A random poem I just thought of. "My AGS Game"

[Trihan]

I was just sitting here reading various things and contemplating life's great mysteries when suddenly the idea flew through my head to write a poem about a stagnant AGS project that is mysteriously completed by an equally mysterious benefactor. As with all throwaway ideas I have, I decided to write it down, and it turned into this. Enjoy!

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Jolting awake from my long night-time slumber
My head felt akin to some freshly-felled lumber
With coffee in hand and sawdust in my head
My course had been set for the thing that I dread
Pushing my monitor's on and off switch
My palms were both sweating, my eyes gave a twitch
At the prospect of one more day pointless and lame
Where no progress was made on my AGS game.

Imagine my shock when on came the display
And an .exe file lay there enabling play!
My game had somehow been completeted, hooray!
But how was it finished in less than a day?
And then my elation was turning to fear
And a presence I felt, and I felt it quite near
Though I needn't have worried, a friend did appear
For Cuppit it was, and I let out a cheer!

He'd finished my game while I slept overnight
And I whispered his name then I screamed my delight
The storyline laid out for all folks to see
The game itself played out and beautifully
The graphics were great and my heart it did sing
How could he create such a wonderful thing?
The soundtrack was magic with many-layered graces
The dialogue tragic in all the right places.

I sprang to the forums and thanked the blue cup
As he struggled to get to my window up high
So I gave him a hand and I helped him climb up
And he spoke as he left and he winked his blue eye
"I'm just glad I could help, the idea was ace!
I thought I should make it; so the forum could see
Just remember one thing as I leave from this place
I'm full of blue helpfulness, and helpful bluosity!"

------

Each part of the poem utilises a different rhyming scheme by design. The first one obviously uses a fairly standard AABBAABB, then it switches to AAAABBBB, then I attempted (because I've never really done this much before) a dual AABBAABB with two rhymes per line, and finally ABABABAB.

(Also it won't make much sense if you haven't seen/played/heard of META, by Crystal Shard, in which Cuppit appears. I loved the character and decided to incorporate it into the poem with a paraphrased quote from the game as the end line)

[Revonx]

I love it, good job.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Do you want critique on this?  Otherwise I will move it to General Discussion.

[Trihan]

I always want critique on things I post in here. Can't improve if I don't get feedback. ^_^

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Okay then.  I'll go through and point out some obvious problems:

"Jolting awake from my long night-time slumber"

This could be more concise by simply condensing 'long night-time' to 'night-long'

"My head felt akin to some freshly-felled lumber"

Freshly-felled doesn't really work for me here.  It sounds contrived, like it's there merely to establish a rhyme rather than to evoke an image.  Perhaps replacing 'some freshly-felled' with 'rough hewn' or just eliminating the 'some' from it would help.

"With coffee in hand and sawdust in my head"

coffee IN, sawdust IN MY.  This harms your rhyme because you're not following your own rules.  If you say 'coffee in hand', say 'sawdust in head'.

"My course had been set for the thing that I dread"

This would read better with shorter words.  Change 'had been' to 'was' and remove 'that'.  'My course was set for the thing I dread' has better flow.

"Pushing my monitor's on and off switch"

Pushing doesn't help establish dread.  Tapping/Rapping?  You don't need to say 'on and off' here, 'power' would work and aids flow.

"My palms were both sweating, my eyes gave a twitch"

'Both' is unnecessary because you say 'palms'.

"At the prospect of one more day pointless and lame"

This line lacks some of the finesse of the earlier ones.  Perhaps something more like 'For I would be the one to blame'

"Where no progress was made on my AGS game."

'Were no progress made on my AGS game.'  Just eliminating unnecessary added words and fixing 'were'

"Imagine my shock when on came the display"

'Just imagine my shock when upon the screen'  Same thing here, though I changed the rhyme.

"And an .exe file lay there enabling play!"

'An .exe soon appeared -- could it mean!?'  I thought this made his surprise sound more genuine.

"My game had somehow been completeted, hooray!"

'Yes!  My game was finished, hooray!'  He is very happy.

"But how was it finished in less than a day?"

'But how was it done in under a day?'  Again, just reducing some of the words for flow.

"And then my elation was turning to fear"

'And then my elation turned to fear'

"And a presence I felt, and I felt it quite near"

'As I felt a presence come near'

"Though I needn't have worried, a friend did appear"

'But I needn't have worried in the end'

"For Cuppit it was, and I let out a cheer!"

'For Cuppit it was, my dearest friend!'

"He'd finished my game while I slept overnight"

Don't really need the past tense 'He'd' there.

"And I whispered his name then I screamed my delight"

"I whispered his name and then screamed my delight'

"The storyline laid out for all folks to see"

In the context of the previous line this is a bit confusing.  We're going from discussing Cuppit back to the game without any flow.  Something to connect the two might be:

'Cuppit waved his hand and suddenly'

'The game appeared to me in all its glory'

"The graphics were great and my heart it did sing"

Don't need the 'it' there.

"How could he create such a wonderful thing?"

"The soundtrack was magic with many-layered graces" 

This line just reads a bit strangely.  What does 'many-layered graces' really mean?

'Now I put the game through its paces'

"The dialogue tragic in all the right places."

'With music enthralling and dialogue tragic in all the right places.'  I put 'and' in there to separate it from the previous mention of music.

"I sprang to the forums and thanked the blue cup"

'I sprang from my chair and shook Cuppit's hand'

"As he struggled to get to my window up high"

This seems like another case of rhyme at the sake of clarity.

'Just as he was waving good-bye'

"So I gave him a hand and I helped him climb up"

'Then I thanked him for a game so grand'

"And he spoke as he left and he winked his blue eye"

'And he just smiled and winked his blue eye'

"I'm just glad I could help, the idea was ace!
'I'm glad I could help, the idea was ace!'

"I thought I should make it; so the forum could see"

"Just remember one thing as I leave from this place"

'Just remember one thing as I leave this place:'.  'From' doesn't add anything here.

"I'm full of blue helpfulness, and helpful bluosity!"

'I'm full of  helpful usability and useful helpability!'  Cuppit tends to speak in weird spoonerisms, so this would probably be more accurate. 

[Trihan]

As usual, your critiques are food for thought, ProgZ. Couple of things, though:

While I always try to avoid falling into the trap of justifying problems by saying "They're meant to be that way!" the extra words are there to fill the syllable quota in each line that's part of my rhyming scheme. I'd have to record it being spoken to illustrate what I mean, but in my head there's a certain number of syllables each line has that makes it a "non-stop" narrative with very few pauses, which is what I was aiming for. Perhaps this style just isn't very good, I don't know.

I should also clarify that the thing that I dreaded wasn't the mere act of switching the monitor on, but what would happen when it was on and I saw that blank project once again. I wasn't trying to establish dread with the pushing of the switch, though that is probably, as you stipulated, a break in flow and should be revised.

About the "where" imagine the line had read as "It was another day where I made no progress." where is the word I intended, not were (which would subtly change the meaning of the sentence). However, I'm not actually sure whether where is the appropriate word, maybe when would fit better?

You're right about that "many-layered graces" bit. The whole section is pretty bad, on reflection. Oh well, this is why we post things here, isn't it? ^_^

Thanks as always for your comments. And your Cuppit line was better than mine.

[Mr Flibble]

I think a lot of the lines have contrivances to fit the metre or rhyme scheme. You can get around this by varying the rhythm and exploring more creative forms than rhyming couplets (like you do in the final stanza).

Some food for thought, have you picked theright words to convey your ideas, or just ones that fit? Also, it is generally better to -show- something to the reader and let them infer your meaning, rather than simply directly telling them something.

[paolo]

The metre is a little bit out. I'll show you what I mean by marking the stressed syllables with stars and the unstressed ones with dashes:

He'd finished my game while I slept overnight
- * - - * - - * - - *

And I whispered his name then I screamed my delight
- - * - - * - - * - - *

The storyline laid out for all folks to see
- * - - * - - * - - *

The game itself played out and beautifully
- * - - * - - * - - *

The graphics were great and my heart it did sing
- * - - * - - * - - *

How could he create such a wonderful thing?
- * - - * - - * - - *

The soundtrack was magic with many-layered graces
- * - - * - - * - - - * -

The dialogue tragic in all the right places.
- * - - * - - * - - * -

Were you going for anapestic tetrameter (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anapestic_tetrameter) - four lots of "- - *" per line? You're pretty close, but there is the odd syllable too few or too many in some lines in this verse, and the final line of the poem has way too many syllables. You could lose a syllable in the penultimate line of this verse by writing "The soundtrack was magic with many-layer'd graces". But kudos to you for actually working on the metre - far too many people think that all you have to do is make the ends of the lines rhyme and you've got a poem. Not true...

By the way, neither "beautifully" nor "bluosity" rhyme with "see". For words to rhyme, they have be pronounced the same from the stressed syllable to the end of the word. So "dutifully" rhymes with "beautifully" ("-utifully" matches), and "monstrosity" with "bluosity" ("-osity" matches), but "see" rhymes with neither.

One other thing to watch for (already mentioned) - my English teacher always used to say "don't sacrifice the meaning for the rhyme". In other words, don't just put a word in because it rhymes but wrecks the feeling of the poem. I think you've done fine here except for the weak rhymes I've mentioned.

[Trihan]

Good point about the metre, though I pronounce layered as "laird" normally, so it's only one syllable to me. Though it's true that traditionally speaking it should be pronounced "lay-erred" which would indeed throw the metre off.

I hate that line now anyway, I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote it.

Same point sort of with bluosity is that you could acceptably pronounce it "blue-oss-i-tee" and stress the Y a bit more than you usually would in normal conversation, though that is probably slightly contrived.

Glad you like it aside from the glaring faults. ^_^