Love's Punishment

Once again I'd request you read this with a beat ^^ Also please review my other poem (which is better) The Damage of Reality.
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Please note I am aware I do not no how to use a semi colon xD Please help.

They beat you,
they bruised you;
they tortured your soul.

They were bored
and angry,
but what was the toll?

You were their child;
a gift of their love.

You were their loving creating,
so you could not fight back.
No matter how much they abused you,
nor when they stuffed you in that sack.

They pawned you.
They sold you,
for a simple gold coin.
Now a slave in a factory,
is the fate you must join.

What kind of concentration camp are you talking about? Cuban or Nazi? Because if it's Nazi, then the child's parents would be taken too, especially if they were the ones that turned the kid in.

Let's jump right into the review, shall we? And forgive me if I'm a little harsh-it's only because rewriting is a friend of mine. =]

So, first, since you mentioned it, I don't think the semi colon works in the first stanza.
The second stanza doesn't really work. The words bored and angry fall flat after tortured your soul. And the last line is odd. What was the toll? I feel like you only chose toll because it rhymes. Rhyme is a powerful device, but it can also be tricky, because you have to make sure that your rhyming isn't forced. So the words that you choose must add meaning to the poem as well as rhyme and I don't think your last line does that.

(In the third stanza, you meant creation, not creating, right?) The last line in the third stanza has too many syllables.

In the fourth stanza, the last line's rhyme sounds forced as well, so watch out for that. It's the way you phrased it, I think: would you really say joining the fate?

Overall, it's a pretty vague poem. There is no description, no imagery-it's all telling and not showing. It also loses focus, like when it goes from you were a gift of their love to they sold you for a simple gold coin. Parents can be very possessive of their children, especially the ones they abuse. A child who is sold into slavery might have been a child completely ignored, not beaten. But that's just my opinion.

A quick note-watch the punctuation. You don't need a comma or a period at the end of every line, so only use them when you want to emphasize your point.

So, just revise it a bit and I think you'll have a good poem here. PM me for anything!

angels-symphony wrote:They beat you,
they bruised you;
they tortured your soul.

Vague and bland. I see nothing in here that sparks the imagination, that forces my mind to plummet into their world - your world. What I should be seeing is a lyrical, flowing, and even dark description of the torture, the bruises, the beatings and muffled screams through paper-thin doors. All I hear is someone talking, and that's never good in a poem (well, rarely).

They were bored
and angry,
but what was the toll?

Aren't you supposed to let the reader know what the toll is? This stanza is unnecessary and does not even make sense. Boredom? I just cannot believe that someone would beat someone else out of pure boredom. Anger, yes. Perhaps frustration, even fear. But simply the fact that there's nothing else to do? Also, like I said above, the last line is pointless.

You were their child;
a gift of their love.

You were their loving creating,
so you could not fight back.
No matter how much they abused you,
nor when they stuffed you in that sack.

Many ideas and events are being bounced around without an anchor to hold them. I'll make it clear right now; I don't care whether the protagonist was stuffed into a sack. That means nothing to me. What will interest me is how you portray it and how the protagonist reacts, the realisation of the five senses within the piece. Right now, once again, there's just...lecture. Boring talking, repeatedly. This poem is becoming worse as it progresses.

They pawned you.
They sold you,

Why do you repeat yourself? If it is for emphasis, it is not working at all. The only thing it does is make me skeptical of your ability to draw people in to the situation you attempt to create.

for a simple gold coin.
Now a slave in a factory,
is the fate you must join.

No catharsis whatsoever. It's a trite finish and doesn't even end with the type of sorrow that good poetry does by introducing a new spin to an old idea or an old spin to a new idea. It just ends, as if you got bored and decided not to finish the last half of the poem, throwing this on the bottom instead and calling it finished.

This piece is thoroughly dissatisfying. If you want to fix it (and I personally wouldn't even try) then convince yourself that the poem is only half over and add another few stanzas onto the end to provide some kind of reaction in the reader that will leave him nodding at the interesting way you've depicted the slave trade.