Blood, water, and tears (version 3)

See here where destruction rules,
Where winds race and rush,
Where water rises and crushes.
And above rooftops
Lay, unmoving, the scared, pale bodies of the dead

Look at the houses torn down and lost,
Look at the streets;
Bodies and blood blending with water
The music of happiness replaced with this mess;
This dirt and mildew,
The scent of death.

Remember the jazz?
The parades?
Will they come back?
Or are they destroyed, gone,
Like the houses, the streets,
All the delicate lives.
The winds are their murderers,
The water, just a weapon.

Drive through the ruins,
Stare at the houses;
See the marks of death.
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;
Whose unfulfilled life was taken,
Taken without a thought.
Whose family was torn apart,
Isolated by these merciless winds

Ah this is an excellent improvement, you've come really far from your original poem and I think the only extra insight I could offer is that you should check your punctuation. The flow is smooth, the words powerful and the narrative has a nice touch of haunting. I'd maybe suggest that debris is a better word than 'mess' but in general, good work! Keep up the improvements xx

I must agree with Kitty, you've come really far on this piece, and, I must say I'm impressed. I've noticed (I lurk a lot here) that most people don't re-post the work. I think that continually posting your work, even edited ones like this, makes you only a better writer. I know, I'm a hypocrite, as I've not posted anything yet. >.< But still, I'm proud of you for continuing with this piece.

The flow has greatly improved, I remember how...unclear and vague it was before at places, so good job! xD

The punctuation is a bit off in places, so be careful with that, but it still has some improvement there.

The words are much more powerful, I agree.

misfit-writer wrote:It makes you wonder...
[s]Wonder[/s] what stories lay in this past;
Whose unfulfilled life was taken,
Taken without a thought.
Whose family was torn apart,
Isolated by these merciless winds

I think 'wonder' doesn't belong there because of the fact of it being in the line previous. I don't know why, it bugs me >.>

Another thing is that you should really slow down on the semi-colons...there I go being hypocritical again.

But otherwise, it was great, you've really, really improved an already great piece. Excellent, you deserve a star!

Be prepared..

I have NO experience when it comes to poetry, hence my opinion can't really count, but I really like this! Your style, the wording, the idea, it was all amazing.

Keep writing!

Hey Misfit!

I second Kitty! This is an extremely well improvement from your first attempt. I'm so glad to see that you used the tips thrown out there; you've really improved this poem.

See here where destruction rules,

Where winds race and rush,

Where water rises and crushes.

And above rooftops

Lay, unmoving, the scared, pale bodies of the dead

I would suggest possibly leaving off the period in the third line and replacing that with a semicolon. I would also suggest changing above to upon, or another synonym, because above kind of makes it sound like they're floating in mid air.

Drive through the ruins,

Stare at the houses;

See the marks of death.

Look through the broken window;

See the blood on the wall,

See the water,

See the mess.

You have a pretty powerful way of wording up until this point. I would say that the stanza when questions are raised detracts from that power a bit, because you're not narrating anymore. You're ask, ask, asking us, and we don't have the answers.

Rather! I feel that this stanza also detracts a lot from the strength of the poem, because you were asking, and now you are commanding us to do something. This is taking on a whole different sort of power; instead of narrating, you're telling us what to do. We just want to feel the sympathy brought on by the narrative, dearie.

Aaaand:

It makes you wonder...

[s]Wonder[/s] what stories lay in this past;

Whose unfulfilled life was taken,

[s]Taken[/s] without a thought.

Whose family was torn apart,

Isolated by these merciless winds

You have clean lines throughout the poem, until this point when you start using repetition. It's not a bad thing, but I don't feel like it's the best thing to use in this poem!

With that said! I also am not so fond about the first line. You are telling us now what we're doing, and this is also taking power from, and putting a new power there. =P So, I would maybe drop it or replace it with a less demanding line.


At any rate, this is a major improvement and a beautiful piece. Keep it up.

Best,

Juniper