September Wars

Summer hides away
I wish I could hide with it
It's healing warmth
The painless freedom

But in one week's time
I'll go back to the battlefield
That nearly killed me

Bullet-shaped words
Bomb-shaped laughter
Tears the colour of blood

My bandages
Pages of angry writing
Stacked as high as my desk

I keep expecting
That things will change
But every September
The cloud of war returns

I have to admit, I almost stopped reading. There is no life in this poem until the third verse or so, and it just didnt seem worth the effort at the beginning. Fortunately for me I kept going, because I ended up really liking it, if mostly for the fact that I can thoroughly sympathise with what you're saying.

Summer hides away
I wish I could hide with it
It's healing warmth
The painless freedom

OK, so its good. I even like it. But...something is missing. There's no jazz, no spice, no enticement to keep reading. Maybe you could mess with it a little, try something brighter, more eye-catching. Just a thought.

But in one week's time
I'll go back to the battlefield
That nearly killed me

Your rhythm seems a bit off here. Not sure how, but I think its around "I'll go". Try and smooth it out a bit.

Bullet-shaped words
Bomb-shaped laughter
Tears the colour of blood

I like this, but I'm getting no sense of impact. There are strong images here that I love but they lose their effectiveness because you have no rhythmic structure that I can figure out. Its just words on a page. There needs to be life!

My bandages
Pages of angry writing
Stacked as high as my desk

Again, a strong image, but no impact.

I keep expecting
That things will change
But every September
The cloud of war returns

In my opinion, the best stanza, but not the best ending. There is no sense of finality. It feels to me like you've left off in the middle of a sentence and I'm left wondering where is the point in this? The ending should drive that home inescapaply - yours just kind of sits there.

Ack, I think I'm starting to sound like Incandescence - sorry! But really, I enjoyed the poem despite the fact that I think it could use some work. I like the structure of the verses and some of your images were quite powerful. I'm looking forward to seeing more of your stuff around.

On TYWC, I didn't like this. I still don't.

I liked it alot.I liked the 3rd stanza most of all and since Italked to u on aol it does sound a lot like u.

I don't really quite like this; like bubblewrapped said, it lacks jazz. That is, there's nothing actually wrong with it, and the flow is actually done quite well, but there's just no reason for me to care. But, I did really like the third stanza as it seemed to highlight the speaker's turmoil without being verbose.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with everyone else. it seemed a little lacking. But I really enjoyed the image in these lines:

My bandages
Pages of angry writing
Stacked as high as my desk

I'm not even really sure what hit me so hard about that stanza, but whatever it is, I like it alot. The rest of it just seems a little dead, though it's got some nice images too.

The only good verse in here are 3 and 5, but they are almost tresspassing into emo territory. If you added more about this person, who they are, what they are taunted with, then we might feel something for them. Right now the piece is very flat.