the same sort of pace you opened up with. There’s a distinct difference between what came before that and what comes after it, makes me feel like you went away from your pad or whatever right there and then came back to it later to carry on. There’s a clear shift, not just in the mindset but in the writing itself, your writers voice, the direction it’s going etc… I’m not so sure that was the best choice to make here; but let’s carry on…
Edwin's drinking his beer with his piercing blues eyes staring down
lighting a marlboro cigarette he took the filter out
sitting on a stoplight 15 feet above the ground
cans of beer on his crown
“Blues” eyes hurt a little but other than that this is solid, created a moment of imagery like a snapshot in time. I enjoyed that. Glad to see you’ve brought it right back.
staring at a bleached blonde woman named alyssa
alyssa looked like she could be a stripper edwin wished he could kiss her
alyssa's standing in the bike lane wearing booty shorts pouting her cheeks taking pictures
down the block a hippopotamus is getting pulled into a U-haul by a bunch hipsters
pedestrians don't even notice something so absurd
there too busy staring at the lizards.
WHAT. THE. FUCK? Okay, so I was with you again in the first line, the second line was almost too simplistic but I kind of let it slide again here… Alyssa needed more character development than just a name being assigned to her and a brief mention of her hair, for me at least, but this mention of “booty shorts” just went back into child like territory again. It felt quite immature after the section before it was more adult in how it was approached. The hippopotamus and lizard thing I’m really not a fan of at all, if I’m honest, I think you’re looking to hit him with something creative and out of the box but a lot of that is missing to me right now. I don’t feel it’s as engaging as when you’re not going down that route, it just feels a little uninspired and not completely related to the image topic, to me, maybe if there had been more built up around the setting to incorporate them into I would feel it more. Perhaps you think you have done enough with those mentions of Manhattan and the Hudson River and whatnot earlier on, possibly, or I could be missing a lot because I’m unfamiliar with the image pictured but I honestly don’t feel the connection there.
The lizards re-surface and start climbing up brooklyns bridges
giant komodo dragons with teeth like scissors eating rats and pigeons
one lizard is staring at a group of men who hit it with beers and dishes
the lizards bloodied claws scrape the pier tongue flicks it's snake eyes glisten
a cos-player dressed as spider man attempts to kick one
this causes the lizard to chase the man down and bite his dick off.
Right. I think I’m almost about done reading this. Fucking cosplaying Spider-Men and lizards chewing penis. You really have gone off on some wild tangent here that’s really not to my tastes at all, props for originality I guess but it needs more than that to win a topical battle and you know better.
An astro van pulls up 10 gang members jump out
wearing face mask and hoodies pulling clubs out
ball peen hammers pillow cases to carry the funds out
they start looting a store called imperial dragon jewelry
the owner is a chinese man named louie and louie can't afford to lose it all
Another character with a name assigned to him and little else. The character development (or lack of) here is hurting you. As a reader I can’t bring myself to care about these disposable characters because I’m not invested in them at all, you should really work on that to try and give readers some kind of emotional investment to care enough that they want to read on and find out what happens to this character. Right now they’re forgettable as they’re just names on a page (Okay, he’s Chinese also, but aside from that we really don’t know who he is or why we should care if he gets his dick eaten by a Komodo Dragon or not).
he fires a shot from his old luger off - the bullet ends up hitting a kid
caught in the crossfire of truer thought
edwin finds this amusing swat teams trying to remove the doors
but there trampled by the crowd running through the streets
like a circus of doomed report.
Edwin keeps drinking saying in his head im glad to be above you all
tall drunk and nervous the craziness in the street is bittersweet like his first day of service
serenaded by the trampling of people under his feet running away from murders
like the unbothered king in his castle the towers slowly crumbling under his seat.
Edwin's in deep thought ignoring all the commotion under his tennis shoes
all of sudden a sharp object scrapes his cheek
waking him up 'ON' his way to sleep
some one in the crowd got some bad aim - but that reminded edwin
maybe it's time to leave.
Alyssa screams let's go ''this shit is getting out of control''
edwin moves slow struggling his way down the lamp post
alyssa watches a homeless crackhead with no arms manage to light a stem
edwin takes a sip of his beer and feels the high within
something about alyssa made edwin grin like meeting a friend from a past life again
the absurdity of reality always wins under city lights certain attractions bleed within.
Sitting under the street lights in south street sea port brought about peace
alyssa found a detour as they started running south east
this reminds edwin of those bull fights in south greece
when he trained to be a matador but got gored by the devout beast
blood spills on raining cloud spheres benny's a sad clown with some sand shoes
made money on the south pier now he locks himself in the nearest bathroom
as the lizards claws scrape down the bathroom door this can only spell bad news
before they attack benny says to the lizards my last wish will make you laugh too.
Under a street light dimmed
lizards leap 20 feet in the air landing on anything with edible skin
across the street a delivery driver on a moped crashes into a parked sedan
the lizards jump on his sternum and start to rip apart his hands
seconds later the screaming ends
the delivery man gets pulled under a yellow taxi cab never to be seen again.
If alyssa only known what happened to edwin in Fallujah
special operations where werewolf soldiers roamed the valleys of medusa
under the guidance of a warlord named abdullah
summoning djinn using a sacred ruler
in time square the lights flashing in the night air
remind edwind of the tracer rounds taking life with light spared
the city's breeze feels like those desert dunes
something must of evoked those forces
reveling the coordinates of those mercenary death platoons
near central park an albanian orphan ex-special forces alcoholic
forces a horse to walk circles around your coffin
for the amusement of others tapped into the distortion.
Edwin killed many terrorist that were hiding in trees sniping out leaking sewers
but what edwin loved the most was drinking a 40oz on top a stop light
in the streets of newark.
It was a hot day that summer when the reptilians invaded
a dark skinned naked obese fat man sitting on a bench eating a raspberry danish
offers edwin another beer edwin questions his sanitary methods
but the beer was cold and the night was young as the dawn appears
alyssa said im not waiting here she walked across the street to the world trade center
maybe she can trade ideas the beer was so refreshing it literally quenched edwins thirst
and washed away his tears the lizards took over the city but edwin was to brave to care
he lives a street life you can find him in any town with a lamp post and a street light
''we will meet you there''.
I honestly didn’t care for a lot of this final third, the character names were simply there to reference what happens to who with no real consideration for how the reader should be invested in them. They were hollow character sketches, making it hard to follow but harder to care how they would fare in its conclusion. The whole lizard thing was a giant miss, for me, beginning to end. There’s more description on the raspberry danish eaten by an obese male than there is of the central characters to the story. It’s quite an underwhelming development for me, and entirely too long, with no real concept other than these giant lizards attacking the city something akin to King Kong on an unstoppable rampage only without the resolution or character development behind it. Sorry BH but this is far from the best I’ve seen you write.