Joy and Glory

Our talents are to us
A way to gain attention;
We dance, we paint, we play beautiful music
Yet all perform for motivations that differ.

Some people perform
To give joy unto others.
To watch as their faces
Light up with ecstasy.

Yet others play
For the glory of themselves,
For they wish to see,
Not faces of joy,
But money and riches and glory
Of their own.

You have a unique style of writing. This poem had a message in it, and I thought it was great that you had that in there. However, some of the poem flowed rather well while part of it was just a tad awkward.

We dance, we paint, we play beautiful music.

This line somehow sounded a bit out of place. Other then that I loved this poem and can't wait for more!!!

Ah, the human race.
This is a bit of a typical opening, like a person starting a random thought rather than a poem. I think it'd be better just to start straight away with the next line and just delete this.

Our talents are to us
A way to gain attention;
We dance, we paint, we play beautiful music.
I like this part, especially the wording of "our talents are to us" - I can't explain why =] I just like it.

Why?
This is too unsubtle for my tastes. I don't like an open ended question like 'why?' in a poem just because it's already asked, unspoken, which is softer and nicer. Could be just me =]

Well, some people perform
I don't like "well" much, because it sounds very chatty, the same as the first like it's just like someone having a conversation when they're a bit bored. I think just "some perform" might actually sound nicer.

To give joy unto others.
To watch as their faces
Light up with ecstasy.

Yet others play
For the glory of themselves,
For they wish to see,
Not faces of joy,
But money and riches and glory
Of their own.
I like all of this last part though =] I think it seems fine to me.

Overall
I like this poem =] the general message is nice. Your language is pretty, especially the last stanza. I would just suggest maybe less chatty stuff! But I already said that. I love especially "their faces light up with ecstasy" - that's a very pretty image. You should put more images like that in!

I'm reading an autobiography at the moment of a guy called Russel Brand (I don't know if you've heard of him =] if you're from the UK you will have but otherwise...) anyway he talks about his motivation behind fame and he says that it's just the high of it, the feeling of being in control and having somewhere to stay that you really belong. What I mean by this is that I'd like this poem better if it looked into the deeper emotions of performance and what's behind it.