To die..

I hear the thunder, I hear the cries.
I smell the burning; my past dies.
I feel the death, all around me.
The heavy smoke whispers flee.

At night we cry,
it's all we know.
We dream so sweet,
of far places to go.

The new day starts.
And we pray for a miracle.
We pray that we dreamed.
We pray that we're dead.

To live like this, is no such life.
We are prisoners, tired of tears.
While the others live and thrive.
We are animals with constant fears.

It is the end,
and yet i'm so glad.
My dreams become reality,
as heaven awaits for me.




okay so i didnt want to rhyme all the time, that was planned so if you are going to say something about the rhyme scheme, dont! other critisism is welcomed!! please & thankyou!!

Hi, I'm Jon!

I hear the thunder, I hear the cries.

I smell the burning as my past dies.

I like the first line of this.
However, the second line needs to be shortened. The second line needs to be shortened because it throws off the flow. You have too many syllables in the second. I suggest taking out "as" and replacing it with a Semicolon.
Question: How does a past die if it has already happened? The only way that would be possible is if you had a time machine in this poem, somewhere. You do not have a time machine, however!
I suggest making "Past" into "Future".
So: "I smell the burning; my future dies"
But even then there's something wrong with the flow.
So!
Take out "Dies" and replace it with "defies"
In any case, try to keep your syllables at the same/close count.

I smell the death, all around me.

All the smoke says to flee.

For such a horrible thing to be happening right now, I feel nothing of what this person is going through. You use the word "Smell" again which isn't such a good idea. Use some other words for smell! There are a lot of synonyms out there for your choosing. You could even say, "I sense the death all around me."

For the second line try to use some description. What color is this smoke? White? Black? Grey, even?
Is this smoke hot? is it coking this person? You could also give this smoke some personality. Like mean, bitter, dry-humored. Anything! You don't have to be restricted!

The new day starts.

And we pray for a miracle.

Whoa. You jump some time ahead very quickly. This is a great time to use some imagery! You could say that embers from the fire were only left. Cinders lay eschew, or something. You could say the sun lowered and the moon raised up. Use Something to describe time going by.

We pray that we dreamed.

We pray that were dead.

"were" should be "we're"
This stanza seems dry. The next day after this horrible event should be chaos! It should be even worse than the day when it happened. People should be screaming, crying for their lost ones. Also, if you pray for a miracle, you still have some hope. You wouldn't want to die.

To live like this, is no such life.

What happened to them wasn't a life choice, it seemed like a freak accident or a catastrophic event. Change it to something like, "Our lives have been corrupted." Or something like that. It seems that they didn't do it to themselves, so, it's not a lifestyle.

We are the prisoners, tried and almost dead.

While the others live and strive.

We live like animals, who have not been fed.

This bit is a huge jump from the last idea you had. (Which was another huge jump from the previous stanza.) Why are you prisoners? Why do other people live around you that have been in this same catastrophic event? It makes no sense.
Also, you keep switching rhyme schemes. You rhyme, thenm you don't, you rhyme, then you don't. You have to keep to a rhyme scheme, or, none at all. You can't skip, it just doesn't sound good when you do.

Its the end,

and yet i am so glad.

I wish for the best,

as the light consumes me.

"Its" should be "It's"
Change "i am" to I'm. (Remember the syllable count?)
Why would you be wishing for the best as you go to the light? The light means you're going to heaven. Wouldn't this person want to be in paradise? Why would they wish they were going if they already were?


Overall: You need to focus on your:
Rhyme scheme
Syllable counts/Flow
Foced rhyming
Imagery
Word usage (Use synonyms)
and
Feeling. (For such a horrible event, I fley nothing. Make the words hit the reader.)


Keep trying!
I'm here to help you whenever, just ask me!


---Jon---

Welcome to YWS It's always nice to see some new faces in the poetry forums.

Firstly, I have to say, regardless of the planned departure from the rhyme in a few verses, your actual rhyme scheme does need some work. To begin with, you rhyme aabb, then the next rhyme is cdef, and then ghih. It's kind of awkward and makes the poem seem rather slapdash, IMHO. I think you should work on refining that, making it regular. You don't actually need to rhyme at all if you don't want to - in fact, I'd recommend playing with a free verse version, just to see if that helps build up your ideas. But if you are going to rhyme, unless there is a definite structural reason for it I'd try to stick to one rhyme scheme.

As for specifics;

I feel the death, all around me.
The heavy smoke whispers flee.

The repetition of death detracts from its impact - try for another word there. Also, that last line feels very forced, so you might want to work on it a little.

We dream so sweet,
of far places to go.

Again, the last line feels forced. As a general rule of thumb, if you have to bend grammar, punctuation, meaning or sense to make the rhyme work, it's not worth bothering. You'll need to fix this.

The new day starts.
And we pray for a miracle.
We pray that we dreamed
We pray that we're dead.

I like this - the lack of rhyme gives it emphasis. However, you need to fix your punctuation if you want it to really stand out, and I'm not sure if "dreamed" really works right there; it sounds a little off, but that may just be me.

To live like this, is no such life.
We are prisoners, tired of tears
While the others live and thrive
We are animals with constant fears.

The rhyming is good here, but that first line bothers me. Repeating life again takes away from its impact and doesn't really convey anything to the reader. It's like trying to explain what a book is by saying it's a book XD Very philosophical, perhaps, but not very enlightening. Also, watch your punctuation.

It is the end,
and yet i'm so glad.
My dreams become reality,
as heaven awaits for me.

There seems to be a gap between this verse and the previous - the logical progression is interrupted. You might think about adding another verse to smooth out the 'story' and flow.

Overall, it was OK - there are some parts that I really liked, but I do feel that you need to step up your game a little. Better/more punctuation is needed to give it polish and to add to the flow/meaning - punctuation is just as important in poetry as it is in prose, as it tells the reader where to pause, how to interpret, what to emphasize and so on. I also suggest, if you don't do so already, thoroughly checking your work before posting - I'm assuming the lower-case i in the penultimate staza is a typo XD

I also felt it was a little on the navel-gazing side. By this I mean that the full meaning of the poem is only known to the author, and while this is not necessarily a bad thing, at times it goes a little too far and the reader is left feeling like an external observer, without any emotional stake in the poem. Next time, perhaps try experimenting with some literary devices - similes, metaphors, etc. - to help draw the reader in. Play on the senses, show don't tell, that sort of thing. You want to get the reader to feel with you, not just to communicate your own feelings in a poetic way.

One last thing - re: rhyming. You might want to try one of the set poetic forms on for size - the villanelle, perhaps, or a triolet or terza rima. They can be great fun and I've often felt they help to shape my ideas when I know what I'm trying to say but not quite how to say it. Alternatively, to make your rhyming/rhythm smoother, try tapping it out as you read the poem aloud. That should help you get a feel for what works and what doesn't.

If you need anything or have any questions, feel free to PM me or another mod (we're the ones in green) and we'll be happy to help you out. Meantime, I'll look forward to reading some more of your work in the future

Happy writing!

Cheers,
~bubbles

I never go over punctuation and my reviews are short so forgive the curtness of this.

For one, I saw rhyme in there, but very awkwardly pieced together rhyme that threw everything out of sync.

The poem repeats a central idea again and again, not in emphasis but in almost stuttering confusion and absence of awareness of doing so.

The vocabulary of this piece was decent but banal sentences and typical phrases really downed what could have been a more expressive work.

Some good visuals and a few appealing Pathos, but I still see this as needing a bit of fine tuning and possibly total revision.

Keep working!

Exes and Ohs, Eraqio.