Silent Whimper

And with a whimper only it can hear,
the world ends.

There are no cries of grief,
nor any of triumph,
there is only that omnipresent silence;
the half-burnt corpse still spins,
twirling around and around,
a scarred ballerina
oblivious to its own demise.

Its mother, its many siblings, and its child
all react with cold inaction; they continue to twirl,
around and around, as they have done so,
and will continue to do so.

With that tiny speck,
that insignificant refuge of life
gone, normality is restored.

"And with a whimper only it can hear,
the world ends."

i loved the first line, but the second just kinda dropped with a thunk. you need a longer second line, it just loses all the momentum from the first line. don't get me wrong--i liked this part...but it could definitely get a lot better. also, and this applies to all of your verses, you need to capitalize the next line.

"There are no cries of grief,
nor any of triumph,
there is only that omnipresent silence;
the half burnt corpse still spins,
twirling around and around,
a scarred ballerina
oblivious to its own demise."

again, first line-great, second line...not so much. maybe try rhyming lines. third and fourth lines were both great, but make "half burnt" "half-burnt". oh! i have an idea for line two. Change it to
"There are no cries of grief;
None of triumph."
also, make that one sentence.
the last three lines were great!! i really did like the ballerina part. but chuck the "own". that'll make it more rhythmical...i know it'll make it more confusing too, but i think everyone knows what you're talking about. again, you MUST capitalize each new line.

"Its mother, its many siblings, and its child,
all react with cold inaction; they continue to twirl,
around and around, as they have done so,
and will continue to do so."

interesting siblings part...i liked line one and two, but inaction seems like the wrong word, it destroys the rhythm. third line is fine, but the last line...WAY awkward. change that to something else.
again, again, capitalize each new line!

"With that tiny speck,
that insignificant refuge of life
gone, normality is restored."

this was good, but on the third line, add an "and" before normality. gaaaaaaah! cap every new line!
overall...i thought the idea was good, and moderately original, but it needs work on rhythm, because frankly...the rhythm just isn't very good. also, cap every new line. it needs work, but i think that it good be a great poem if you work on it--mostly just rhythm, rhythm...make it smooth, make it so that the reader just falls into it and it continues perfectly till the end, so that they aren't knocked away by a messy line. i'm not that good at writing poetry, but i am a poetologist, so i can review it fine. i like the idea

oh, and one thing i didn't say...i liked how all of your section were different lengths, that was really original, and good

Hello Wozzel - thanks for the timely reply (indeed: it appears you were so fast in reacting that you actually began work on this review in the twenty or so second interval between me posting this to the site and editing ‘half burnt’ to ‘half-burnt’). ^_^

However, I do have one or two points I’d like to make. The first of which is: in modern poetry, it is standard for every new line to not be capitalised. There are of course many many exceptions, but the way I’ve done it is the norm, and is in no way incorrect.

Second:

i loved the first line, but the second just kinda dropped with a thunk. you need a longer second line, it just loses all the momentum from the first line.

This is intentional.

Oh, and:

this was good, but on the third line, add an "and" before normality

If I did that the sentence would mean ‘with that tiny speck and normality is restored’, which doesn’t really make sense.

---------

Thanks again for the review. ^_^

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EDIT: In light of your second post ('i liked how all of your section were different lengths, that was really original'), I have made the deduction that you have only studied classical poetry, and no modern poetry. This would explain why you thought every line needed a captial letter. ^_^

actually, i haven't really read much poetry, but yes, i have read more classical...

Omigosh! This was so powerful.

I loved the entire thing and have nothing to say by way of critique. Seriously, this was so beautiful.

My favorite image was "a scarred ballerina." That was just so poignant. That and the first two lines. Gee, gosh. Gorgeous.

Well, sorry that this couldn't be more constructive, but you seem to have utmost confidence and I am not much of a poetry critic. But praise is good, yes?

~GryphonFledgling

There are no cries of grief,
nor any of triumph,
there is only that omnipresent silence;
the half-burnt corpse still spins,
twirling around and around,
a scarred ballerina
oblivious to its own demise.

Maybe I'm just punctuation obsessed, but I think you could end that large sentence after "triumph" and start another with "There is only..." the line "a scarred ballerina" is wonderful imagery, it's really creepy, but I don't think it flows and I'm not sure why.

Its mother, its many siblings, and its child,
all react with cold inaction; they continue to twirl,
around and around, as they have done so,
and will continue to do so.

The part "as they have done so" sounds odd. I can't get it to sound right. The following like "and will continue to do so" works. I think the former is just too many words or something. Maybe if you cut out the word "so" in both lines? I think that would fix it a lot. Also remove the comma after "child" because if you look at the structure of the sentence it doesn't really need to be there. And what if you made "The continue to twirl..." its own sentence by putting a period after inaction?

I really like this poem. It's creepy.. and so flat and drab and cold that it's the best kind of atmosphere for the poem. It took me a while to get around to what "it" is. I thought it was a bug, but now I think I know better. With "normality is restored" [and if I'm entirely wrong please forgive me. You have to realize, I've been researching WWII for a long time now for my novel, haha] I thought of the holocaust. And even if you didn't write it with that in mind, it works real well. It's creepy in that way.

I do like it a lot. I have to admit I think it is kind of bare and could do with some more imagery, but then I also think it is perfect and that you should do nothing to it. I'm terribly indecisive, haha. I love it. Wonderful job!

beautiful...i wouldn't change a thing!

Maybe it's just that I don't really like modern poetry, but I didn't really get this. And I didn't really get anything from it.
Of course, it doesn’t particularly strike me as remotely alike to any modern poetry I've read, so even there...
It had no... rhythm, no sense of timing whatsoever.

"There are no cries of grief,
nor any of triumph,
there is only that omnipresent silence;
the half-burnt corpse still spins,
twirling around and around,
a scarred ballerina
oblivious to its own demise."

I like the idea of this poem, but this verse in particular seemed like a bunch of sentences separated at random places to be put in different lines.
'Modern' poetry is not exempt to certain rules that make poetry readable. It's not poetry if you take a bunch of sentences and split them up on separate lines, no matter how good the words themselves are. I wouldn't know how to read this aloud without making it seem senseless and imbalanced.

"With that tiny speck,
that insignificant refuge of life
gone, normality is restored."

I did genuinely love this last part, and the very first lines:

"And with a whimper only it can hear,
the world ends."

As for the rest, it really needs some kind of rhythm to follow. And the verses have nothing that connect them. They're all different lengths, which wouldn't really matter, except they don't follow any kind of pattern either. Again, I love the idea of it, and I love that the reader is free to interpret it however they want. That's my favorite thing about poetry.
If it was just for the words and the meaning I'd tell you not to change a thing, but you can't ignore the other parts that make it poetry.

And with a whimper only it can hear,
the world ends. - Oooh - Gripping!!

There are no cries of grief,
nor any of triumph,
there is only that omnipresent silence; - *My fault*. What's omnipresent mean? (I feel stupid)
the half-burnt corpse still spins,
twirling around and around,
a scarred ballerina
oblivious to its own demise. - Why is the corpse spinning? How did it end up that way? Is it falling from a building thats on fire?

Its mother, its many siblings, and its child, - The 'many' is unnessecary, really. It throws the poem off.
all react with cold inaction; they continue to twirl,
around and around, as they have done so, - Nice use of repetition here.
and will continue to do so.

With that tiny speck,
that insignificant refuge of life