Oh Lord'

Look at how hard I tried,
seeing everyday how you pry.
Shadows creep the walls with what if's,
the blood on my fist settles this end.
Tapering the strings attached to my shoulders,
teasing with time and words of the wiser.

Feeble the mind that follows,
limited the time of the river.

Oh Lord, how could you leave me,
leave me alone and shaking.
Dear Lord, why do you spite thee,
dagger in the chest leaves me slain.

The puddle grows, as the sun relinquishes its glow.
Troubled times grow afoot, together we will go.
The water becomes rippled with waves ten fold,
shelf life has become a little more than grown.
The eye leads the trigger and the mind flicks the hammer.
Setup this failure, your very own born heretic.
I traversed the land for answers, you only gave questions.

Feeble the mind that follows,
limited the time of the river.

Oh Lord, how could you leave me,
leave me alone and shaking.
Dear Lord, why do you spite thee,
dagger in the chest leaves me slain.

I am who I am! Accept me as I come!
God or no God I still stand the same man!
I relinquished my blade and stepped the stage!
I've taken this final blow with the stakes in tow!
I am but a man! I am but a man! I am but a man!

**This is a working piece, I'm not finished with it yet and the entire thing is subject to change. As well I would appreciate serious review on what it is right now, thank you.

This was an interesting piece, but I don't know if I understood it very well...

Tapering the strings attached to my shoulder's,

shoulder's --> shoulders

limited the time of the river.

What does this mean? Usually rivers stay for a long time...?

Oh Lord, how could you leave me,
leave me alone and shaking.
Dear Lord, why do you spite thee,
dagger in the chest leaves me slain.

Thee means 'you', so in the third line it should be 'me' instead of thee. There are a lot of repeated words in this paragraph, especially 'leave' and 'me'. There's nothing wrong with it technically, and repetition can be great if used appropriately, but I think it would be better to simply use a wider vocabulary-- try looking through a thesaurus/dictionary for more words, but make sure you know what they mean first, or it won't help you at all.

shelf life has become a little more then grown.

again, I have no idea what this is saying.

your very own born heretic

I like this phrase, it's got a very cool sound to it. =3

I am who I am! Accept me as I come!
God or no God I still stand the same man!
I relinquished my blade and stepped the stage!
I've taken this final blow with the stakes in tow!
I am but a man! I am but a man! I am but a man!

... or as Popeye would say 'I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam!'. That phrase is a little overused, but still somewhat powerful. I wish the rest of the poem was this clear! The use of exclamation points is a little distracting. You get to the last stanza and you just see all of them popping up, like they're louder than the words.

A lot of this poem was just so well... strange. I understood that there was a man giving up the fighting life to his god, who has given him bad luck/death, and he's worried that his god won't accept him when he dies. But stanzas two, four, and five didn't make much sense to me. I didn't know you could flick a hammer, or that an eye could lead a trigger, but that might just be poetry. Although there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or rhythm to it that I can detect...

Sorry if this review wasn't much help, I'm not really used to critiquing poetry. ^^;

'Thee' is intentional and I know it means you, I agree the chorus has a lot of repetition and I can't quite find the words to use to put it out the same way it is currently. "The eye leads the trigger and the mind flicks the hammer" actually makes a lot of sense put it with the rest of the piece in the same it should fall together. "Shelf life has become a little more than [should be than] grown" is expired. The last stanza has me up in arms lol, I added it in recently and it doesn't follow the piece at all in my eyes...I'm my own worst critic, lol.

Oh, and 'river' is life.

Considering no one here knows me or anything about me I might as well put this one to rest as is or everyone will be going through the same questions in their head. First off is the use of 'Thee' it is intentional as God created man and man destroys himself, therefore God in a way did spite itself (do note I don't explicitly believe in a God, the closest I can come too is multiple God's). The entire piece is life leading to death in a lyric, short and to the point. As I said river equals life, and shelf life worn is expired (this would be the lead up). Essentially this piece is solely about death, but with death comes many questions (not many can account for this as I personally can) and most of the questions lead to no answers.

So while Trikky is right that the piece is about death it isn't about giving up on God at deaths doorstep, more about questioning the existence of said God. The line "The eye leads the trigger and the mind flicks the hammer" is essentially the over thought of "what is left?", if all we are taught comes to a head we are left wondering if what we were taught is actually true which begs many questions (mind flicks the hammer, the eye would be the surveyor of things which leads the finger and inevitably flicks the hammer). It is essentially a very personal lyric, but again no one here knows me so it would be hard to get that out of this.

Probably should have started out with a simpler lyric, haha.

I'm not much of a songwriter, but I'm going to give you my thoughts.

Look at how hard I tried,
seeing everyday how you pry.
Shadows creep the walls with what if's,
the blood on my fist settles this end.
Tapering the strings attached to my shoulders,
teasing with time and words of the wiser.

I was drawn in by this first stanza. I especially like the third and fourth line because of the imagery and tangible doubt of the speaker. But in reading it again, I'm not sure what it means.

Feeble the mind that follows,
limited the time of the river.

Like Trikky, I'm not sure about this line. Rivers are typically seen as permanent, eternal. Not something that is compared to a "feeble mind" I'd clarify what you mean because I'm not understanding it.

Oh Lord, how could you leave me,
leave me alone and shaking.
Dear Lord, why do you spite thee,
dagger in the chest leaves me slain.

Reading this stanza, I hear a cry to a single God. A cry of distress in a time of need. Unfortunately, your second post says

it isn't about giving up on God at deaths doorstep, more about questioning the existence of said God.

I'm sorry, but this stanza reminds me of a psalm, which is something where there is definitely a belief in the existence of God. It seems what you want to say isn't coming out as clearly as you'd would like it to.

The puddle grows, as the sun relinquishes its glow.
Troubled times grow afoot, together we will go.
The water becomes rippled with waves ten fold,
shelf life has become a little more than grown.
The eye leads the trigger and the mind flicks the hammer.
Setup this failure, your very own born heretic.
I traversed the land for answers, you only gave questions.

More beautiful words that I don't get a solid meaning from. It sounds dark and doubtful. But who is the "we" ini line two? You and God? You and someone else? You and listener? The whole piece seems to lack a subject. Who is the speaker addressing? Sometimes I think it's God and sometimes I'm not sure.The last line is wonderful, but, again, is the "you" the God you may or may not believe in?

I am who I am! Accept me as I come!
God or no God I still stand the same man!
I relinquished my blade and stepped the stage!
I've taken this final blow with the stakes in tow!
I am but a man! I am but a man! I am but a man!

The ending makes me think that you've made a sacrifice for someone and now are being rejected/forgotten/not appreciated in some way. The conclusion seems not so conclusive.

It is essentially a very personal lyric, but again no one here knows me so it would be hard to get that out of this.

And that's mostly what I got out of it. I can tell every bit of this song makes sense to you, but it doesn't to me. And I feel that if you want to share it with other people, the meaning has to be accessible to them without you having to post another reply explaining what it means. There's strong imagery and some interesting lines, but I just can't get a hold of what you want me to feel/hear/understand. In being a song, there's not much rhyme, but I wouldn't worry about that. Only mainstream pop songs have to rhyme. Some of my favorite songs have no rhyme at all.

So that's what I thought. Hopefully it'll help.

The 'river' is life, in that I mean water...without water we would perish. The subject is God, and questioning the existence when all that it has left is nothing. The meaning is open to the reader, it is personal to me but I tried to write in a way that someone could read it and instead of trying to see what it was about they could put into terms with their own life or questions. The ending is mush and I will probably do away with it as it doesn't fit the mood of the piece in my mind, essentially it was thrown in to give it length and perhaps some closure. The chorus is the last grip, essentially before everything is thrown out; once you believe and then are faced with a decision that goes against what you believe you are left with many questions...when they cease to have answers you give up...the entire piece is the story of the eventual giving up.

I understand about writing for a target audience, and typically I do however I do on occasion write something that will make absolutely no sense to the reader but it gave me the opportunity to vent to put my thoughts down on paper. Pretty much this was a piece to get my frustration out and put it somewhere more creative then bottling it up inside.

Nice! I would call this Rock man!
But can you PM me and explain what did you mean in this stanza?

Oh Lord, how could you leave me,
leave me alone and shaking.
Dear Lord, why do you spite thee,
dagger in the chest leaves me slain.