I made a deal with the Devil

I stepped hastily along
collapsing ridges into the depths of oblivion.
Tormented sould are flung downwards through
the many circles of hell, their screams
sprint through my ears and leave
an impression on my brain.

The heat swells upwards,
tides of lava crash against stale rocks.
I see the gates,
tall, brass, shiny, evil.
Archaic hands stick out from the gaps,
scrambling for the exit,
but they will never escape.

I make my way to the gate,
as I approach they swing open
with a smell of coal and deafening scream.
Inside is a small circle of rock,
in the centre is a desk made of bones,
ribs fingers and spines intertwined into furniture.
Behind it site him.

As I approach he looks up from his book,
skin drooping off his face, He smiles,
revealing foul blood stained teeth.
He has no horns or pitchfork,
but that makes him no less scary.
My heart beats beyond my control
and I know he can smell my fear.
"My child," he says, his voice feels like
steel against my ears.

After a while,
the deal is made.
I sign the skin made parchment
in red ink, I dread to think what it was.
"Mummy!" I hear the voice behind me.
I turned quickly, the golden shell of my son
stood behind me. Slowly parts of him form together,
and before long he is whole again.
He looks dazed and confused,
but he runs towards me.
I hold out my arms and begin to cry;
my boy was back.

As he came close,
I felt sharp metal be pressed into my neck,
and heard a cackle from behind me.
My son was blown backwards and up the way I came,
screaming for me the whole time.
I was slowly raised from the floor,
then dropped, screaming from the pain in my noose.

But that's the price you pay,
for making a deal,
with the Devil.

Hi,

This is an interesting concept. I think that the present tense works very well here - it helps to build tension and make the reader feel closer to the woman. I'd ensure that you maintain this present tense throughout as you flip back and forth between past and present for no apparent reason (e.g "I stepped hastily.")

I'd get a pen and cross out any words you don't strictly need to make this tighter - eg "depths of" "tides of". There's a lot of description here and you don't need all of it. It would work if you transferred this to a story, but for the poem you're trying to write here it's a bit rambling.

I'd then look at the words you do use and make sure they fit the style and your meaning. E.g "archaic hands" doesn't make much sense. It would be better to avoid trying to sound literary and instead go for plain old ancient.

The final three lines work well because they are concise and suitably spaced. I'd try to apply this to the rest of the poem - reduce words, space to build tension, make sure every single word you use is absolutely and completely neccessary. The narrative style drives this poem, and as this is the case, it needs to be tight and hold the reader's attention as it does when you use dialogue here, bringing the poem to life.

Hope this helps,

Jas

Hey retrodisco! First off, I'd like to say that I absolutely love this poem. Your imagery here is beyond fantastic. The only corrections I could make would be to keep consistent in you tense and remove unnecessary commas, especially from the last stanza.

I'd beg to differ with Jas in the point she made on "archaic hands." Personally, I love this expression and know exactly what you mean. When you use a sensory word to apply to a different sense, it's called synesthesia, and I think you have a bit of this going on here. Archaic usually refers to something literary, and I can just somehow see what you mean by "archaic hands." I like how "stale" usually refers to taste, but you applied it to a physcial object, rocks. For a great example of synesthesia, take the first stanza of T.S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."

T.S. Eliot wrote:LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

Somehow, without much thought, the reader can envision these streets and understands how they follow like a tedious argument of insidious intent. And that's why I think your poem, retrodisco, is brilliant.

-Abigail