I get the distinct impression this piece is about 9/11. Though, you never come out and say so. You have great description and good imagery. But
You describe nothing. The topic is lost in ellipsis and your use of question marks is excessive only because you ask more questions then what is answered. It is okay to ask those questions provided you also supply answers.
An ellipsis (...), following a word, always means there was something meant to be said but left unsaid. Your frequent use of the ellipsis contradicts the purpose of any poem. That purpose is to open up and to share those feelings, words and ideas. If you aren't prepared to do that then consider other topics until you are ready. If you are prepared to share then this is how to do it with this poem. First, replace the ellipsis in each line with the words you want to say. If those words never exsisted or you cannot concieve them now then just eliminate the ellipsis all together. Including the topic in the title is one way to make it happen. Your title, as it is now, is vague and needs some power.
10th stanza line 1 should end with a question mark but the double hyphen means nothing. I think you meant for it to be a comma.
11th stanza line 1 should have a question mark Line 2 should be a period.
12th stanza 2nd line should end with no punctuation
13th stanza should be combined with the 12th stanza.
I'm sorry you are so sad and I don't want to make it worse but you did ask for honesty so here goes.
I like dark poetry and it appears that this is where you want to go so you have my admiration for trying to go there. You must have a reason for the wo-is-me sentiment through out the poem so lets see if I can give you some constructive criticism.
1st. Don't change your title. It's perfect.
2nd. You currently have no appearant structure and your rhyme & meter are sporadic. You capitalize the first word of each line but one.
3rd. You use some good metaphors like, "A waterfall of feelings" as in tears. But it requires more descriptive imagery. How does that waterfall fall? Is it a misting fall? Is it Niagra falls?
4th. When you go from one line to the next there is a natural pause which must be observed. When we read your poem like it is now, then it sounds strange. lines 7, 13, 14, 16 & 17
5th. You want to burden us with your emotions, otherwise you wouldn't have posted the poem. remove the next-to-last line and poor your feeling on high. Once again, be descriptive...
6th. Construct the form by breaking your lines where you would naturally pause. Have someone read it aloud to you. Sometimes that helps.
7th. It needs punctuation. It needs periods and semicolons. If you need a pause in the center of a line then use a comma.
Finally... A poet's two best friends are Mr. Dictionary and Ms. Thesaurus. Take advantage of your friends. Abuse them. I want to see your pain. I want to experience your pain. I want to cry waterfalls with you.
There are many structured and unstructured forms out there you can use but if you don't have time to do research or you just don't want too... then don't. No matter what you choose, know this, the better you write the more minds and hearts you influence.
I can relate to the sentiment. There is some pain here but you are holding back. The only feeling I'm getting from you is the longing or regret of loss. There is a psychology which can be inferred by what you've written. If you plan to send this to her in hopes she will come back to you then you might want to make a few changes.
1st. She probably left because you were a narcissist. I get that in your work, "I long, for me, I'd do, I could, I used & I miss."
2nd. Tell her in the poem why you want her back. Make the poem about her qualities and not your pain.
3rd. Be specific and descriptive avoiding words ending in "ly"
4th. Place emphisis on features of her personality, if that was the problem which made her leave, and on her beauty if that is her desire.
5th. Avoid sex talk unless it is intimate, romantic and beautiful. Even then keep it short and sweet because it may be misconstrued as being about what you want.
6th. Though your poem rhymes in places it also lacks structure. Count your sylables in each line and create a pattern from line to line and stanza to stanza. It is all about flow. You don't want her to stammer through it and if you are reading to her, it would help you if you don't stammer either.
7th and finally. Take advantage of a poet's two best friend, Mr Dictionary and Ms Thesaurus. They can help you win awards and the woman you lost, provided she hasn't fully moved on.
You did a fair job of getting the syllables correct.
8
8
5
5
8
Each of the Lymerics rhymed and the subject matter was rated 13+ or lower. But...
I like lymerics to be a bit more adult and vulgar. Also and though they rhymed, they didn't flow off the tongue as well as others I've read. Your spelling and vocabulary were good but I think other, better words could be found.
I hope I wasn't too confusing.
HHH
Helping Hands Heal
I'm a fan of dark poetry because it is usually filled with feeling and discriptive wording. Yours is just that and I read it several times to squeeze every drop of emotion from it. You made me feel your pain. Mission accomplished!
I think there are a few words you could change which will turn what you've written into a drop-kick or punch. The size is perfect. The punctuation is perfect and your poem structure is good just as you have it. The words, I would recomend finding powerful synonyms for, are as follows: gather, falls (both), drips, is, call, alone & because. Find powerful and potent words which act as a beast gripping and squeezing the life and love from us.
I'm giving you 5 stars for how you made me feel in spite of the words I mentioned.
Great! Job! Again!
Decent poetic-prose. You have a good rhyme and I can feel emotion in your work. You have a story to tell and it seems you don't want to leave anything out. Not bad at all for a first post.
I have a few words of advice to help you with this and future poems. First, you disrupt your rhyming pattern in a few different locations. The last word of each line of each stanza rhymes with other last words of the same stanza except:
May More Arms Road Northwest Celebrate
Day Roar Alarmed Snow Deadliest Cake
Pray Ignored Dark BeforeStatesFavorite
Faye Door Parked Show Arrest Commemorate
Everyday Horror Stark Window Crest Cake
Away WorldLight Volcano Deaths Lake
The words marked in red don't rhyme with the other words in their perspective colomns. Make use of a dictionary and thesaurus to find words which do rhyme.
And second, I said before that this is a poetic-prose but you have it setup like a standard poem. If you keep lines of each stanza together whithout line breaks and then indent each stanza to make them paragraphs it will read like a rhyming short story and make greater sense.
It is a good idea and you have some rhyme. Where you lack in meter, but not entirely, you excel in description. I feel this is more of an introduction than a poem only because your description is superficial. Don't get me wrong. You describe, with imagery, his features quite well but the rest, not so well. He's a vampire and therefore there is nothing simple about him. Avoid using half-way adjectives like simply or hardly. Condense, condense, condense... portions of lines which sounds a lot, generally have little meaning. For example, in line 6 "...of which he never wanted to be a part" really means "...horrid in his heart" or something like that. Poetry is refine language, saying a lot with little.
I am a fan of political based poetry. I have read poetry from eras long passed and from nation’s no longer living. Your poem is a political piece in that it is designed to alert or draw action to a point of view on the issue of pollution. Because of this, you need to do it better than normal poetry. Here is what you did right.
It is written with rhyme and meter. Your spelling, grammar and capitalization are good. You get your point across. You kept it relatively short. But this is what you need to work on.
Your use of punctuation however, is extreme. It is difficult to incorporate question-marks and quotations, especially if they are paraphrased or generalized quotes, as you have done. Never ask questions you don't have answers to. You answer your first question but not the second. Eliminate your commas at the ends of lines; there is a natural pause when you read from one line to the next.
Content review:
Leave either your opponent or the pollution out of it. When you attack two issues, your poem becomes a rant and then no one wants to listen/read. In my eyes, you are right and they are both valid issues so I recommend separate poems: one telling about the pollution and the other about the betrayal of politicians. This will shorten your piece and allow you to become more descriptive. It is the description and imagery which draws the reader in. Use more similes and metaphors to brighten the picture in our minds. I know it is cliche but "fog so thick you could cut it with a knife" and "soot so black it was as if volcano ash covered us all". Put the image in my mind.
Honestly, if you could do this with "Feel The Magic" you would make "Feel The Magic" something worth singing about twice. "Sanity to Shame" is a far better piece and because of that you may find my review to be nearly as short. This was well written and its vocabulary was well thought out. I am now, impressed. You had so many favorite lines that if I listed them all I very, nearly would have to copy and paste the entire poem here. Great job!!
I found a couple spelling and vocabulary issues. I will list them by line.
para 1
perfect... don't change anything!!!
para 2
line 4: Oh, what folly! ---- This is not your style and subtracts from the flow and intensity of the poem. I'd recomend just removing it. The line does better without it anyway.
line 5: practised --- should be practiced
line 6 defence ----- should be defense
line 7: nay ----------- once again this is not you. Try to avoid writing in Shakespearian or Victorian styles especially if the piece is as modern-set as this one is. It only makes you look as though you are trying too hard.
line 13: All of a sudden -------- This only slows the pace and makes the reader screech to a halt. Just remove the "All of a" and change sudden to suddenly
last line: shame to gin ---- this doesn't go well with what was previously written. In my mind, I felt as if the poem ended with "sanity to shame". Shame being the finale.
Punctuation
Whoo boy! Remember that commas mean pauses. There is a natural pause at the end of each line anyways so the comma only lenghtens the pause. You use commas here as if you were writing in prose. It's hard but try to find other ways of discribing without the your reliance on commas. In poetry, you can list things without commas. For instance in line 9 of the first paragraph:
Music, loud, throbbing, discordant,
Dulling the senses, drowning speech,
And myriad lights, casting shadows,
Lighting up halls, turning shabby walls
Into kaleidoscopes of colours.
These five lines takes 23 seconds to read with the commas and 15 seconds without. The lines "Dulling the senses, drowning speech," and "And myriad lights, casting shadows," are fine with the first comma because you are seperating phrases instead of words but as you know, because there's a natural pause at the end of the line, the second comma is un-necessary. Try reading it with only pausing at the ends of each line. Also, never put a comma before the word and as you do in line 2 paragraph 1. The pause is implied with certain words. (i.e. and, but, so, however and more)
Like I said before, this work was great and when you've had a chance to tweek it will be perfect.
Good luck
I'm sorry I can't give a detailed review and as sweet as this song sounds it is so very superficial that it reminds me of the music we hear on the radio and then never hear again. It is a one-hit-wonder in that it sounds good but it has no intensity in its content. This song may end up being the Pide-Piper's Song equivalant for dumb blonds. The only redeeming quality I see is that, I truely believe that your source of inspiration, your muse, is real and you wrote this for her.
I know you are feeling more and have a picture in your head, of what you want to discribe. Instead of telling what you see can you describe it? Is it Mercury and Mars from the point of view of a distant star or are we in orbit around them or perhaps we are standing on their majestic surfaces?
Not bad at all for a first draft. I liked some of your lines like "Defeatism stabbed my heart," and "Subdued by this shadow of defeat."
I get that you believe you to be a seriously tormented soul; one bereft of purpose other than to suffer in this lonely world; suffering in a sea of humanity but unable to make contact but for "the light of a faithful friend." That being said... I think you can do better with the title. In the poem, you make mention to the friend only twice: first with the voice and second at the end. This poem isn't about that friend. It is about what the friend does for you. It is about your transition from despair to optimism.
I hope this helps.
Sylables per line = 3,3,3,4,4,6,8,4,3,6,4,4,4,4,5,8,6,7
Ryme/rythm pattern of last word of each line = ABCBADDDBEBFCGCHIH
Your poem is sweet. The topic is clean and would make a good quick poem to a lover but it has no pattern in its sylable structure.
Your stanzas are blended together. Your verses are also blended together. The only punctuation used is the one period at the end. I stammered through each of my reads to myself and out-loud.
Making your sylable pattern rythmatic (i.e. 334433554455774477), spacing the verses (i.e. 334433554455774477) and then cleaning up the last word ryme (i.e. From ABCBADDDBEBFCGCHIH to ABCBADBCDCBE CDEDCF) would make this poem significantly better.
If you don't intend for there to be punctuation that is fine but don't have the period at the end or if you do want punctuation then add it after the verses or stanzas that you plan to seperate.
If you like your poem the way it is then that is cool too. It is because of the artist's perogative that a piece may remain as it is or change, that makes this poem good the way it is but, as I understand it, the contest is for a poem for ryme and meter. For this reason my rating is not flattering but if I saw "My Hands" submitted in another contest, it would recieve high marks.
Where do I begin? This is a calm and pieceful poem. It reminds me of my times of watching clouds as a child. I remember laying in the grass with my Papa; watching the clouds turn to shapes until the sun went down and their backdrop became the universe. WOW! good work.
The only things that caught my attention was your punctuation and font. I read your poem 4 different ways and the way that made the least sense to me was with the punctuation the way you have it now. Here is your poem with slightly different punctuation. Remember to pause for each comma, q-mark, period or hyphen. Three seconds for q-marks, periods and ex-marks. Two seconds for colons and semi colons. One second for commas and 1/2 second for hyphens following the ends of lines. Breathe at each pause. Obviously a hyphen breath will be quicker. Emphisis on words should be done with italics or bold.
Running so far away; running from who I am.
Trying, trying to fly but only finding pain
And the clouds look down on me.
But as I open my eyes, I can see
The masks they wear
And the stars shine so bright
When I'm gone.
With the love that is now this song.
Falling into the dark, or is it the blinding light?
Growing, growing so tall but wanting to fall back down.
And the clowns are laughing at me.
But as I turn back the time, I can see
The smiles that they wore,
And their eyes shone so bright
But that's gone,
With the hope that I could belong.
WOW! that was intense. If I'm right, and I hope you correct me if I am not, this poem is about a young girl's continued rape/molestation by someone close to her, like her father, uncle, older brother, teacher or neighbor. I feel it is someone she knows and trusts and that is why she isn't fighting it.
You have wonderful imagery like:Onyx wraps complete
this heart, glass steel, never again to beat. and Scarlet screams rips
ribs, muscles break free, dirty orgasm splits teeth. and Pungent
lies permeate.
Your description not only shows me what happened but it makes me feel and smell it too. The fear. The pain. The shame. WOW!
I noticed it was untitled and would like to help but am affraid I couldn't do it justice.
Perhaps... something I said earlier should be used as the title. Whoever it was that inspired this piece should have the dishonor of having it named for them. (i.e. "For Father" or "Big Brother" or "Mr. Teaches-too-much" or "Uncle Longshanks" or ...) You get the idea. BTW, Longshanks was a nickname of a brutal king of England who was natorious for his cruelty in war and in peace. I didn't mean it as a sick joke. You could even be so bold as to name it directly after that person, for instance, if the attackers name was John Dipwad you could name it "John Dipwad". Anyhow, those are really my only suggestions for titles.
Good luck with the poem and when you have a title I'd like to read it again. Let me know.
HHH
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