Daemon

The daemon claws at the
closed door,
Gurgling noises escaping from her mouth.
I hear her and hide under
the covers, hoping she will leave—
maybe if I am quiet she will leave me alone.
The sound of scraping reaches my ears,
she’s trying to get in.
I close my eyes, my body shaking.
I hear her triumphant bellow
as the wood breaks free.
I cover my head,
she’s loud, tramping through my room,
going through my things.
Words of evil spit at me,
each step she takes, bringing her closer to me.
One barbed finger traces down my throat,
she laughs a wicked laugh.
tells me I am nothing,
picks me apart, piece by piece.
Tearing me down, until I am nothing
but a cowering child under her stare.
Her work is done,
she leaves me be,
I hug my pillow closer,
and cry my empty tears.
until sweet silence falls over me,
and I drift to sleep in fear.

Well. That was frightening. You had some major comma issues though.

The daemon claws, [nix this comma] at the

closed door,

Gurgling noises escaping from her mouth.

I hear her, [nix this comma] and hide under

Other than that, this was terrifying. Really. I didn't quite understand, at the beginning, what it was about, and then you went BWAM! and scared the daylights out of me! Good job! Your meter was perfect. I loved every second of this!

-Jared

so it was a deamon? or.. i didnt quite catch it.. i dont get it.. its her sister.. her mother.. her evil step sister.. maybe i getit now.. a renditionof snow white.. i guess its ok.. id have it as deamon she has to fight back in midevil times tho.. mabye you shoudl htink about it

Hey,

Gurgling noises escaping from her mouth.

Lower-case 'G'. Only at the start of a new sentence or proper noun, as with prose.

The sound of scraping reaches my ears,
she’s trying to get in.

Semicolon instead of a comma.

each step she takes, bringing her closer to me.

This should be: "each step she takes brings her closer to me."

and I drift to sleep in fear.

This is a very weak ending, not good after the powerful poem. It seems to me as if you were just trying to find a way to end this, try rephrasing it.

**

Aside from those few issues I have to say I enjoyed this. I would however like to see a little more imagery, perhaps comparing the stride of the daemon to something. For a poem the descriptions were in the right place but the character emotions were not so fitting. I felt as if we were watching, and we weren't really inside the character's head. Just simple things we find in prose would work brilliantly here.

Keep writing"

This was great!
Frightening, but great!
Most of the punctuation, etc. was already pointed out.

Blink said that the ending was 'very weak'.
I think that it was only a little weak. And that is simply in comparison to the rest of the poem.

That's the only thing I caught.
Perhaps a tad more imagery could be helpful, especially if 'the daemon' was a metaphor for something else.
At least, that's what I thought it was. The daemon was representing something else.
*shrugs*

Anyway, great work!
Excellent poem!

-GC10

That was good!

You do have some puncuation issues, but nothing that can't be fixed over a another read.

Beautiful. It felt like a child was seeing the monster come out of the closet. Nice description words.

There's only one part I had a problem with:

tells me I am nothing,

picks me apart, piece by piece.

Tearing me down, until I am nothing

You repeat 'nothing'. Try something else.

Other than that, well done! I'm giving this a star!

Easy!

The daemon claws [s]at the[/s]

at the closed door,

Gurgling noises escaping [s]from [/s]her mouth.

I'm gonna go with Blink here. I don't entirely understand why gurgling is capitalized when you usually don't capitalize every line (unless it starts a new sentence or is a proper noun). And from just seems to drag the sentence longer than it should. ^^

The line adjustment is completely up to you, but I like consistency. Sometimes you put the with the noun on the next line, and sometimes you don't. I kinda want to keep it together. XD

I hear her and hide under the covers,

[s]the covers,[/s] hoping she will leave—

maybe if I am quiet, she will leave me alone.

That's just an odd line break, but looking through the rest of the poem, I don't think it'll do any damage if you put the covers in the first line.

I see you're improving with your punctuation. Excellent use of the dash. ^_^

The sound of scraping reaches my ears, [semi instead]

she’s trying to get in.

Don't join sentences with a comma. Semis can do that, dashes can do that, parentheses can do that, but not commas.

I cover my head, [period or semi instead]

she’s loud, tramping through my room, [no comma] and

going through my things.

The first line doesn't hit me like it should. Is there a better way to describe the MC doing this? It just doesn't make my heart flip or anything. The and is up to you as well. ^_^

Words of evil spit at me, [period or semi instead]

each step she takes, [no comma] [s]bringing[/s] brings her closer to me.

I like Blink's edit here. ^^

One barbed finger traces down my throat, [dash instead?]

she laughs a wicked laugh.

She tells me I am nothing,

picks me apart, [dash instead] piece by piece.

The dash in the first line is questioned 'cause you could also do a semi, but I don't want you to go all semi-crazy either. I mean, they're helpful little guys, but using them too much makes the poem look really insane. So keep that in mind when debating what punctuation mark.

I probably would also... hm...

One barbed finger traces down my throat.
She laughs a wicked laugh,
tells me I am nothing,
and picks me apart--piece by piece.

Mkay, do a period at the end of the line so the next three can become one sentence. It'll be easier to read. ^_^

Tearing me down, [no comma] until I am nothing

but a cowering child [s]under[/s] beneath her stare.

Beneath sounds better to me here. ^^

You could probably get away with changing tearing to she tears to make it a complete sentence, but it's up to you. ^^

Her work is done, [semi instead]

she leaves me be, [period instead]

I hug my pillow closer, [no comma]

and cry my empty tears. [no period]

until sweet silence falls over me,

and I drift to sleep in fear.

This part kinda let me down. The rest of the poem was very descriptive and had all that imagery you do so well, but this part is just simple sentence after simple sentence. First grade sentences, really. The MC suddenly sounds like a little kid, but it sounds like they aren't. Of course, I can't be certain.

Overall

This was very eerie and creepy in its own way. It was awesome! ^^ There's probably some meaning hidden beneath this, and as I think about it, I wonder if it's some sort of mother abusing her child. Or maybe it's just something that popped in your head after reading His Dark Materials. XD

This was still awesome, like all the other poems you've written. Wonderful job, and keep writing!

~ Jabber ~

I'm not entirely sure why BigBadBear said the piece's meter was perfect, because I didn't hear any...

And well...I know it's spelled "daemon" in that Philip Pullman trilogy, but I'd recommend unless you were directing your poem to reference it in some way, you spell it normally as "demon." The tacked-on A confuses me. :C Also, any particular the "daemon" is a "she?"

Blink's advice is good; you're writing about something that should be scary, but...frankly, there're parts where it gets redundant.
The phrase "barbed finger" was by far the best part though, and a strange image I did enjoy, but I still wish you'd've described more. Are the monster's footsteps to that of a dinosaur's, its shadow like a raven? Get creative with the images and run with them a little; you need to fill the piece with them, as opposed to all these excess prosaic details of cliched hiding-under-covers and hugging-my-pillow.

Every word does count; you must gotta be careful with each letter like it's a fragile sculpture of obsidian. *strokes non-existant beard*

Qultur wrote:I'm not entirely sure why BigBadBear said the piece's meter was perfect, because I didn't hear any...

I don't generally use any particular meter, I can't... it's just not how I hear things in my head. When I write my poetry, I feel the broken sentences and the non existant flow. *shrugs*


I am going to rewrite the ending, I doesn't fit. It doesn't feel right just yet...


We'll see how it goes anyways.

OverEasy wrote:

Qultur wrote:I'm not entirely sure why BigBadBear said the piece's meter was perfect, because I didn't hear any...

I don't generally use any particular meter, I can't... it's just not how I hear things in my head. When I write my poetry, I feel the broken sentences and the non existant flow. *shrugs*


I am going to rewrite the ending, I doesn't fit. It doesn't feel right just yet...


We'll see how it goes anyways.

And that shows how much I know about poetry.

Happy editing.

-Jared

It seemed like you were seperating the sentences into different lines at random points...for example, the first four lines: "The daemon claws at the

closed door,

Gurgling noises escaping from her mouth.

I hear her and hide under

the covers, hoping she will leave—"

or...

"The daemon claws at the closed door,
gurgling noises escaping from her mouth.
I hear her and hide under the covers,
hoping she will leave--".

hey i have to say, out of all the poems i have read on YWS this is one of the better ones i have only a few suggestions for you:

The daemon claws at the
closed door,

this breaks the flow of the poem. try this:
The daemon claws
at the closed door

I hear her and hide under
the covers, hoping she will leave—

this also breaks the flow. it's like what oneeyedunicornhunter said, that you were seperating lines at random points, but i am just giving you a few tips. so try this:
I hear her
and hide under the covers,
hoping she will leave
or the suggestion that oneeyedunicornhunter had. that one was good too.

i also agree with the others on how you can make the ending stronger. just saying that you drifted asleep in fear isn't strong enough for this powerful poem.

other than those things this was a great poem and you did very well

happy writing