The Game of the Blind

The sun’s light is not so beautiful
If greatly undeserved
It rises with so much warmth, you see
Then sets with so much hurt

Incredible hurt, caused by our naïve minds
Twisted is the game played
Because they fight against their own
It’s us, you see –
We continue to plunge our daggers
And fire our guns
Into the hearts of our own

They have two eyes and ears, like us
So too their arms and legs
Yet still we cry:
“We are not them!”
You are blind, I say
Can’t you see?

So incredible hurt lives on
And plays the game once more
While we leave our own to die
Fallen, have our minds, to hell.

What does the devil’s cup taste like, young men?
Drink a shot, it hits the spot, I see
Then you are lost to raging adrenaline
And your wellbeing threatened
By a poisoned mind

A little risk here, no care over there
Like weeds scattered everywhere
And choked by these are the seeds of morality

And without morality
A man can’t see who he brings down
In this little game that fools with lives
And with poisoned minds, they’re mad, you see?
They end up bringing down their own.


(My first poem)

This is your first poem? Wow. It's better than anything I could write in terms of poetry.
I really love the message I'm getting from this, too. It's really well done.
There's not much for grammar, maybe closing off a sentence or two with a period for added suspense, but it's quite fine the way it is.
Wonderful.

:O :O :O :O :O :O :O :O :O :O :O *Will be back to Review....*

There are just a couple spots where I think rewording would make your meaning clearer:

Fallen, have our minds, to hell.

This is just worded a little weirdly (happens a lot in poetry, but believe it or not it doesn't need to), I think you meant "our minds have fallen to hell"?

What does the devil’s cup taste like young men?

Are you asking if the devil's cup tastes like young men, or are you asking a group of young men what the devil's cup tastes like? If the first, probably add a comma after "what." If the second, add a comma after "like."

And choked by these, are the seeds of morality

If you're saying the seeds of morality are choked by the weeds, then delete the comma. If you're saying the weeds are choked by something, you probably need to say what the something is.

In this little game that fools with lives
And with poisoned minds

This took me a few reads to understand... I read "fools" as a noun first, but I guess you mean it as a verb. Also, there should be a period or hyphen or semicolon after this rather than a comma.

However, once you clear up these areas and make your meaning in these spots more understandable, I think you'll be good!

~Blue

Hey there, Miyakko!

I’m a bit on the fence with this, but not because of anything glaringly obvious in the poem; my like takes deep roots, and my dislike does the same. I think you’ll see why once we get into the heart of things.

So you did the brave thing of mixing structured with free-verse. It’s a rare sight, but it’s welcome in my books. The only problem with this, though, is that you have to pay extreme attention to the flow of your free-verse spaces to ensure that you don’t chop out the momentum you’ve started already. There are a few places that do this, and I’ll get to that. Let’s take it from the top and work our way down.

Your first stanza is actually quite beautiful. I think it’s unique and sets a very firm and beautiful foundation for the remainder of the poem. So, if nothing else, good job on that first stanza. It has enough lyrical power behind it to be a standalone piece, but since you build off of it, I want to make a note on the last line—“Then sets with so much hurt.”

Before we move on! I’ve noticed that your capitalization falls into a common misconception that each line must begin with a capital. That’s a lie from the pits of hell, and should be fixed! There are two ways to approach formatting poetry: either use grammar correctly, or use none at all. I suggest using it correctly. But my final philosophy, wrapped up in two words, is this: Write Intentionally.

So your second stanza breaks the rhythm and rhyme and goes into a free verse that’s not very well-adjusted, in my opinion. Your flow is distraught in this stanza, and it’s really trying to find itself. Your goal in mixing the two types of poetry is to flow seamlessly from one point to another. So I want you to look at your first line—it begins with a five syllable phrase, “Incredible hurt,” and moves on. While I understand that incredible hurt is your main motif in this piece, I want to suggest playing around with that first line to make it flow more easily. Line two does a similar dance—it just feels awkward with the amount written. Honestly, I think you can fix this my simply changing “played” to “we play”. I’m unsure how I feel about your changing from “they” to “us/we/our/our/our”. Figure out who you’re talking about. Figure out what you mean.

I think it’d work much better if you were to write with the “we/us/our” mentality instead of “they”. Make it personal. Make it real.

The third stanza doesn’t do much for me—just a Sunday school lesson in a stanza, really. It has flow issues, just like its brother stanza above it, but it’s not quite as sharp.

The last line of stanza 4 makes me twitch. While it’s not uncommon to drop an expected rhyme in place of a focal-point word, it made everything pretty dang dramatic—and I’m not sure you need that since you’ve handled the situation fairly well so far. But suddenly saying that our minds are in hell is a bit too much to swallow at once.

Stanza five is pretty cool, I’ll admit. I mean, it seems like you’re losing your point a little. I’m going to guess that you got “devil’s cup” from the “hell” line above, so that’s understandable in the writing process, but I want to ask you what this stanza brings to the poem. You’ve already said our minds are in hell, so why say they’re poisoned now? Being in hell seems much worse, after all.

Ah. Stanza six fixes that problem juuust a bit by mentioning how risk and carelessness choke the seeds of morality. So the reader can see where your point was going, but it’s still fairly left-field for me.

And stanza seven helps the cause a bit more by ALMOST wrapping things up for the poem, but as far as endings go, this one’s a little disappointing. It just rather fades off into nothing. I suggest bringing a reprise to the first stanza, or at least your incredible hurt motif from earlier. You need something that ties it all together, and as of right now, you’re missing it.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have questions or comments.

-Lumi