this man

though his cold touch left my spirit broken
and with his own blood, my soul is what he wrote-in
every last word he spoke, was to spare me
making every dead man’s heart bleed
and turning others dreams and inspirations, into greed and envy
though the love he shared was like a death scene
with details too gruesome for the screen
nothing broke the beauty i felt glorified to be making
my love, at once, became his for the taking


i watched him take a stab for love,
entering through his heart
just barely missing my kiss
freezing my mind over his hell-hot thoughts
leaving once known truths to rot
idling the ability of anyone who crossed This Path
to distinguish good from bad...

Hello there puddleofpassion and welcome to YWS!

Lovely poem you've got here, I thought it wasn't that bad. Good use of imagery. The only problem I had with this was the lack of punctuation; sometimes it was hard to make out what you were aiming for but in the end it turned out good.

Definitely looking forward to seeing more work from you.

Agree with zigglefred - don't forget punctuation. It's incredibly important and only the best of poets can get away not using it without looking lazy.

The lack of punctuation did make this a bit hard for me to follow, as well. I did enjoy some of the lines you had written. "cold touch left my spirit broken", writing on the soul - the first stanza especially. The second stanza seemed more confusing and broken up to me. I'm not entirely sure what you're writing about, at least emotionally. A father passed, is what I am thinking. But it needs more focus. I can't find anything to latch onto. This poem seems more between the narrator and This Man than it is for me. Open the poem up so I can step between the narrator and This Man and understand their relationship together, their emotions together. Who are they, who were they, and why does it matter to me?

I hope the review helps, sorry it wasn't very focused either, lol. The poem had me a little lost so it was difficult for me to review. Best of luck!

Hey puddleofpassion.

First, I agree with ziggiefred and Suzanne about the punctuation, and I want to add this: decide on whether you're going to use it or not, instead of going at it half-heartedly, the way you have right now. Either have no punctuation at all (and that is a bit of a trick to pull out properly, so you might reconsider trying to do it until you are well at ease with it), or is it properly and everywhere it's needed, periods and commas and all.

Second, punctuation or not, your senteces make very little sense to me. Maybe I'm just reading it wrong, but just the way you've set things up is very disjointed and awkward. It makes it hard to follow your train of thought, and is a complete turn-off for a reader. I'd try commenting on the content, but trying to decipher what you were trying to say only confuses me more.

My advice: work on readability first and foremost. The rest can always be fixed and edited, but first we need to be able to get something out of it.

Hi there! Not to sound like a broken record but I must agree with the other reviewers, this poem is in dire need of punctuation, in order to tell the reader when to pause, and just to enhance its general readability. The major problem of this poem is the rhyming feels forced in spots, lessening the impact of what you're saying.

puddleofpassion wrote:though his cold touch left my spirit broken
and with his own blood, my soul is what he wrote-in

That last line is just...gah. It's an interesting concept but the "wrote-in" is so obviously used just to make it rhyme with "broken." Rhyme schemes are so challenging, I suggest avoiding them or using them sparingly, because a writer's forced adherence to a rhyme scheme often stifles the true voice or message of the piece.

though the love he shared was like a death scene
with details too gruesome for the screen

Another awkward rhyme, though here because a reference to filmmaking just seems to come out of nowhere.

Despite the problematic rhyme scheme, the true overarching issue of this piece is the banality of your language. You use so many common words in teen angst poetry: bleeding, freezing, broken, cold, spirit, soul, dreams, etc. Words like that have so trite because the plethora of inadequate poems employing them nowadays. So first and foremost I would advise you to improve your diction, expand it to include stronger verbs and nouns, and more original adjectives. Keep writing!