Firelight

Beautiful--
in the light,
on the contrary.

Scorned quickly to dirt,
burned silent to a speck,
barriers of emptiness remain,
nothing left intact.

Smoldering dances,
involuntary; you're pulled in,
rays of light,
jumping playfully.

Incapable reins won't drive it away.

An unstoppable rage,
thirstiness is revealed,
the flailing streams
kissing the air.

Slim to no refrain is shown,
as you're swallowed whole,
only a spark remains,
though fury rages on.

Memories shattered in remorse,
only sweet water
may quench its thirst;
none persists even in thought.

Quickly--
you run away,
but find yourself trapped in.
Reaching; grasping;
nothing is supportive.

You wish,
but still there is no
safe haven;
all that was,
is no more.

Silently--
you hide out,
but firelight is too
deathly,
it wrings you by the neck.

Grey wisps of lies
suffocatingly choking you;
a tear slides down your cheek,
irony, your mourns,
bringing sweet water.

Pain is screaming;
the burns that
have cut into your skin
make you cringe,
as you struggle to breathe.

You sit unconscious;
darkness enveloped
in brutal firelight,
there is no escape,
not here, not now.

Hi there!
So I have to be honest. I didn't really like this. It read a little bit like a school assignment; like your teacher said to write a poem about fire and you did, rather unwillingly. It doesn't bring out the aspect of fire that is, well, fiery. Don't tell us that the flames pull you in; pull the reader in with your words. Where are the fast-paced descriptions of the leaping, biting, joyful flames? Of the smoke, maybe the opposite of the fire save its lack of physicality?

Fire is hard to write about. Really. It's captivating, but it's too fast to really observe. A poem about fire can truly reel you in, so don't give up. Please, please, please edit this to bring out the fieriness of fire, and them PM me so I can praise you wildly on the excellence, mkay??

Best of luck,
~Aussie

It really didn't make much sense. To me it feels like you threw a bunch of phrases together into a stanza, and just kept doing that the whole way through. I think with a bit more time and thought, you could make it great, so I wish you Happy Editing

Hi again.
Much better. I'm glad to see you edited it! There are still some things to work on, though; some of the lines don't make any sense to me, like this one: "Slim to no refrain to be shown", or this one "INcapable reins to drive it away." Good job, though. Best of luck in the future!

I found myself unable to focus at all while I was reading this. The problem, as I see it, is that in every single line you're jumping to something completely different and I can't follow the connection. I couldn't tell what it was about at all, what you were trying to say. Not that I would scrap this. Some of the individual lines have the potential to be very effective descriptions if you continued with them instead of immediately turning in the opposite direction. One suggestion I would make to help you sort out your ideas, is that you choose a few of these lines, take them one by one, and write about them individually; continue what you were saying with each line.

Another thing I think that would help with clarity in your piece is to divide this into stanzas. I think that would help you, as well as the reader, to sort out the ideas, and make sure that they all interact smoothly, and flow seamlessly from one to another.

Also, I want to point out that I liked a lot of the words you used. It wasn't too wordy, and made good use of your vocabulary. Nice job with that.

Let me know if you ever want me to take another look at this!

It's supposed to be like that, frantic, jumping from one idea to the next, like a fire. Fires aren't very focused in on one spot, they kiss the air in every possible space. So I wrote what I felt.

Hi, Fixed!


Not bad here! I'm with Adnamarine -- it was a little hard to focus, and I ready our note about it being like a fire, so I can understand your reasoning. However! It's not jumpy in the sense that there's a rush of ideas filling the air of the page, it's more jumpy in a sense that there are so many unconnected ideas, dearie.

And fires grow... they spread, and as the go on the consume and finish what they started, and here you should. Instead of moving so quickly from one idea, finish it, transition into the next one -- more words would make the fire effect truly shine here, dear; instead of pitching for short and sweet, why not go for thorough?

Lastly! Ellipses (...) in poetry are seldom beneficial.

June