This War

I wrote this with inspiration from the songs; Critical Acclaim by Avenged Sevenfold, The Guillotine by Escape the Fate, Gunslinger by Avenged Sevenfold, Headtsrong by Trapt, One by Metallica, Pictures of You by The Last Goodnight, Scream Aim and Fire by Bullet for my Valentine, This War is Ours(The Guillotine Part 2))By Escape the Fate, To Live Is To Die by Metallica. Unbound(the Wild Ride) by Avenged Sevenfold, The Unforgiven 1,2, and 3 by Metallica, Wake Me Up When September Ends by Green Day, We Wont Back Down by Escape the Fate, Welcome to the Black Parade by My Chemical Romance, and 21 Guns by Green Day.

They dance in the open desert,
The machines blowing up their battlefield.
Screams fill the open day,
And brave soldiers die slowly.

Back home, the wives of the brave wait and mourn while they fight,
Blood staining their hands and fear easing slowly away.

As days turn into night and nights turn into day,
Their battle rages on,
Blood staining the ground their on.
They will fight their battle until they fall,
And they conquer them all.

United by and by,
They stay by their brother's side.
The desperate scream of the helpless,
Are muffled by the pounds of machines. 
Lifes are lost and some are undetermined,
But their battle rages on.

Hi there, Layla. (lovely name by the way. I baby-sit a little girl named Layla. She’s such a doll.)

Okay, first off, the list of inspiration probably wasn’t completely necessary. In fact, it may have been a little much. But that’s beside the point. I’m here to review!

Blood staining the ground their on

I just wanted to quickly point out that this is the wrong ‘their.’ You need ‘they’re.’

Back home, the wives of the brave wait and mourn whilethey fight,
Blood staining their hands and fear easing slowly away.

This here is a classic case of subject confusion. You start off talking about home and you start off making the subject seem to be the ‘wives.’ But then you move on and it starts to talk about the soldiers. The bolded ‘they’ should be changed to some sort of reference to their ‘husbands’ or their ‘soldiers.’

As far as the structure of the poem, however, I like it. The free form matches the chaotic theme of the poem which is always something to remember.

Overall this is quite good. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me!

~lilymoore

Hi,

The first line is interesting. I'd try to extend the dance metaphor throughout the poem.

I'd go through this and cut words like "battle" "blood" "brave" and instead describe these things vividly, preferably without using these words-I've seen them so much that I just sort of skim over them, and I think in a poem like this it's more effective to be graphic.

I'd also try reading this aloud because it's very bumpy in parts, for example in the second stanza. By reading it you'll get a better sense of how it sounds and be able to adjust it to how it should sound.

Hope this helps,
Jas

I like this poem. It shows the pain and anguish that our and other brave soldiers go through every day of their lives. This poem is one of those that will stay with you for a long time. You by chance a passifist? Because this is a quite passifistic poem, I personally think there should be more writings like this and we should stop and think before we go to war. Keep writing!