By the Love they Fight

Selfish greed and strange desires
Hunger pools and pride conspires
In the dead, the dead of night
In the heart; heart without light.

Man is lost, lost in the gray
Man has lost, has lost the way
In the heart, heart without light
By the love, the love they fight.

Anger grows, grows in the heart
So the heart begins to part
By the love, the love they fight
In the dead, the dead of night.




^I have no idea what to do with punctuation between lines, any suggestions would be welcome.

What you've done here is you've written a mediocre three-stanza poem and a great two-stanza poem. Repetition like this is bad (especially when you're rhyming two -ght words, which are all cliches). I'd say cut out the last bit of and combine the first two stanzas. For the third, leave it mostly as is, but change "Grows, grows in the heart..." to "Grows within the heart". I am a huge fan of good rhyming poetry, and if you change that I think this will be fantastic.

Well, this was good... but not great.

I like all your lines, but I HATE the structure. Here's a way to do it (maybe?):

"Selfish greed and strange desires
Hunger pools, pride conspires
In the dead, the dead of night
In the heart without its light.

Man is lost, lost in the gray
Man has lost his adjective--maybe candle? way
The heart is dark, without its light:
By the love and sword they fight.

Anger flares like flames in the heart
So the heart begins to part
By the love we will always fight:
In the dead, the dead of night. "

Also, I didn't exactly get the point of this... explain???

thanks for the tips, I did try changing it up. I'm not sure which I prefer, as a writer can't help liking the original.

What's it about? It's about how secular men with only thoughts of greed and desire lost the "light" or good within their hearts by fighting that natural love for others in order to get ahead.


Selfish greed and strange desires
Hunger pools and pride conspires
In the heart without a light
In the world where all men fight.

Man is lost, lost in the gray
Man has lost, has lost the way
In the heart without a light
In the dead, the dead of night

Anger grows within the heart
So the heart begins to part
Those the hearts without a light
By the love, the love they fight.

This is really good. I love that someone is finally putting this idea into words, but nowadays its really hard to write a good love poem that's not cliche. i think the rewrite is better, but it's still one big cliche. I think they way to get rid of this, or at least to help the problem, is to zoom in on one fight, one love. Tell us the details, the pain and the battle going on inside each of the individuals involved, rather than going into the basics of your topic. And I say again, this is a really good idea and worth the time.