{ The Sky's Burning }

I see you there, as they tense for warfare.
Standing there, with your innocent stare.
Is this what you call it, that God is glorifying?
Here we are now, between the dead and dying.

At your prophecies and glory they manifest their disdain,
lying in passive wait while our enemies reign.
Devoted to the holy all-powerful one above,
If only you knew that "By command of the King of Heaven"
would come the death of love.

I know the place you will be when they are vilifying,
but how are they going to see when the truth is blinding?
You won't be able to do a thing when the dark is rising,
and you won't be able to cease its terrorizing.

I remember how the sunset burned
when you fell from your wound.

Visions and striving passion never listened to surrender,
For you were on a mission from the highest master above.
Meant to lead victory over the slaughter,
like a dagger through spitting water,
you ensued this for the death of love.

And Gilles had prized your spectacle,
Your shield of true white armor
that you shone against the English in a flood of bright light,
as they continued to charge out into the night....

Now I know where you are as the sky is burning;
Now I cannot keep my stomach from its churning.
Even when they caught Joan's breath,
Her words fought and left a divine scar.-
"For only in the grip of darkness, will we shine amidst the brightest stars."

The vocabulary really makes the poem, it puts it in the time period you're talking about. The rhyming was brilliant as well, though I wonder why you stopped in the middle? It paints an image, yet it doesn't. It seems to be more of a mental struggle, a mental collage of sorts, which is really cool.

I like how you use the vocabulary of the time period to your advantage. It holds its own, which is very important in dramatic poetry. The title is also very appropriate, and it makes you intrigued to read it. I really loved it, and I'd love to hear more!

Hiya CoF! Let's see what you have here.

Nit-Picks:

Standing there, with your innocent stare.

Even though this comma goes well with the rest of your stanza, it's unnecessary.

If only you knew that "By command of the King of Heaven"

Jeez, that's a mouthful of a line! Chop it shorter so it flows with the rest of your second stanza.

And Gilles had prized your spectacle,
Your shield of true white armor
that you shone against the English in a flood of bright light,
as they continued to charge out into the night....

First- I don't know who or what Gilles is. Make a reference or hint it's meaning in this stanza, because I'm sure there are other readers who don't know what it means either. Second- I personally think this stanza is weak. Your rhyming is what I believe to be the weakest link in the stanza. Third- I'm hearing a lot of "you" and "your" 's but never a solid reference to the person you're talking about. Since I'm completely confused, this does nothing for your reader. I'd suggest taking it out or fixing it up.

Her words fought and left a divine scar.

"For only in the grip of darkness, will we shine amidst the brightest stars."
This could've rhymed if you made "scar" plural.

Overall:

This can be improved upon tremendously if I can know what it is your talking about. In the beginning I got the impression that this poem was about the Holocaust, but now I'm not so sure. I don't know who the people you're talking about are. I'm sure they have some significance, but you should explain it. Explain it in a concise manner, as well. We don't need the whole story.

Other than being a tad confused, I enjoyed the dark vibe I got from this. You could possibly go more in-depth with the time period, going as far as it's vernacular. Research never hurt anyone, and it might give your poem an incredibly unique edge. Play around with it and see what you come up with.

Sorry if I was harsh with this critique. >.< I'm very blatant when it comes to opinions, though. PM me if you have a question or would somehow like another shredder review. ^_^

~Selene

Hey x3,


This brought to mind a warzone, and for the oddest of reasons I can't explain, I'm a huge fan of war poetry. I enjoyed the images you used throughout the poem; they made the scenery easy to visualize.


Be careful with the rhythm and rhyme schemes you choose. Remember to choose a scheme that is easy to work with, and check to make sure you will not sabotage an aspect of your poem in making it work. See, in some places, you have interesting word choices, that are good assets to the poem, but the meaningfulness of them is somewhat destroyed when you have to push the meter or cram a line so that it sounds about the same length as one of the lines just used. Remember that in poetry, your main focus should be coherency and the likes for your audience, so if a line doesn't end in a rhyming word, leave it at that, or go back and change so that the lines "match". Make sure that the meaning of your lines match up so that we don't have lines here that sound good but mean nothing substantial.

For the most part, throughout this, I felt that you did fairly with rhyme, and there were only a few spots where I felt that you pushed the lines for sound. I think that the meaning of what you were trying to convey stood strong through the poem, although in some places, it was camoed a bit by extraness. My only advice would be to keep a straight line while writing rather than diverting to small details as you go along. Nice work; keep going,

June

As I was reading this, right away, I got so excited to see a poem with a nice rhyme going for it that didn’t sound forced or sloppy. It had a nice, simple rhythm that I enjoyed reading.
But then it was gone.
I mean, I love the imagery. It reminds me of the war poetry that we studied during American Literature. It’s dark but it’s not gory which makes the poem sound very intelligent. You’ve done a great job here with the theme and the verbal execution but when you lost the rhyme scheme, some of the greatness of this faded off a little.
I mean, it’s not a bad poem, but I think if you had been able to keep the rhyme and rhythm consistent from beginning to end, then it would have been more impressive. But you shouldn’t try to force these things either. It needs to feel natural.