Talking water with a dry man.

Valleys all choked up with dust.
No reason to wake up, tomorrow.

The storm's coming in tonight, button up your homes
and dream with your boots on.

The flowers got picked up by the workers
with not a joy in the world.
They know their lives are a play of hardships.

Stay in step with me, and I promise that you'll soon see,
the product of my starry hillside.

Separated from normalcy in the daytime,
night fall lights up the world inside us.

The storm's coming in tonight, button up your homes
and dream with your boots on.

Stir crazy, from being me,
the canal bouquet today seems so appealing.

I'm drowning, in my sweat tonight, my dreams
running from the sunlight.

Valleys all choked up with dust.
No reason to wake up, forever.

Who cares, about us?
We're just a sandbox locked up in California.

First of all, I would just like to congratulate you on writing this wonderful poem. I absolutely loved it, for it was beautiful, and I loved your description and expressions that made me visualize greatly. Wonderful job.

Now to the nit- picking! I see no one has replied to this yet... or did you delete them? Well, here goes;

No reason to wake up, tomorrow.



The storm's, coming in tonight, button up your homes

I don't get the commas in there. You probably have a reason for them there, but I don't see it.

I'm drwoning, in my sweat tonight, my dreams
running from the sunlight.

I spy a typo!

Who cares, about us?
We're just a sandbox locked up in California.

The ending is hard to understand. just a tad, but I like it. It seems out- of- the- blue kind of ending.

That's all I have for you! I hope it helped a little. Even if it didn't, great poem! Right on, and write on!

Hello Eraqio! I don't typically do poetry reviews, but I'm going to try to give the best review I can!

---

Valleys, all choked up with dust.
No reason to wake up, tomorrow.

Immediately, I like the desolate imagery you're starting up here. However, I think the comma your incorporate after "Valleys" creates an unnecessary pause that slows down the flow of the poem. The comma at the end of the stanza I like, as it lets us pause and think before we finish the stanza, the image you've created -- but I don't think pause is needed at the very beginning.

The storm's, coming in tonight, button up your homes
and dream with your boots on.

Haha, I really like the "button up your homes". Again though, the comma after storms is not needed at all. There's no reason to pause up the sentence like that -- though, you should only nix the comma directly after "storm's".

The flowers got picked up by the workers
with not a joy in the world.
They know their lives are a play of hardships.

Every other stanza in this poem is two lines, yet here you have three -- it doesn't really fit in with the structure you seem to have decided upon. For consistency with that structure (as this is a structured poem), you should find a way to meld the ideas in this sentence into two lines.

Stay in step with me, and I promise that you'll soon see,
the product of my starry hillside.

- The sudden rhyme in this part throws me off. I suggest you restructure the first sentence, since the rhyming makes this stanza not as good as the other ones.
- Also, the word choice of "product" is strange. The product of a hillside...? It's a strange concept, and I think you can find a better word to mean whatever you is coming from your presence on this hillside.

I'm drwoning, in my sweat tonight, my dreams
running from the sunlight.

Boo, to this comma. Same reason as "Storm's".

Who cares, about us?
We're just a sandbox locked up in California.

Haha, I really like this stanza. However, again, I don't find the comma necessary.

---

Alright, so this is a very interesting poem -- I like your imagery of a desolate lace (in California, I see), which you seem to aim to find a solution for. Your solution seems to be centered on two things: Your perspective ("my product of the hillside") and the nighttime, away from the sunlight. I think you need to connect these two -- explain more how you envision your escape from this "valley", as you seem to suggest an escape, and that fall back into hopelessness again in the last stanza. Perhaps, devote another stanza to your explanation of your concept of escape from this place, but then, also give a hint as to why you so suddenly become despaired again at the end.

I hope this was helpful! PM me if you have questions!

~ Clo

Hi there!

I thought that you did a good job with this poem. There was imagery and good usage of words. But there were some errors that made the poem 'painful' to read, such as the unnecessary usage of commas. Since Clo and peanut pointed out most of your errors, I won't elaborate more. But I think this is a really good piece, and has potential.

I'm looking forward to the next one.
Keep writing!

The title fascinates me. *Stares*

RIGHT. Erm. *Reads* Let's begin.

Wow. It's bizarre. It's rich - it's good.

Most of it. I have to say I'm not overly fond of about 25% of the imagery - starry hillsides, what? But meh. Just me.

Some stuff I loved:

'Valleys, all choked up with dust.

No reason to wake up, tomorrow.'

And 'button up your homes, dream with your boots on'. I am in love with that line! it has my smiling at how childishly playful it was, how alive... It's so sweet, yet oddly sinister.

I like the ending line too, because of how little sense it makes.

'Separated from normalcy in the daytime,

night fall lights up the world inside us.
'

Bleh! The first line's all clinical and lifeless, it's lacking. It drowns out the second line, which I like for the nonsensicality, again.

Buuut yeah. Overall I really enjoyed this, I get a vague idea of the theme, but I feel like i shouldn't know. I love the title, as I said. So, have a star.

Eric!

Clo-roupe has done a wonderful review on this, so, just pay attention to the important stuff she said, and you've pretty much got this covered.


I truly like the imagery here, Eric (I actually love your ideas in imagery; they're always unique, always wonderful, always perfect and stuff).

Who cares, about us?

We're just a sandbox locked up in California.

This part, after much debating, has come out to be my favorite. It's so wonderful, really tying everything that came before together and just throwing away almost all efforts that were built and stuff. Really showing the lack of attention that is given to the less fortunate, more desolate places.

It's a wonderful closing as well; very intriguing, and really closes the ideas (with the "Sandbox locked up in California.") It's pinpointing exactly where, and sealing it all away.


A brilliant piece, Eric. You should really consider publishing some of your stuff, you know.


Beautiful work.

- Juniper