The Door

This is the edited version. I think it's much better--not nearly as abstract or confusing.

The Door

I am burning, swirling, shaking.
In my mind pass forgotten faces.
The cool slate stops me, then, waking.
But still the haze--a million faces.

Time is gone, and all that remains is black.

Like ripples, the pictures fade,
and all that is left is stone.
Is this Darkness all that was made?
Silence. Nothing. There's not a tone.

All consuming Night is a terrible thing to be trapped in.

Suddenly, all the stars appear,
their majesty spilling over!
The Light draws from my eye a tear,
and I must drop my gaze lower.

See how the Dark flees before the Light! There is nothing it can do!

Only one place can this be--World's End,
where go the earthly, mortal dead.
And nothing can anyone lend,
that would erase what has been said.

Save for the gods and their sweet Cherubim! Save all but God and His sweet Seraphim!

And loathe am I to look out,
for the stars shine with all their might.
How can I dare to step out,
when their music has pierced my sight?

Witness the Celestial Dance! Listen to the Great Ones fly and prance!

No wind is in the starlight, no breeze,
but still I can feel a freshness.
It is of cool, green, summer leaves.
There is something stirring, restless.

Take a last drink of the life you leave; you won't taste it again!

Then, afraid, I straighten up tall.
I approach the edge, there's no jest.
I reach it, and try not to fall.
From the abyss comes the voice of Death.

I call, and you, O Mortal One, come! Now, behold. Here is your door.

And lo! There appears at World's End,
a shimmer, a something--tis a door.
I grasp the knob, and the stars do bend...
Of what happens next, I say no more.

"A stone, a leaf, an unfound door... and of all the forgotten faces."

There was a lot of telling in this instead of visual. It was beautiful but I think that some of the rhymes were forced and therefore jumbled the actual meaning.

Of love and life I know now not,
For I stand here at the world's end.
A battle royale, a lifetime I fought,
But death is something no one can fend.

**The "For" and "But" in the second and fourth line should be lower case. This is the case for many of the other stanzas as well.

And loathe am I to look out, step out,
For the stars are all in the sky.
That Columbus was wrong in what his sought,
Is something I realize with a sigh.

**"And loathe am I to look out, step out," Sounds awkward here. And "For the stars are all in the sky" is too short a line which creates forced rhyme. "That Columbus was wrong in what his sought." His is supposed to be he? And the end line seems out of place.

The world is flat. See! Here is its edge. But time is round, a place without any hedge.

**"any" can be taken out here so that it reads: A place without hedge. It fits better.

Lacking exuberance, I straighten up tall,
And concede this night to not be jest.
I scramble back from the edge, lest I fall,
And out of the abyss comes the voice of Death.

**This was my favorite of all the stanzas. I don't think that the third line is quiet short enough to read well with the rest but otherwise the wording is good.

I have come; I have some for you, O Mortal One. Behold, here is your door!

**Everything is good here except for the "I have some for you" part. It just seems vague and undescribing.

And lo! there appears at world's end,
A shimmer, a something--tis a door!
I grasp the knob, and the dark does bend...
Of what happened next, I say no more.

**The first top line is confusing, I think the "there" should be capitalized and that might just fix it. "And the dark does bend" sounds lovely though I'd love some of this imagery in the rest of the poem. The ending is awesome.

Great job on this for your first post! I hope to read more!

Keep it up!
~Rieda

I can't think up what good things to say.

Perhaps the idea was too abstract, or maybe the way it was told was clunky, or maybe it is just too early for me to be trying to understand poetry.

I felt like it was trying to sound beautiful, but it didn't really work for me. The long lines in between each longer stanza bothered me, I really want to break those up and split them.

Try to keep in mind that you want to make the reader feel, whether it is an emotion, or you want to make them feel apart of it. Use sensory image: sight, sound, taste, smell, touch, etc. and bring the reader into the poem. Read over this and see where you could add those things in.

I can't think of much else to say... I fear it's just too early to be reading poetry. Hope I helped

I agree wholeheartedly with Clau here. Some of the lines you have are really, really nice, while others just kind of...struggle to be, and then aren't.

Rhythm and rhyme. I think a lot of the problems in this piece are the result of trying to make things rhyme...it's difficult to write good rhyming poetry, and one of the mistakes made in the process is having really awkward rhymes because the phrases have been twisted or just made up in an attempt to squeeze a rhyme out. When I write rhyming poetry (which isn't as often as it should be) I'll take something out if it's too difficult to rhyme with.

Example:

Of love and life I know now not,
For I stand here at the world's end.
A battle royale, a lifetime I fought,
But death is something no one can fend.

"Fend" sounds completely awkward there...not only does the last line have a weird rhythm that throws the reader off in the first place, but "fend" is a bizarre word. No one uses that word, at least not in the way it's used here. Usually you say, "to fend off," but I've never heard it used alone like that. The first two lines are great; the last two falter. This shows me that things have been messed with a little so that the rhyming can happen.

Meaning. Aside from rhyming and rhythm problems, I'm having a lot of trouble understanding the meaning of this piece...that, too, might be lost under the forced rhyme. I'm sort of getting the feeling of going willingly into death...but I'm not entirely sure.

Pattern/Repetition/Form. I really like the thing you have going here with having a one-line bit in between each stanza. Very cool...I've seen others like that, but often they incorporate a repeated line there, whereas you have a different line each time. I like it.

Keep working on it!
-Colleen

I be returning to crit your edit.

I must say, this is much improved. Normally I would advise against lengthening a poem, but I think this version is better than the first.

Meaning. I would say this is clearer; I can get a better picture in my mind of what's going on here, but I'm still not entirely sure what the "point" is. I'm still going to guess at what I did last time, which is something along the lines of accepting death or going willingly into death, or perhaps that death is just another journey, another threshold to pass over.
This works as a narrative (and descriptive) poem for me right now, but I'm not entirely clear on what the speaker's realization is or what point he/she is trying to make about death or the journey to death. Obviously you shouldn't blurt it out at the end as so many mistakenly do..."This is what my poem means! Here is the point!"...but it might be nice to add in a hint here or there.

Rhythm and Rhyme. Most of the remaining problems are technical rhythm/rhyme issues. I think I'll go through individual examples:

I am burning, swirling, shaking.
In my mind pass forgotten faces.
The cool slate stops me, then, waking.
But still the haze--a million faces.

The rhythm of line two is off...I think it's the phrase "In my mind" that's throwing it off. Remember that it's not just syllable count that makes rhythm work, it's also the number and placement of accented syllables. Reading a poem aloud (or at least voicing it in your head) should make it easier to recognize when the rhythm is off.
Line three: The cool slate stops me, then, waking. It seems like that was condensed from a longer sentence and mixed around a little bit in order to fit on one line and rhyme with shaking. Remember that including words just for the sake of rhyming with another line is generally a bad idea. I don't know what this line means. "I'm waking"? What is waking? What cool slate? What's going on? It seems like the line was indeed created to continue the rhythm and to rhyme with line one. Fix it or my brain will hurt itself.
Also, lines two and four...both end in "faces" which is of course not a rhyme, just the same word.

Like ripples, the pictures fade,
and all that is left is stone.
Is this Darkness all that was made?
Silence. Nothing. There's not a tone.

Line two: I'd condense "that is" into "that's" for the sake of rhythm.
It seems that "tone" is only there to rhyme with stone. Yes, it is a synonym for "noise" but who said, "There's not a tone"? I think the word tone could be used, just not in that way.

Suddenly, all the stars appear,
their majesty spilling over!
The Light draws from my eye a tear,
and I must drop my gaze lower.

The rhythm is way off in lines three and four. Again, read aloud to yourself until it sounds right.

Only one place can this be--World's End,
where go the earthly, mortal dead.
And nothing can anyone lend,
that would erase what has been said.

Both the rhymes in this seem really forced. There are few good words that rhyme with "End" and thus, the abundance of people who rhyme it with words like "mend" when they really shouldn't. "Lend" happens too.
It does rhyme. This is true. But does it make sense? Is it really the best word? You've got to balance rhyming/rhythm/good sounds with good word choice. Too many poems stray off topic or make ridiculous statements because people are focusing too hard on trying to rhyme and not enough on what they're actually saying. Luckily, yours hasn't gone in the my-poem-makes-no-sense-and-sounds-like-a-five-year-old-wrote-it direction. Rhyme is a very difficult thing to pull off, and it just takes practice.

And loathe am I to look out,
for the stars shine with all their might.
How can I dare to step out,
when their music has pierced my sight?

Line one ought to be "loath" not "loathe" because you're describing a feeling rather than using a verb...at least, I'm pretty sure of that.
Lines three and four: Rhythm issues. I think in line four you ought to replace "music" with a one-syllable word. I'm curious: Why music? Previously stars are described as just overwhelming light, not sound, although that would be a good counter to the absence of sound noted before.

Save for the gods and their sweet Cherubim! Save all but God and His sweet Seraphim!
[...]
Witness the Celestial Dance! Listen to the Great Ones fly and prance!

Curious...why do these two lines have internal rhyme while all the other single-line stanzas do not? They sound nice, but it's a strange interruption to the pattern.

No wind is in the starlight, no breeze,
but still I can feel a freshness.
It is of cool, green, summer leaves.
There is something stirring, restless.

I'd take out "can" in the second line. It's not needed and it's interrupting the rhythm. I'd even nix the "It is of" in the third line, so it's just "Cool, green, summer leaves" perhaps following "freshness" with a colon after it rather than a period.

Then, afraid, I straighten up tall.
I approach the edge, there's no jest.
I reach it, and try not to fall.
From the abyss comes the voice of Death.

Jest/death seems another forced rhyme.
In the first line, I think you would be better of with "stand" rather than "straighten".

And lo! There appears at World's End,
a shimmer, a something--tis a door.
I grasp the knob, and the stars do bend...
Of what happens next, I say no more.

I think this is probably the best stanza in terms of rhythm and rhyme.
In the fourth line, your rhythm might be helped by doing this:
What happened (or happens) next--I say no more.
Obviously there should be an EM-dash in there, not a pair of hyphens, but you get the idea.

Quotation. "A stone, a leaf, an unfound door... and of all the forgotten faces." I really like this. I don't know where it's from. What you might do is put it at the beginning of the poem rather than at the end. Many poems begin with quotes from other works, and I think it would be nice there. I think it'll give your reader a good feel for the poem before truly entering it. I like how you've used parts of it in your poem.

Tone. I think it's pulled off nicely here; the speaker's voice is pleasant and consistent throughout. The somewhat archaic language creates a mysterious and enchanting mood, as well as a sense of importance. Even if I'm not entirely sure of what the "point" is, the "feel" of the poem is something I do understand and can interpret for myself.

Keep it up!
-Colleen

P.S. I'm mad proud of this crit. I think it is a good sign that your poem is fodder for such a long and rambling response.

Very old school.. pretty cool!

In the last stanzas, try to make it more concrete and see whether turning it from the abstract to the solid makes it different.