a cardinal sin

"'a cardinal sin' the snake man weeps
as the little boy begs for sleep
and i know of no 'bounty' left
protected in thought of theft
but rather left open for
society's only true whore
who has followed them all for too long.
as a muse is uncovered
her target is bothered
by those who don't understand.
i cannot give them a land
where they do not see
what they call free-
dom from my love, my children.
I weep"

This is an interesting poem. I feel it starts a little loosed/random but then all quickly starts to get composed and gets alive on its own. So, I feel there's a sort of cadence here, more for the sounds, than for the meaning. So it's the sound what I stick too as I read...

In my point of view, the poem is divided into three parts, so i'll quote them separately:

"'A cardinal sin' the snake man weeps
as the little boy begs for sleep
and I know of no 'bounty' left
protected in thought of theft
but rather left open for
society's only true whore
who has followed them all for too long.

The first two lines are a little disconnected from the rest, but, as soon as I enter the third, I feel like a music entering through me ("I know of no 'bounty' left" is really catchy!) and flowing through the rest, until it bumps in 'who has followed them all for too long', because it's a longer line than the others.

As a muse is uncovered
her target is bothered
by those who don't understand.
I cannot give them a land
where they do not see
what they call free-

By breaking the last word you state very clearly there's a change after this part, so that's why I cut the sentence in the middle. In the second moment, there's the restart of the rhyming scheme, though the melody is quite different. The rhythm is quite present and linear. I cannot say more.

dom from my love, my children.
I weep"

In the final moment, there's an assonance, and then the repetition of the word my. It's a good line! In the end, there's the contrast with weeping, so I sense a progress from the beginning to the end.

Overall:

I liked your poem, though I'm not used to shorter poems. Still, it ends up being concise and mysterious. As I said in the beginning, I didn't try to look at its meaning. I'm sorry for that -- I hope the next reviewer goes that way --, I had some difficulties trying to understand the references, though I know what they mean.

I hope I've helped, at least, with the capitalising suggestions... I like your simplicity of rhymes (though I don't mean your poem doesn't has its very own complexity of meanings).

Anyhow, good work!

Gather

Hey, this was a nice thing to read. It wasn't to deep and long and complicated, but not too simple to be dull. You use good imagery and an interesting choice of words. I liked it. I couldn't find any grammatic errors that Gather didn't mention and I also agree on the fact that you should try shorten down this line;

"who has followed them all for too long." - Up until this line the thing flowed real good, but this kinda disturbed the rythm!

Overall I liked it quite alot though so I'll give you 4½/5 icky, sticky spiders! xD

Good Luck & Keep Writing

// Demoness

This poem is really good. I don't ussually like poems that rhyme, esecially if the y are short, but you've actually made the rhyming an integral aspect of the flow. Great! Thats how it should be done! I would say though that breaking the word freedom is jarring, which is a shame because that might be the best line if it wern't for the break in rhythem. I think you would have the same meaning if the line read:
"what they call free
from my love, my children.
I weep"
That's just my opinion though