Skullkid -- Elysium

[dead man]

/


ive had acid rain on a permanent loop.
and the rhymes still resurface in two's.
i wonder if consonance has deeper significance.
in truth, speech at its synthesis as profound
as fountains are deep. missives expound
on mountains of me. & the echo is sobering.
stencils, I'm totaling up to rough drafts of dreams.
the sketchy half- between asks us for audacity
to stop casting deep. expectations can cede.
i stare at my handwriting and can't see the progression.
I care for my family and can't beat the depression.
genetics dictate the alpha omega
in nostalgic arrangements. bloodline in cursive.
once, I was perfect. every memory tessellates in
a memorial collage with the softest inertia.
the story of god is a process of learning.
rum runs deeper than wine. troughs & capillaries.
noxious adversary. when I leave her tonight,
tomorrow will gloss in the streaks of her eye.
graduate thesis on sadness & bullshit.
I capture it well. waxing some grievance.
I'm an adjective cultist with a rack of condolence.
talk, & you can tell it exists. tap & control it.
artificial alive. intelligence simmed
like a season of 'chell. and seldom, it sticks,
wisdom drifts through your mind,
appeasing yourself is a sin & I'm a demon from hell.
i'm tethered to fabienne. monika. the seat of the bell
till the last one rings & boy meets world.
phony is honest. pitch the inflection. catch her in rye.
Elysium lives as a trick of your mind


fine,


i've had Manson Family skipping the vinyl.
ticking as time, religiously since 6:45
Snake Eyes and Sissies alike. let the children inside,
serve dinner, then dine. roll cigarettes. flames flicker and die
bonfire blacken the sky. cornhusk whiskey and pine
bending over paperbacks with delicate spines
you say it's literature, fine. i say it's documentation
the impossible playlist - ideology on a constant rotation
forgotten and naked. drink half a bottle and chase it
drop a little honey. let the colony taste it
broken clock with a facelift. bells toll for honesty's sake
buzzing on the table. time to call in your favors
who's at fault for behavior? is it the martyr or savior?
follow monika's gaze. solemnly. it's part of her nature
to empathize from distances and fake it in person
let her cherry glow in darkness to create a diversion
feel her breath rise like worship. our embrace, so imperfect
lungs break beneath the weight of inertia. exhale again
see, this life has a funny way of making me nervous
so let me sleep, only to wake at the service. dearly departed:
may you rise above delirium often. it's a parallel doctrine --
rainwater in harvest season, tears in a coffin
may your spirit pass, untarnished towards wherever you'd like
once i left you tonight, i knew you'd never return
let my corneas burn. acid rainstorm weather resurge
listen once again and watch the memories blur
its all eventually dirt. eventually's a helluva word
condemning tomorrow. embalming present, preserved
we'll all eventually learn. we're trading karma for goods
listen closely. Skull Kid's alive. still lost in the woods
woodwind melody to marinate the mourners maraude
who praise Elysium, but realize it's all a mirage.


/

[Mitch]

to deep for me to speculate, i really wish i could, and i tried hard. The lines i could understand were awesome, like...
"to empathize from distances and fake it in person
let her cherry glow in darkness to create a diversion
feel her breath rise like worship. our embrace, so imperfect
lungs break beneath the weight of inertia. exhale again"
these lines reminded me of people in trenches, because snipers can see smokers from a distance as cherrys glowing in the dark. And they way you were talking about breathe made me think of a snipers breathe control etc. idk if that was intentional, ur writing is so descriptive its easy find unintentional meanings...
the flow and rhyme scheme was good, not as fancy as your newest post with witty, but good. noticed no blemishes.

[Vulgar]

Waxing poetic with a precipitating thesis in mind: Can you dig it, suckah? If you dug it, what'd you unearth? This may be about a hardheaded writer, a stubborn fellow who believes perfection through script can be reached. A state of paradise through the divine use of craft which transcends the real world for the middle world, similar to the Middle Kingdom's premises. Or this might've been about the stories of the Bible and why they aren't as truthful as most religious people think. Wheat fields in the afterlife, heaven in all its glory - these could be empty promises. Dirt awaits us, the flame flickers then dies, the doctrine is parallel, language is godlike yet it's not God's word. The holiest books of the ages are books, preserved fossils, tablets of subjective truths.

I feel like your writer's voice is confident and you dislike telling a straight up story. You seem to only enjoy working in clockwork illusion, a watchmaker who details every dial with something new to be chimed in our minds as the moments slick by. There's life in it, there's firelight, but there's also less honesty than other writers. This is not to say that it's a flaw: this is only my observation about it. The way you write is fragmentary, like you're sewing together abstract views with two crayons. One crayon is a solid color, visible on every spectrum. The other crayon a gray one that produces venerated hues prompted by your abstract views. Tie this all together with a bow: a crisp flow, consistent set ups, and a degree of imaginative finality. Skullkid, in a way, is you. He's cerebral, he's got his way of going about things, he writes elegantly. Essentially, he's a brainchild with lodestones instead of kidney stones. He almost lives in a Lothlorien forest type of setting where grandiose prevails, although it's more organic than just flights of fancy.

bending over paperbacks with delicate spines
^I loved the flipped meanings in this line.

rainwater in harvest season, tears in a coffin
^Condensed are the deadbeat dads, leaving their sons heads to roll down the prairie hills.

I also suspect you and Methodikal are half synthesized with one another. He also cites the many scents of tree bark throughout his writing. A fascination with smell - nothing wrong with that. It conjures up something under the reader's nostrils, a welcomed spice fragrance, even if it's sometimes a little bitter. Very Frenchman-like. Very Frenchman-like, indeed.

Keep doing you

[dead man]

just for the record - split8th is the first verse

good lookin OUT bros

[Split]

<3

[DexLabb]

idk black, ur writing is like... if stephen king was on acid and wrote the script to a 10 minute cologne commercial, u know?

[DexLabb]

"elysium, for men"

[Split]

Feed 4 feed yo

[Strikta]

Will return later w/ proper feed, soon as I get to the comp my guy.

[Geno]

wow man, just wow.
this shit is dope, needed this

[Split]

okay but I haven't gotten meaningful feedback other than quotes & a "nice" in a long time.


Pls

[Certain]

Originally Posted by sig faby

okay but I haven't gotten meaningful feedback other than quotes & a "nice" in a long time.


Pls

Link me to something.

[Split]

Originally Posted by Certain

Link me to something.

this one right here

[Certain]

Oh, you wrote half of this?

[Split]

Originally Posted by Certain

Oh, you wrote half of this?

yeah. I also voted on AOWL for your feed deal (:

[big baby]

fucka sucked. try harder

[Certain]

Rap is full of demarcations, obvious beginning and end points to verses, hooks and bridges. That allows for this strange practice of collaborative writing that isn't very collaborative at all. When journalists double-byline an article, they work together to ensure the story flows properly and reads well. When songwriters collaborate, they often fight and slog and edit through the words of the song until everyone is happy with every word, or at least happy enough.

Here, in this form but also in rap as a whole, the participating writers don't work together as much as they work against each other. We're always talking about who had the better verse, who dominated the proceedings. There's very little if any peer-editing done in this form. So there's a balance that must be attained, between creating a unified piece and protecting the integrity of the writers.

dead man recently has pushed past the traditional collaborative boundaries, and he did it here again. He's honed in on aspects of his partner's verses, as he did in a piece with El Pancake a few months ago, and spun them into his own verses. In a way, he's writing about his partner's writing. He's maybe even parodying them, though not in a cruel sense but rather in the imitative style of zygote. Except rather than matching formats and rhyme schemes and diction choices, he's hitting on the same content.

That makes this, like your other collaboration recently, a bit unique. Split may be the most internalized writer I've come across on these sites, drawing out scenes that only he can picture much in the way James Joyce did in his final two novels. Accessibility is not the intention. So dead man sweeps in and writes out his own references to Monika (the titular character in another Split verse) and Acid Rain and elysium and whiskey and more.

So does that deepen or cheapen the reference points? I think there's a fair debate for each. Split's writing being so personal makes it more difficult to assess meaning to his own set of allusions. But dead man is such a talented and open writer that he can create new interpretations that expand the original reference points.

With all of that said, I'm not sure this particular piece brought out the best in either of you. Split had more holes in his wording than usual, playing around with unusual sentence structure that sometimes caused some bumpiness. And dead man lacked the energy that comes through his best work. Part of that could be the aforementioned collaborative process. But let's take a quick look at the verse.

ive had acid rain on a permanent loop.
and the rhymes still resurface in two's.
i wonder if consonance has deeper significance.
in truth, speech at its synthesis as profound
as fountains are deep. missives expound
on mountains of me. & the echo is sobering.

The subject of the sentence beginning in the fourth line is a bear, blurring the poignancy. Also, in this section, the verbs are "had," "resurface," "has," "are," "expound" and "is." A better verb would have been an easy solution to that problematic sentence.

stencils, I'm totaling up to rough drafts of dreams.
the sketchy half- between asks us for audacity
to stop casting deep. expectations can cede.

This was a little muddled as a whole.

i stare at my handwriting and can't see the progression.
I care for my family and can't beat the depression.
genetics dictate the alpha omega
in nostalgic arrangements. bloodline in cursive.
once, I was perfect. every memory tessellates in
a memorial collage with the softest inertia.
the story of god is a process of learning.

This was the standout section by far. The balance between the more simplistic concept to open this section with the complex ones to close it was nice, and the progression was buitl smoothly through, again, strong verbs. My only qualm comes with the word "memorial" in the penultimate line.

rum runs deeper than wine. troughs & capillaries.
noxious adversary. when I leave her tonight,
tomorrow will gloss in the streaks of her eye.
graduate thesis on sadness & bullshit.

There had to be a girl involved, of course. I liked the third line quite a bit. The rest is sort of Split-by-the-numbers.

I capture it well. waxing some grievance.
I'm an adjective cultist with a rack of condolence.
talk, & you can tell it exists. tap & control it.
artificial alive. intelligence simmed
like a season of 'chell. and seldom, it sticks,
wisdom drifts through your mind,
appeasing yourself is a sin & I'm a demon from hell.

This felt weirdly like pseudo-intellectual braggadoccio.

i'm tethered to fabienne. monika. the seat of the bell
till the last one rings & boy meets world.
phony is honest. pitch the inflection. catch her in rye.
Elysium lives as a trick of your mind

There was plenty of good in this closer, though "the seat of the bell" was a bit clunky as it lacked a verb. Your stanza felt a bit unsettled and loose as a whole.

i've had Manson Family skipping the vinyl.
ticking as time, religiously since 6:45
Snake Eyes and Sissies alike. let the children inside,
serve dinner, then dine. roll cigarettes. flames flicker and die
bonfire blacken the sky. cornhusk whiskey and pine
bending over paperbacks with delicate spines

One of the more obvious differences between you and Split is in your preferred world images. You love to write about a past era, these sort of images strewn throughout most of your verses. You set a good tone for your verse here.

you say it's literature, fine. i say it's documentation
the impossible playlist - ideology on a constant rotation
forgotten and naked. drink half a bottle and chase it
drop a little honey. let the colony taste it

This is the best part of the entire piece. I loved the first two lines as an explanation of reading and the last two lines as a perfectly phrased image and wordplay.

broken clock with a facelift. bells toll for honesty's sake
buzzing on the table. time to call in your favors
who's at fault for behavior? is it the martyr or savior?
follow monika's gaze. solemnly. it's part of her nature
to empathize from distances and fake it in person
let her cherry glow in darkness to create a diversion
feel her breath rise like worship. our embrace, so imperfect
lungs break beneath the weight of inertia. exhale again

This was very sensual and well-written, but I think it's here that some of the emotion falls flat.

see, this life has a funny way of making me nervous
so let me sleep, only to wake at the service. dearly departed:
may you rise above delirium often. it's a parallel doctrine --
rainwater in harvest season, tears in a coffin
may your spirit pass, untarnished towards wherever you'd like

This segment didn't work for me because it broke your voice a little bit, taking a slightly more conversational tone perhaps? I'm not sure. It was off, slightly.

once i left you tonight, i knew you'd never return
let my corneas burn. acid rainstorm weather resurge
listen once again and watch the memories blur
its all eventually dirt. eventually's a helluva word
condemning tomorrow. embalming present, preserved

I loved this section, though, as it flowed off the tongue perfectly and had a really cool concept.

we'll all eventually learn. we're trading karma for goods
listen closely. Skull Kid's alive. still lost in the woods
woodwind melody to marinate the mourners maraude
who praise Elysium, but realize it's all a mirage.

This was an interesting way to end, going back to the previous discussion of how far we unite the two stanzas in a collaboration. But it did feel a little forced, particularly the elysium callback.

[Split]

you're literally the best

[UnbornBuddha]

Your very skilled in choosing your words. This was also less abstract in my opinion. It had more of a storytelling element, although I'm still not completely sure who "she" is, or even if that is something meant to be known. Although I do know your talking about Elysium there is still that metaphorical ambuigity whose meaning is uncovered differently depending on the hands that unsheate and undug the treasure. And of course this hands all have different experiences that have shaped it, and so when one finally touches the treasure it will feel differently due to the rough or soft surfaces of the hands.

The second verse is more straightforward, in a sense. Its thesis is a bit more apparent. What it postulates is a bit on the side of a last goodbye to a loved, but a tragic one because in the end it's all a mirage. Truly heartbreaking!

The first verse had that genetic alpha omega line, which was my favorite. The first verse isn't the easiest to decipher, but when one does the effort to do so, at least in one's mind, what reveals is an existential treatsie of a world that perhaps is a trick of the mind.

[H4ZE]

This was sick guys.

First verse, very great wording choice, that really helped up the imagery and get the message of the topic across, this verse really got me thinking about shit, you had to think to decipher it, I'm not to experienced with rap so I'm now where near this level of writing so I can't reqlly say much other than the flow was nice, rhyme schemes were nice as well and the imagery was great.

Verse 2, this was more straight forward, closer was great. Your imagery was really great due to the way you choose your words, every piece I've read from you is great and this was no exception. The way you write is amazing. Flow and schemes were great as well in this, everything rolled off the tounge smoothly when I read it aloud, dope shit.

Overall, Great work from you both, you both had great imagery, flow and rhyme schemes. Dope collab here guys.
Keep writing and stay blessed. Peace.