Midnight Sun: Part I

The Nightmare Man



He finds you when you're sleeping.
He rattles on your door.
He makes your nightmares real,
He will make you beg for more.

No hole is small enough to hide,
Nowhere is left to run.
The Nightmare Man will find you
Beneath the Midnight Sun.

But don't despair, my children;
He hasn't found you yet.
I stand forever vigilant
Against the Devil's favourite pet.

But if he ever finds you,
When I am old and frail,
You must confront him face to face;
Tear off his darkened veil.

Only when he is no more
Will your dark thoughts cease.
But until that bright day comes, my love,
You must learn to love the beast.

I love it Aboslutely awesome!

How many parts will there be?

Brilliant work,
-Brie

Very nice!

Powerful imagery and flawless writing.

Keep it up!

~H.

Hey Karzkin,

I like this a lot! Very nice job! Especially powerful is your very last line--stunning and a perfect closing to a great poem!

There is one thing here that I don't understand:

He finds you when you're sleeping.
He rattles on your door.
He makes your nightmares real,
He will make you beg for more.

I don't get the last line of this. Why would you beg for more? Wouldn't you beg for it to stop? I know that this may be hard to fix because of the rhyme scheme but it stick out to me as a bit of a problem. Otherwise, you've done a really nice job with this. It has movement because you do tell a story, and it has depth in the last stanza.

Nice work!
Sare

Come on, you can do better than that.
What happened to your meter? You break it in just about every verse.

I think I've heard this one before? And I like the ideas in it. I like them a lot. But your rhythm, or lack of, kept throwing me off. The themes are nice, but please make them flow together better; they deserve it!

This is not a proper review sorry. I'm too tired. I might come back later and have another look.

until then I hope this is a little bit helpful.

- Em

just because the rythm is isn't consistant doesn't mean anything. I think I see rhyming uneven in famous poems, you can break rules all the time. This is great! except about the "beg for more" part

Wow!! This is positively brilliant!!!! I love every line! The picture made it even better. I can't wait to read more of your work! Never stop writing!

Personally, I can't see anything at all wrong with the rhythm. I thought it was regular as clockwork. Seriously, two people have mentioned it now - am I blind or something?

Okay, sorry my review was so unclear. I'll try to explain what I meant.

He finds you when you're sleeping. 7 syllables
He rattles on your door. 6 syllables
He makes your nightmares real, 6 syllables
He will make you beg for more. 7 syllables
With the first lines you set a 7 beats, then 6 beats convention. It works nicely and puts the emphasis on the right things. Then in the next two lines you break it. This makes it hard to read as the rhythm changes slightly.

No hole is small enough to hide, 8 syllables 8 beats then 6 works too, you just have to decide how many beats you want in each line and stick with it.
Nowhere is left to run. 6 syllables
The Nightmare Man will find you 7 syllables
Beneath the Midnight Sun. 6 syllables

But don't despair, my children; 7 syllables
He hasn't found you yet. 6 syllables
I stand forever vigilant 8 syllables
Against the Devil's favourite pet. 8 syllables
The last two lines of this verse read very clumsily because they're both a little too long.

But if he ever finds you, 7 syllables
When I am old and frail, 7 syllables (or maybe 6 if you rush 'frail')
You must confront him face to face; 8 syllables
Tear off his darkened veil. 8 syllables
Again with two lines of 8 syllables. Maybe you want to make that the convention for every verse?

Only when he is no more 8 syllables
Will your dark thoughts cease. 5 syllables
But until that bright day comes, my love, 9 syllables The flow of this line is all wrong. I don't know which beats should have emphasis and which shouldn't.
You must learn to love the beast.7 syllables

I hope that makes more sense? I think there are things you can get away with when you're reading aloud which don't work so well when other people read them to themselves. If you don't agree just leave it we all know that rhyming poetry isn't my forte, I just had trouble making it flow in my head.

- Em

Beautiful work. I love ho you're initially talking as if to children. Keep it up!

Thanks Em. Now I see where you're coming from. You make some good points. I agree, some lines are too long. I'll try to resolve some here:

No hole is small enough to hide

I stand forever vigilant
Against the Devil's favourite pet.

("Vigilant" should be pronounced "vig'lant" "favourite" should be pronounced "fav'rite")
I admit these two lines are disjointed, especially the first of the pair. But I can't think of a better way to put it. Thoughts, anyone?

When I am old and frail,
...
Tear off his darkened veil.

'Frail' and 'veil' are both one syllable each.

Only when he is no more
Will your dark thoughts cease.

The feet are turned in these two lines. I think it works, but I'm open to suggestions.

But until that bright day comes, my love,

This line is long, but if you squash the first two syllables it works I think.

Does this help?

K.

That makes more sense.
In my opinion though, you should write things the way you want them to be read, so abbreviate those words! Make them vig'lant, and fav'rite, and what have you. If Shakespeare could do it, so can you.
Haha, up to you, but I would write them that way.

It was a beautiful poem. The imagery was flawless. And the finish touched perfection. Looking forward to the other part's. =)