[Dominate]

MMLP -

If life is a battle field then our worlds the jungle.
A timeless unravelling of man’s eternal struggle.
Stuck in our internal bubble but with the doors off its hinge,
its a universal coupling of morals and sin.

Okay… it flows and rhymes well and gives a clue to the direction you’re taking with this. The second and fourth line here are solid. I’m not loving the first and third. The metaphors are slightly cliche and the internal bubble and doors off its hinge ones clash, IMO. Also world’s, not worlds.

Under the influence of god who returns his support
It’s something within us, which is what we further explore..
Foots in the door but we purposely fall when the times are bad,
turning the corner onto a righteous path.


Okay, adding a spiritual and introspective element. The rhyme schemes are good - I see you - but I think the content is suffering a little for it. It’s very heavy on abstraction and metaphor, which is okay, but I think it jumps around a bit too much and needs a clarifying statement or two. Or at least to stick with one metaphor for more than half a line.

Those once idle hands begin raising our spirits,
I was the right hand man that was made in his image!
Occasionally hitting the bottle and chugging away,
only appreciating its limits when coming of age.

This is better. More grounded and relatable. Introducing a speaker. Rhyme schemes still strong. Raising our spirits is a good wordplay idea here.

I’d drink you 6ft under the table, smoking coffin nail sized cigarettes.
Eventually put in my place though, when dicing with death.
Sobering thought, is that times of the essence and with alcohol on my breath.
To find god, was the almightiest blessing who would then propose me a quest

Drink 6ft under the table and coffin nail sized cigarettes were both dope.
As was sobering thought with alcohol on my breath.
I think the rhyme schemes are hurting more than helping here though. A simpler scheme with a more consistent rhythm and more natural word choices would be so much better.

My divine intervention,
an open express ticket through this hatch to abandon all my sins.
Being approached with intent as I sat up from my binge.
Just thankful it was him as he started to tower aloft
then asking for forgiveness, with my love life now on the rocks.

Yeah look. Honestly as the verse goes on I’m getting more frustrated by the adherence to the layered rhyme schemes.
The clarity and wording are suffering. It’s not worth it.

Drowning my sorrows in a pool of alcoholic tears
sticking my neck out but it was my head now, that was gone through a host of beers.
In a hallway of smoke and mirrors as we both trundled along.
Once the smoking cleared, that’s when I knew something was off.
Realising that this couldn’t be god and not to hold my breath,
As soon all wonder was lost, strapped up in a hospice bed.
That’s when I truly lost my head and it was like I was seeing a ghost
With his features exposed for all to see. He reached for his cloak.
A firm grip on my shoulder, the grim reaper was shown talking to me!
Reminding me, “Death’s Door is always open and its now time to reap what you sow”

Okayyy. So it wasn’t god but instead the reaper. Alright.

I didn’t think this was as good as your last round verse. Probably because addiction and substance abuse and death and all those fun things have been written about so much more than aspirational octopi, so it didn’t have the same novelty factor. Which isn’t your fault, but I think the topic last round played to your strengths more than this one did.



Sym -

I already told the other officer,
I sat still on the bar stool, watching the wait staff operate,
still with no appetite to gain back the proper weight.
still with my eyes on the grandfather clock that oscillates,
and still with an alibi that my cancerous lungs corroborate.

Strong opening. The scene is set, we learn the character has cancer and has lost a ton of weight, that he’s transfixed by the clock (bc how much time does he have left?) And there’s the intrigue of him being questioned for something by an officer. All this with impeccable flow, clean rhymes, and word choices that feel natural while still being interesting. I’m definitely fucking with it.


postulate whatever - I’ve been here with a drink in my hand,
a doctor’s note of demands and my stick in the sand.
I ain’t budging, even though you think I’m the man,
so stand up and move, I gotta be sick in the can.

Good character development here, you can feel the bitterness and detachment. “A doctor’s note of demands and my stick in the sand”. Stubbornly continuing in self destructive habits even in the face of rapidly deteriorating health.

When I got back,
there was mozzarella and mustard served on a plate.
I pushed the dish over the edge and heard it perfectly break,
then apologized to the barkeep and had the courage to fade
back to my home for another night of learning from pain.

I like the mozzarella and mustard detail. The last 1.5 lines here really capture the despair of the illness.

The urgency wakes me,
and I find myself handcuffed and covered in hospital sheets,
laying in more piss than the amount that EMTs probably see.
I’m fairly confident I’m dead and have the cause to believe,
cuz my nephew is beating my chest.
”you fucking asshole, it’s not optional… breathe!”

Okay the first line here is good. Handcuffs - we’re getting back to the law enforcement narrative that was set up at the start. But then… ???
The second line was clunky for me. The detail that he’s covered in piss is fine, that fits. I mean the wording. Pretty much everything else you’ve written here sounds so natural. This line is a really notable exception for me.
The final two would be okay, except then the verse just ends and…
??
Idk. I read it back a few times and I don’t think I’m missing anything. I don’t know if the missing details/storyline are on purpose to reflect the confusion of being blackout drunk and nearing the end or… what. I wanted to know more about what he was being questioned for and why his cancer gave him an alibi. Maybe the officer was metaphorical? I’m sorry if I’m missing something. I like to think I’m not a complete dummy, but if there was a deeper meaning there I didn’t get it.

Really good writing but it felt very much unfinished.


Well this is hard. Bar for bar I thought the quality of Sym’s writing was considerably better, but his verse felt so incomplete. Whereas MMLP explored his idea more and the verse felt finished. And he still had things I liked. It just wasn’t at the same level.
Ehhhh idk. I guess at the end of the day I enjoyed sym’s verse more, so

Vote Sym