London Rain

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Guess who! Are you guessing? How about now? Oh I’ll just tell you. It’s Lily, here to review.

The rain falls,
the rain falls.
To a time where the clocks call.

So, two things bother me here. First of all, I’m not so fond of the repetition here. It feels, well, unneeded. I would just scratch one ‘the rain falls.’ Another thing I want to mention is that you need to remain consistent in capitalization. That second ‘the’ should be capitalized.

The children cry.
The parents weep.
As death makes rounds through the streets.

This has to do with the rhythm because I think it should be different. Try something as simple as: “Children cry/And parents weep,/As death makes rounds throughout the streets.

The shadows on broken glass.

Try adding ‘a’ after ‘on.’

But silence reigns in the dark.

Try changing ‘in’ to ‘within.’

Alarms that ring through the air.

Try changing ‘through’ to ‘throughout.’

The people scream

There should be a period at the end here.

And things come apart at the seams.

Try changing ‘at’ to ‘along.’


Okay, Kama, I like the tone here and this is the start of something that could be very moving here. But why not take it further. Create a character or a figure. Give the poem eyes to stare at the destruction and ears to hear with.

Another thing I want to touch on, on that last note, is that most of the poem focuses on the senses which are sound-based. Try touching on the other senses. The smell of burning flesh. The fire. The rubble and destruction.

Hope I could be of help.
Anyway, you know where I can be reached Kama.

~lilymoore

I really like this poem. Throughout reading it, though, I wanted it to keep going, I wanted it to have more description. I think it ended too soon. Maybe a few more verses would do it. I don't know though, I'm no expert. It's just my opinion, even though I really hope you put my opinion into action! Otherwise I really liked it and you portray a sad, abandoned image very well. nicely done.

Hey Kamas ^^ Shina here fore a review;)

Author's Note:

Inspired from the sadest WWII documentary ever. The footage gave me nightmares. But I wrote this, I know it isn't great but it made me feel better.

That's the most important thing ^^

I. Nitpicks

The rain falls,
the rain falls.
To a time where the clocks call.

Perhaps changing the second line so there isn't repitition ^^

The children cry.
The parents weep.
As death makes rounds through the streets.

I'd suggest changing "through" to "throughout" because it needs another beat.

The dusty footsteps up a path.
The shadows on broken glass.
The cats meow.
The dogs bark.
But silence reigns in the dark.

I feel like "in" should be "while" instead.

The blackened windows everywhere.
Alarms that ring through the air.
The planes bomb.
The people scream
And things come apart at the seams.

The last line seems to have too many syllables and the wording should be changed a bit. Perhaps:
"And everything falls through the seams"? Or something to that effect.

II. Overall
Glad to hear that this made you feel better ^^ It also had a catchy nursery-rhyme type of beat to it. I think adding some more imagery and emotion to this piece would deepen it and add more dimension

PM me if you have any questions, Kamas ^^

-Shina

This poem has been written really well.
The children cry.

The parents weep.

As death makes rounds through the streets.

Perfect lines!Really brings out the havoc war causes.

The destruction caused by war was brought out well in every line.You maintained that certain "feel" to this poem.The words were simple and the poem was nice and short.

I really cannot seem to point out any flaws in this piece.

Great stuff!

This is a really descriptive poem. You can easily visualise the scenes in each stanza. Although some of the lines are too long; you can take quite a few pointless words out of those lines, to make them fit.


To a time where the clocks call.
This line would be alot better if you worded it more like 'To a time when clocks call'. It's too long.


As death makes rounds through the streets.
Just miss out 'as' to make it fit better. As I said before it's too long.


The dusty footsteps up a path.
You don't really need 'the' at the start of this line, but either way sounds ok. If you did miss out 'the'; you could change 'a' to 'the'. As it is, it's a bit of a mouthful to say these words together. Swapping 'a' for 'the' makes it easier to say.

The shadows on broken glass.
Again you don't raelly need 'the' at the start of this line. If you took the out of one of these two lines, you would have to take it out of both.


But silence reigns in the dark.
I think this line sounds really good with your choise of words!


The blackened windows everywhere.
Take 'the' out of this line. It really isn't needed and when you use 'the' all the time it just becomes repetitive and boring.


The planes bomb.

The people scream
Niether of these lines need 'the' at the begining. Like I said before it becomes repetitive and boring.


And things come apart at the seams.
You should use more of a descriptive word than 'things', to get across what you are talking about. Also, to make it fit better, use 'burst' or 'split' instead of 'come apart'.


I hope of my comments where helpful for you!

You certainly achieved the goal of making the reader feel your emotions. I like the repetition in the first stanza, as it adds effect.

I have a couple of suggestions, though.

Kamas wrote:To a time where the clocks call.

Here, it might be preferable that "where" was replaced with "when," considering that time, being an abstract concept, can't physically be in the place where the clocks call.

Also, instead of saying "things," it would be interesting to know what the seams that were bursting were of.

Yeah, so im new, so i dont really know what im doing.
i really liked it. I find it really hard for myself to write poems that arent about falling in and out of love. i feel like your reason for writing this poem helped you with the emotional side of it. SO congrats!

Hey Kamas!

First off, this was really really beautiful. It's catchy and I can see this being a nursery rhyme or something. It's sad but hey, look at Ring Around the Rosey.

The rain falls,
the rain falls.
To a time where the clocks call.

Maybe it should be:

The rain falls,
the rain falls,
to a time where the clocks call.

The blackened windows everywhere.
Alarms that ring through the air.
The planes bomb.
The people scream
And things come apart at the seams.

Try:

There are blackened windows everywhere.
Alarms that ring through the air.
The planes bomb,
the people scream,
and things come apart at the seams.

Favorite stanza:

The dusty footsteps up a path.
The shadows on broken glass.
The cats meow.
The dogs bark.
But silence reigns in the dark.

Overall, I liked this a lot. It's both sad and beautiful. But I kinda agree with Lily. You focus on one sense. A war is filled with so much color. It's vibrant. There's the smell of smoke, ash cutting through your eyes. I like it the way it is but there is room for more descriptions.

Great job and keep writing,

~Angel

Kamas wrote:The rain falls,
the rain falls.
To a time where the clocks call.

The children cry.
The parents weep.
As death makes rounds through the streets.

The dusty footsteps up a path.
The shadows on broken glass.
The cats meow.
The dogs bark.
But silence reigns in the dark.

The blackened windows everywhere.
Alarms that ring through the air.
The planes bomb.
The people scream
And things come apart at the seams.




***
Author's Note:

Inspired from the sadest WWII documentary ever. The footage gave me nightmares. But I wrote this, I know it isn't great but it made me feel better.

Okay lets begin, I'll try not repeat what anyone else said. To begin, this is hard topic, since it's been done so many times, so it's easy to make mistakes in it, because of that. Now, the beginning line, intriqued, me but repetition is a little too 'Look at me, look at me'.

Now, let me say this, poetry doesn't need to rhyme, and half the time it's best to avoid it, since when ya begin you now restricted yaself unnecssairly. It works sometimes, but here, it's comes off kinda trite, it almost belittles the event.

The rain falls,
the rain falls.
To a time where the clocks call.

Poems can be vague, but this is just like you needed a word to rhyme it doesn't make sense, at all. I'm going to do something I don't do often.

The rains falls
while heaven cries
and some even reckon
it's Big Ben last call

See, this makes sense and establishes the theme like that.

A bit of advice, show, don't tell, show us the parents and children sorrow and why aren't they evacuated?

The dusty footsteps up a path.
The shadows on broken glass.
The cats meow.
The dogs bark.
But silence reigns in the dark.

Strongest verse in my opinion, I can see this perfectly, I'm just not fond of the rhyming done here. Sorry.

My biggest problem is the last stanza here:

The blackened windows everywhere.
Alarms that ring through the air.
The planes bomb.
The people scream
And things come apart at the seams.

So much could be done here, but instead you have a crude rhyming scheme and a blantant obviousness laid in. The film may have effected you, but this poem didn't make me feel anything but anger, you had so much potential, but you drag yourself down with the rhyming and end with that 'Come apart at the seams' That's just so crude, and it wouldn't have been in the poem if ya'd avoided rhyming to begin.

My advice, read Wilfred Owen, his war poems, are beautiful and truly make ya feel.

Good luck
VSN

This was awesome! I thought about WWII before the last stanza too! You have great description here, but not too much. That's great, and it was easy to understand. I really like the part in the beginning about the clock, and the silence part at the end.*Gold star*

Keep up the totally awesome work!
~Poem

This was pretty good, but I really don't like the rhyming. It restricts all the possibilities that you would have without it, you know.
I really like where your going with this though, it really has sense of the devestations that happened in WWII

... This is an old thread, will a nice little mod out there lock it for me please? I doesn't need anymore reviews.

Thanks,

Kamas