Prey to be Preyed

There was a poetry contest at another forum and I didn't have much time to write or edit, and I made this poem in about 20 minutes. However, i think ti came out pretty nice and I ended up winning the contest with it. The theme was morality, and I took a different approach than most people would.

The night has come for prey to be preyed.
I am sorry to say I am at your front door.
You will beg for mercy, you will beg for aid,
But nothing will save you, not even your lord.
Now that you are in bed you will see.

I know my sense of morality has gone out west,
But every drop of pain you will deserve.
I am in your bedroom; watching you rest;
My knife is drawn and ready to serve.
It is shame this won’t be short and painless.

There is no need to be screaming for assistance.
Scratching is useless and the panicking is senseless.
Once help arrives I will be deep in the distance;
Not very fair or lovely, but that is the purpose.
You should have known not to do what you did.

If only the world was a bit more pleasant.
If only my morality was not so absent.

Thank you if you give any feedback at all.

That is a really good poem


it is very intense


I will give it a big thumb up


Now everyone needs to give it an applaud


YAY!!!



-Lulu

This was really good! I'm not the one who really loves reading about murder, but you potrayed it in such a beautiful way, i coulden't help but love this poem!

-Awesomeness!-Curly

Well Jack I never knew that preyed was a word but thanks to you now I know. This poem has a very morbid feeling to it which is good when it makes sense. Obviously, your MC is about to kill someone and run away but I think you can do better. Have you ever read the poem The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes? If not look it up and read how he approaches death and even though his poem isn't as sinister I think that you'll see what you need to add to make your poem more exciting. This is a narrative poem which means you should tell a story and I feel that I was cheated out of a thrilling story
All in all good start,
Keep writing,
Angel

Hey Jack! You don't need to put your poem in a quote box...just leave it by itself in the post.

Meaning. I'm not sure I understand the events being described in the poem, so that makes it hard for me to take something away from it. I get that the speaker is some sort of vengeful killer...but I don't really understand his motives. He is heartless...does he blame the world? Does he blame his victim, who has clearly done something wrong? Himself?

Voice and excess babble. I do love the tone the speaker has...it is so harsh and forceful. However, it could be improved a lot by cutting out extra pieces, so it'll sound more like actual speech, as if he is speaking to the victim in this poem. This is how I would restructure the entire poem:

The night has come for prey to be preyed upon.
I'm sorry to say I'm at your front door.
You will beg for mercy,
But nothing will save you.

I know my morality has gone west,
But you deserve every drop of pain.
I am in your bedroom, watching you rest;
My knife is drawn.
This won’t be short or painless.

Do not scream.
Once help arrives I will be deep in the distance;
Not very fair or lovely, but that is the purpose.
You should have known not to do what you did.

If only the world was a bit more pleasant.
If only my morality was not so absent.

This is not necessarily how you might do it, depending on which parts you think are more important. But keep in mind that a shorter sentence often says the same thing as a longer one...each time you write a word or phrase, think, "Do I really need this? Could I make this more concise?" The goal in poetry is to say as much as possible in a short space.

Imagery. Use more! The poem centers on the speaker's sort of speech to the victim, but I hunger for beautiful words and pictures.
Here's an article by something euclidean that might really help you out: http://www.youngwriterssociety.com/viewarticlebody.php?t=19225&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

-Colleen

Awesome feedback everyone. I love hearing opinions and some have been very helpful. I love to write, but I write stories and novels, not poems. So I want to get in touch with that side of me, so hopefully I am doing things right.



For this poem in particular, I actually took out the first part of the poem that explained some of the story. I felt like it was not written that well and the poem was better off with no details and could be what the reader wanted it to be. I do want to want to stat doing imagery more, as that is something I have always ignored. So thanks for that.


And on a weird side note, I wrote this as if I was singing it. And it's main purpose was to win a competition, so I did cheat out readers a bit and myself.


Once again, thanks for the feedback.