The Reflection

Okay, I was going through a depressing time, and I wrote this to express my feelings. This was fours years ago, so don't knock my 7th grade writing skills.

The Reflection

Whose reflection
Is this? With demented
Eyes of hurt and sorrow.

These eyes,
They frighten me
For they burn raging fires of
Great multitude

The consuming fires expose
What is to be
Forgotten of a
Sorrowful past

The past shines
Through shut eyes
For a face never
Lies

A smile that is not true,
A thought that is not pure,
Which destroyed innocence.
But a glimmer shines through

There is hope for a
Child of hate
For all sins are forgiven at
The cross of innocence

So bow your knee
Before the cross of
Salvation, for you
Are forgiven evermore

The eyes are clear
For they have been
Wiped clean with forgiveness

These eyes
This smile
Those thoughts
My reflection


Okay go at it!

Hello! I'm DaNay!

Okay first let me say that overall I think it was a good poem, very good for it to have been written in the seventh grade. The only thing that bothered with this poem was how it seems like some of the lines are chopped. For instance:

Whose reflection
Is this? Of demented
Eyes of hurt and sorrow.

I think this would go better as two lines are not four:

Whose reflection is this?
Of demented eyes of hurt and sorrow.

Other than that it was a good poem!
Good Luck

Good job, i like how the rythem at the begining is a little off, but gets smoother latter it adds to the character of the poem, even if you didn't mean it that way. Not the most emotional poem ever, but good for a seventh grader.

Okay, thanks for the comments. I just typed it out the way I had wrote it in 7th grade, so I didn't think about the rhythm and rhyme scheme.

Hiya Teddy! Here as requested!

Whose reflection
Is this? Of demented
Eyes of hurt and sorrow.

~ "Of" is a bit repetitive here.

~ This whole stanza lacks imagery, in my opinion. You say they're demented, but how does it show? Dark circles under the eyes, a glint of hate, what?

These eyes, they
Frighten me
For they burn fires of
Great multitude

~ Again, imagery. Add in a word or two for describing the fires.

~ The line breaks are a bit choppy here. There's an unnesesary pause after "they" I find.

The fires consume
What is to be
Forgotten of a
sorrowful past

You're starting to loose me with the meaning here. At first I thought the fires were negative, but now they seem to be positive? Elabourate a bit more. ^_^

The past shines
Through shut eyes
For a face never
Lies

I liked this stanza. It's probably the strongest of the whole poem (or at least, the consept presented is the strongest, in my opinion). Still, I'd like a bit more explanation on the beginning. How does it shine through? Is it positive or negative?

A smile that is not true,
A thought that is not pure,
But a glimmer shines through

~ This stanza is a bit out of place since it only has three lines. Had you kept some sort of parten, putting in three-line stanzas every fourth stanza, it would flow better, but since there is no pattern right now the shorter length can be jarring.

~ How is the thought "impure"? (I'm not going to comment on the smile, since a lot of people know what an untrue smile is.)

For there is hope for a
Child of hate
For all sins are forgiven at
The cross

The first line here is a bit repetitive because "for" shows up twice. The first "for" makes the whole stanza feel repetitive; like you're just repeating/continuing the stanza before.

So bow your knee
Before the cross of
Salvation, for you
Are forgiven evermore

I feel you're starting to loose the original thread of the poem here. Since you were a bit fuzzy at the beginning about what those feelings were, and if they were positive or negative, it's a bit hard to link this stanza to the beginning.

The eyes are clear
For they have been
Wiped clean

~ Again, because of the somewhat unclear beginning, it's hard to place/understand this stanza. (Speaking from a non-Christan standpoint here.)

~ On the note above, you might want to elabourate on how things are "wiped clean" for those of us who aren't that clear on Christianity.

These eyes
This smile
Those thoughts
My reflection

This closing feels like it's missing something. For the first time you're using "my" to describe things. Because you haven't used "my" before, and the change is rather sharp (from you, talking about the reader to my, talking about the author), this stanza suddenly feels personal, not general.

~

Theme: At first, the theme was a bit vague, but workable. But as you got into Christan themes, I feel that you lost the original meaning to another, and at the end it was sort-of tied together, but not completely.

I also found the Cross theme a bit out-of-place, considering you don't really tie it into the "relection" theme at the beginning. Link those two together for continuity.

Structure: I found the line-breaks to be a bit rough and choppy in some places. Read this out-loud to see where the flow could be polished up.

And I'm just going to mention putting in some punctuation and uncapitalizing some lines, just because I feel it would help the choppiness.

Overall: The beginning had some good themes to it, but I didn't really feel that the beginning and end of this poem tied well together.

It's workable, though, and I did enjoy parts of it. I think with a little more work this will be something!

Questions? PM me.

~Rosey