The Caretaker

The sun slowly sets, over the empty school,
From the shadows, appears a darker shadow.
Walking proudly, locking doors, gates, windows,
Trapping the school within the darkness.
The Caretaker has come, finally out to play.


Keys and knives jingle and jangle.
A crooked grin on that pale cold face.
One approaches him, offering him gold;
“I was taken by a Life-taker”
The Caretaker laughs, freezing all nerves.


The Caretaker reaches out to the soul;
“I am the Undertaker” Not the Reaper, no!
Old Death hired this Caretaker to care for,
Those in need of care; an Undertaker;
“I am the Undertaker of the night”


Death rests on his armchair, puffing away;
“Good old Caretaker” as one arrives.
“The carer of the dead” he grins his eternal grin;
“Is my own Undertaker” So at night beware;
That Caretaker, Cares for the Dead.

Hello,
This poem was written in my writering club, one of my last sessions before I had to quit, and its one of my favourites. I don't mind you lot picking it apart, as I think it needs to be shaped a bit more - There are some areas which just don't feel right at the moment; but that's just me. I may be over reacting about my work. Sometimes edting and changing a piece too often can ruin it.
So please give a read.
Thankyou

Hey!

First off, in general, I really like the idea of this poem. It's quite original. The only thing I didn't really like about it was the repetition. Sometimes, repetition is good in a poem, but with this one, it didn't work. Also, here:

The sun slowly sets, over the empty school,
From the shadows, appears a darker shadow.

The commas don't really make any sense to me. The pauses they create are kind of strange, and don't flow well for me.

Unfortunately, I don't really have any specific pointers on how to improve this, but hopefully my general comments will help!

~Sporky

The pauses are made as its a performance poem. You read it aloud as if in performance; like at a poetry slam

Hi Fantasy!

I'm not quite feeling this poem. I mean, it seems mostly like this poem is an excuse to talk say "blank-taker" over and over again. Why does it matter that this caretaker works for school... and death? Why does he have knives? Why is one approaching him for gold? I mean, it's your poem so you can totally twist it however you want. But, because it's so different from reality, it really loses its impact. The words you are using don't really mean what they are supposed to mean, so everything is awkward. I suppose you can look at it as a poem that shows the futility of language and a language dying off, but I think you can do better than that.

All in all, it seems to be more of a glorified tongue-twister than anything really meaningful. I say scrap it and go on to bigger, better things.

I liked the ending, but the Caretaker locking up the school didn't make much sense to me. Why a school? Why not a Morgue? or a Library? Or perhaps a prison? It's just a bit con'fusing is all, but other than that it was very fun.