Watch It Burn

Spoiler

I am by no means a poet. I suck at it, quite frankly. Stanzas, rhythm, and rhyme are alien to me, so please forgive my lack of finesse. I wrote this in class and thought it was half-way decent enough to submit. Anyway, I hope you enjoy

We see the hurt
We see the pain
We see our world
Scream out again

And we say,
“Let it burn.”

Idle words and idle hands
Strangers in forgotten lands
Children found, more children lost
Gods forget the mortal cost

And we say,
“Let it burn.”

Chaos numbs the senses
Apathy we crave
In Heaven, we wish for silence
In Hell, they scream for names

And we watch,
As it burns.

Hey, I actually really liked this! You said you suck at poetry but this poem is quite good in my opinion! The rhymes didn't sound forced, the idea was good and it flowed quite well.

Idle words and idle hands
Strangers in forgotten lands
Children found, more children lost
Gods forget the mortal cost

This was probably my favourite stanza. The poem stirred up great ideas and imagery, especially this stanza.
The repitition of the "let it burn" worked quite effectively I think. The only criticism for this poem was that it was quite short. maybe just a bit more length and detail next time?
Anyway, well done

Hey, Paul! I had no idea you wrote poetry! You should do it more often. Here are my humble critiques:

PaulClover wrote:We see the hurt
We see the pain I'd say that hurt and pain are the same thing. Personally, I like "pain" better, so perhaps you could change "hurt" to something else?
We see our world
Scream out again
The rhyming pattern for this stanza is ABCB.
And we say,
“Let it burn.”

Idle words and idle hands Nice.
Strangers in forgotten lands
Children found, more children lost I don't know about this line. I would consider reworking it.
Gods forget the mortal cost Again, not so sure about this line.
The rhyming pattern for this stanza is AABB, which is different from the first stanza.
And we say,
“Let it burn.” Great repetition

Chaos numbs the senses
Apathy we crave How about sticking a "the" at the beginning of this line? Other than that, I like this line.
In Heaven, we wish for silence
In Hell, they scream for names
...And this stanza doesn't have any rhyming pattern at all.
And we watch,
As it burns.

Again, this is great. You kind of incorporate your apocalyptic-themed writing style into the poem, and I like that. Nice work!

-Kafka

Hey PaulClover,

You said you suck at poetry, but you've actually got quite some potential! Advice? Add a little more detail into it and maybe extend the stanzas just to add some direction to the poem. Otherwise, I thought it flowed quite well and you got the rhyming to a really great standard!

Have a little more faith in yourself. Best wishes for future writing!

RedLeaf

I really liked this! I thought it was well written and had a nice flow. It was very readable, and I wanted to finish reading it from the start, whereas some poems you lose interest in after the first sentence. I'm not altogether positive on the meaning behind this? After reading it several times I got the impression it was supposed to be angels viewing the world? Or maybe just life? Or maybe people's view on the world? Well, either way, it was cool and I thought it interesting!

Well done, sir! You have some good imagery going on, and as well as good repetition!

Here is my only suggestion though:

"Idle words and idle hands
Strangers in forgotten lands
Children found, more children lost
Gods forget the mortal cost"

Ditch the "more" part, I think the line would flow much better!

Other then that, this is really good for someone that doesn't consider himself a poet!

We see the loss, I agree with what the users above said, "hurt" and "pain" are quite the same thing, so perhaps "loss" or something else would be more suitable.
We see the pain.
We see our world,
Scream out again.

And we just say, I'd add "just" here to emphasise the fact that "we" do not bother doing anything else.
“Let it burn.”

Idle words and idle hands,
Strangers in forgotten lands. Beautiful lines! (those in italics)
Children found, more children lost;
Gods forget the mortal cost.

And we say,
“Let it burn.”

Chaos numbs the senses,
Apathy we crave.
In Heaven, we wish for silence;
In Hell, they scream for names. You create a nice concept here.

And we watch,
As it burns.

I hope you don't mind the punctuation errors I've highlited. It's not a big deal when it comes to petry, but I'm doing my job. ^^

And you certainly are not bad. That is a good start.