Blood, Water and Tears (redone)

See this place where destruction rules,
where winds race and rush,
where water rises and crushes.
Unmoving lay the bodies of the dead,
above rooftops.

You look at the houses torn down and lost,
you look at the streets;
bodies and blood blending with water
the music of happiness replaced with this mess.

Remember the jazz?
The parades?
Can they come back?
Or are they destroyed, gone,
like the houses, the streets,
all the lives.
The winds are their murderers,
the water their minion.

You drive through the wreck,
you stare at the houses;
see the marks of death.
You look through the broken window;
see the blood on the wall,
see the water,
see the mess.

It makes you wonder...
wonder what stories lay in this past;
who died?
What family was separated?

These questions are like claws;
slowly ripping you apart
'til you fall in a heap,
tears on the ground,
memories all around.

Hi! I really like this; the references to blood are moving for me. I have two suggestions/questions as well....

1. The winds are their murderers,
the water their minion.

I am a little confused about your use of "minion" here. When I first read it, I thought you were saying water was the deceased people's "minion", which obviously doesn't make a lot of sense. When I reread it, I realized what you are trying to say. Please correct me if I am wrong, but are you trying to say that water is the minion of the wind and therefore is "doing the dirty work" by killing the people? If this is the case, I would suggest re-wording "the water their minions" and make it more clear who exactly "their" is.

2. [It makes you wonder...
wonder what stories lay in this past;
who died?
What family was separated? ]

I do not know why the last question in this stanza does not work for me. It just doesn't flow quite as well as the rest of the stanza. Perhaps it is the word "separated"..? Or perhaps I am just entirely too picky and have strange editing remarks!

Other than those two tiny possible changes to make, this is really great! It reminds me of the pictures I saw of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. (Maybe even that is what you're referring to with the "jazz", etc.)

Hello, thanks for PMing me about this piece, I'm in the mood to review!
As you know, I'm Colt and I'll be reviewing this piece.

I like the pace of this poem...it's nice and sweet. I also like the title, it fits perfect, and that's a high honor to me because I fail (epically) at my titles. And, this was very nice and it's a poem that makes me think a lot. Amazing job! Looking back on your original piece, you really fixed this piece up to have something to be proud of. Ooo! Not many grammar errors either! A totally pwning poem! I just can't stop those compliments, I'm sorry. ^^

-Most writers usually capitalize the first letter of each line, regardless of where in a sentence, unless you are e.e. cummings or are a rebellious rebel. e.e. cummings was an English (I think) poet, from back then, who never capitalized anything, not even his name.
-You also could use more adjectives/adverbs to describe in some places, but usually it is well.
-You had a bit of rhyming and alliteration, which was nice. You don't want to rhyme too much. But I'd add more alliteration.
-Nice structure. It was like a nice house, it had a strong foundation to support it's beauty.

misfit-writer wrote:See this place where destruction will rule[s]s[/s],
where winds will race and rush,
where water will rise[s]s[/s] and crush[s]es[/s].
Unmoving lay the (perhaps add an adjective here?) bodies of the dead,
above rooftops.

You look at the houses torn down and lost,
you look at the streets;
bodies and blood blending with water (alliteration!)
the music of happiness replaced with this mess. (this mess of what?)

Remember the jazz?
The parades?
Yet will[s]Can[/s] they come back?
Or are they destroyed, gone,
like the houses, the streets,
all the lives. (adjective, perhaps?)
The winds are their murderers,
the water their minion. (Normally I would say you forgot an 'is' but, without using it, it has a more...older feel that I like)

You drive through the wreck,
you stare at the houses;
see the marks of death.
You look through the broken window;
see the blood on the wall,
see the water,
see the mess.
(Parallel structure, nice!)

It makes you wonder...
wonder what stories lay in this past;
[s]who died?[/s] Who were the victims of these merciless winds?
[s]What family was separated?[/s] And yet whose family was torn to pieces,
by these terrifying winds?

These questions are like claws; (nice Homeric simile thing you have here)
slowly ripping you apart
'til you fall in a heap,
tears on the ground,
memories all around.

Hey there! June here!

Ryan has pointed out a lot of good stuff here, so I can pretty much do a lazy overall.


• Things I don't like so much


- You start out very generic. It's a wonderful start, "See this place", a command for the reader to take it in. I love the way you've started off, but! I'm not really liking the change;

Later on here, you've changed to "You do this, you do that" and even raise questions throughout this. To me, it kind of weakens the power of the poem, because we're no longer listening to you commanding us to do things, and it's almost as if we have the choice to think about it or not think about it, dear.


- I think that the last stanza kind of also ruins the whole effect that this poem could have had; I think that you should have let the above stanzas take care of this message and have this just lie unspoken underneath the poem. I think that wording this out truly, truly takes away from it, dear, because I'm feeling like everything I just read was meant to be thought of in one way, not allowed to interpret in my own way.



• Things I did like.

- The message. When I read this, I was like, "Ooh, powerful message," but some of the surrounding things and the way it was written kind of toned that down a bit. Never the less, cool poem.


- The first stanza. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, dear.


- Structure! You've done a nice job with that. Way to go!


- and lastly! Tone. You definitely made this sound old. Reminds me of a poem called deadwood by one of my favorite people on here.



Well done, Misfit. =D Keep up the wonderful work.


Juniper

Hi! I really like this; the references to blood are moving for me. I have two suggestions/questions as well....

1. "The winds are their murderers,
the water their minion."

I am a little confused about your use of "minion" here. When I first read it, I thought you were saying water was the deceased people's "minion", which obviously doesn't make a lot of sense. When I reread it, I realized what you are trying to say. Please correct me if I am wrong, but are you trying to say that water is the minion of the wind and therefore is "doing the dirty work" by killing the people? If this is the case, I would suggest re-wording "the water their minions" and make it more clear who exactly "their" is.

2. "It makes you wonder...
wonder what stories lay in this past;
who died?
What family was separated?"

This last quesitonjust doesn't flow quite as well as the rest of the stanza. Perhaps it is the word "separated"..? Or perhaps I am just entirely too picky and have strange editing remarks! Others have given great other examples of ways to change this above.

Other than those two tiny possible changes to make (and what others have said already above ) , this is really great! It reminds me of the pictures I saw of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. (Maybe even that is what you're referring to with the "jazz", etc.)

Hey, sorry it took me a while to get back to you! There's some good improvements here but a few more suggestions:

See this place where destruction rules,

where winds race and rush,

where water rises and crushes.

Unmoving lay the bodies of the dead,

above rooftops.

[This is a good beginning but I feel that the flow could be stronger, something that's got more of a rhythm to it and is perhaps a touch more dramatic. For example, I like that you've moved the first two lines that were originally with the next stanza to the end of here but link them in. Instead of having it as a seperate onservation, you could say something along the lines of:

'Where water rises and crushes
and above rooftops
lay, unmoving, the bodies of the dead.'

It would also let you end on dead which would emphasise the word. The other suggestion is to try and avoid being vague. The better the picture you can paint, the more powerful it will be. That first line would be firmer if instead it were to say: 'See here where destruction rules'.]

You look at the houses torn down and lost,

you look at the streets;

bodies and blood blending with water

the music of happiness replaced with this mess.

[The repetition of you is a little off putting. It would be better to have 'look at the houses...' and 'look at the streets' because it's more direct and commanding. It's a stronger tone which I think would fit this poem well.]

Remember the jazz?

The parades?

Can they come back?

Or are they destroyed, gone,

like the houses, the streets,

all the lives.

The winds are their murderers,

the water their minion.



You drive through the wreck,

you stare at the houses;

see the marks of death.

You look through the broken window;

see the blood on the wall,

see the water,

see the mess.

[I like the repetition or see here but again, I think you should take the 'you' out at the beginning of those lines.]


I hope that helps a little, you're doing really well with this, keep up the good work!

Heather xx

the lay out couldnt have been done any better. The story it was portraying and the sadness was heart breaking. I almost felt as if I were there witnessing these awful events as they took place, It was like i could feel the agony in this particular atmosphere, the pain and the suffering.
Well done for writing this Oustanding piece, it was brilliant.

The only thing that could have been improved upon is not rhyming and using a little tiny bit more alliteration but apart from that, I'd say that was fantastic. Well done.