Choose

In the palm of the hand
of the outstretched arm
of the Father of Lies
I find Happiness
Treacherous and Volatile
Without End
Possessing the Power to
imprison in
Sorrow, Sin, and Slavery.

In the palm of the hand
of the outstretched arm
of the Father of Life
I find Truth
Absolute and Unchanging
Without End
Possessing the Power to
free from
Sorrow, Sin, and Slavery.

Still, I absolutely love this! It was amazing! Okay so first I want to tell you what I thought it meant or what I got out of it because when I write poetry I always want to know what people thought it meant. Especially when I was more into figurative poetry like this. For me this was the battle between good and evil within oneself. Through your hands you can either carry out actions of evil or good. Every single day you make millions of choices through this. Most of the time you end up with a mixture of the two. That's what I felt this was about anyway.

As far as critiques go my main issue was with the rhythm of accented and unaccented syllables. Meaning, there wasn't really a rhythm. For example here could be a rhythm of this part:

In the palm of the hand
of the outstretched arm
of the Father of Lies
I find Happiness

Usually even free-verse poems have this rhythm of accented and unaccented syllables. But if you look at the way I have bolded every other syllable the end of the lines all don't end in an accented one like the first. Take a look at a piece of this poem. It is Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost:

Whose woods these are I think I know,
His house is in the village though.
He will not see me stopping here,
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

As you read it did you feel the rhythm. Every other word as accented. I don't suggest you rewrite this poem. That would be difficult to get the correct rythm that way. But the next time you write a poem pay attention to what syllables of words you stress. For example when you say 'absolutely' do you stress your syllables like this 'absolutely' like I do?

P.M. me if you have any questions or want another review. I hope I helped!

- Calli

Thank you. I enjoyed reading what you got out of it. Your suggestions were helpful and I've never really thought of choosing the rhythm quite that way before. Thanks again for reading and taking the time to help me.

Not to lon not to short, I like it. at first it seemed a little depressing however you totaly made it suberb by adding that second stanza, it floos realy well togather!


Graet,
Speakerskat

This is beautiful! I just gotta say for

- Sorrow, sin and Slavery - ,
make sure you add the comma after Sin. it looks and sounds better that way.