Ye There be Goblins

Goblins dancing in the air,
singing songs full of despair.
Shadows in the dark,
as they chant ancient spells long lost.
Tribal fires with bright blue flames,
smoke rises in the midnight sky.
Human presence, long gone.
The forest remains undisturbed.
An owl hoots, a cricket chirps.
The fire blazes from the earth,
the eerie smell of roasted flesh.
Marks on trees of battles lost,
tales of struggle told from the trails of blood.
Ye be warned of little men,
ye be warned of death where civilization ends.

Hello, Crescent. Tassen Spellbinder here to review your poem.

"Goblins dancing in the air,
singing songs full of despair."
-- If you could find a way to make that not rhyme, I would do so. Have only a few lines in an entire poem rhyme is disconcerting.

"Human presence, long gone.
The forest remains undisturbed."
-- I notice that, until this point, you had a pattern of
(line),
(line).
but you break that pattern here. I would suggest restoring that pattern, and holding it through the rest of the poem.

"Marks on trees of battles lost,"
-- I would edit this to read "Marks on tress tell tales of battles lost,". That way, you keep with the 'tales' mentioned in the next line, and give the poem a better flow.

"Ye be warned of little men,
ye be warned of death where civilization ends."
-- Honestly, I do not like the repetition of ye. I would make the first 'ye' into 'you are' or something like that, and leave the second one alone. Have repetition in two lines only throws the reader a bit. Also, I would consider breaking your last line into two lines for emphasis and to keep the length consistent.
'Ye be warned of death
where civilization ends.'

That aside, good poem! Keep up the good work.

Hey, Crescent. I really like the idea of this poem because it's not something I see often, so it was rather refreshing. But it was lacking, and I think it would only take a little effort to make it really intense.

Basically, besides, fixing the title (because I don't think it makes sense), you should put a magnifying glass over this poem. I felt like in order to really get the feeling that I think you were trying to portray, you had to take us deeper into that environment.

So, there's a fire. Tell us about the wisps of that fire and the way the flame licks at the sky, or tell us exactly how the cricket's chirp echoes and bounces between the scarred trees.

To return to the problem with the title, I don't think you really need to add the weird, old language to this poem, because if you work it right, the tone will be there all by itself and we will feel the age in your combination of different words rather than the specific words.

PM me if you have any questions!

-Hannah-

Nice poem! It has good flow and the rhymes tie it up well. Though somehow your style doesn't seem to suit the topic, Goblins in a forest make you think of something dark and mysterious, though this poem sounds a little like a sailor's song (Don't get me wrong, you do have genuine talent, which in itself is quite rare, just try choosing topics that you are little more at home with).

Looking forward to more poems
Dave