There was a man who lived in a shadow,
He only used to walk on the streets that were steep.
A peculiar man to most but he had an alluring scent.
He had no real home, just crawled under ladders.
Some may call him dark, to others he is the darkness.
He lives in the absence of light, his only friend is, the night.
He's that hidden figure you shine a light on and disappears in
an instant.
No one really knows who he is, yet he knows them all, face
by face, he even calculates their steps.
Has animalistic mannerisms but has no exact shape or form.
He times his appearances precisely, only out at sunset and sunrise.
Quick too, you would miss him at the blink of an eye.
He's a silent mover but intense, his presence is surely felt.
When the day turned into dusk, the shadow would disappear and so
would he,
The strangest thing about the shadow man is not that he lives in
a shadow, it's that the shadow he lives in isn't even his own.
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139,347 Literary Works • 672,539 Reviews
Well this is beautifully written and illustrated. I just envisioned this silhouette of a man roaming the cobble stoned streets of a little Italian village (I honestly have no idea where Italy came in). The poem itself is very illusive like the shadow man. Every time you begin to go into detail about the Shadow man you switch thoughts, like turning your head after you see the shadow in the corner of your eye.
The ending was wrapped up wonderfully when you started telling us about day turning to dusk it seemed to signal to me the end of the poem. And then wham! You hit me with the last line, and I was surprised and shocked and wasn't really sure what to make of it. My mind was reeling just thinking of how wonderful that last line was. I enjoyed reading this.
Hello. Welcome to YWS! I'm Sparkle. The name of this poem is what origionally caught my eye, because shadows are always an intersesting topic and have so many interesting and diverse interpretations. This poem has a very interesting theme and I like the general idea of the man who lives in the shadows.
However, your rhyme scheme was a bit awkward, especially in the beginning. You have some beautiful lines, but some of them don't work so well together, which distracts from the main idea of the peice. To me your second line in particular seems very forced and does not flow easily. This is a very good start, though, so keep at it!I can't wait to see what else you come up with.
Hello! Welcome to YWS, the most awesome place on the internet! I hope you're enjoying yourself on here. I'm Guineapiggirl, and I'm here to give you a review! Well done for doing so many reviews yourself already, by the way!
firstly, i really like your idea. I think a poem about their being a man in shadows is a very interesting idea.
I also think you have really good imagery and description and metaphors and awesome poetic techniques, so bravo on all of that.
Now onto the not so great things. Your lines have inconsistent syllables and your lines in a stanza and your rhyme scheme are also inconsistent. Despite this, I thought the poem flowed fine and, although I don't normally like that, I thought it was ok here.
My other bad thing is that you end with dot dot dots. Poems sort of need to finish. I don't know, this just doesn't feel very final and stuff. I think a full stop would be better.
Grammarwise, you're very good, so well done on that.
Oooh, the rhyming in this verse felt VERY forced:
There once was a man who lived in a shadow,
He only used to walk on the streets that were narrow,
A peculiar man to most but he had an alluring scent.
He had no real home, just crawled under a vent.
This is a shame because it's the first verse so it has to draw people in. It's a shame because the rest of your poem is very good.
So, in conclusion, well done! I hope I've been some help, and if you want me to review anything else of yours just send me a message!
This was fairly interesting. I liked the descriptions of him in the beginning. But if I might add, I agree that you have to make sure this doesn't sound like a copy of the Slender Man. Things like this, take away from your flow "The strangest thing about the Shadow Man is not the shadow he lives in a shadow, it's that the shadow he lives isn't his own.". So you should revise it a bit.
Hi there.
What I find odd about this poem is that you have a rhyme scheme in the first stanza, as if you're going to set up the whole poem in the same vein, but you don't ever do that. It's just the first stanza. I think that you should either have a rhyme scheme throughout the whole thing, or not have a rhyme scheme at all.
Some of your wording is awkward and not particularly poetic. This line in particular strikes me:
"a cross between" mixed with "accelerates" and "destinations" is really odd. I think you need to tone down the use of "fancy" words in this piece. Make it more conversational.
Also, I'd make it more of a narrative poem. Right now, it's just describing this universal boogie man, which is okay, but it's been done before. If you add an actual plot, I'd be more interested in reading it. As it is, I probably wouldn't read it again.
Your best stanza is the second one. You can work with this.
I have some suggestions for improving this stanza, though.
-italicize "is" in the first line. It'll put more emphasis on it.
-instead of "is" in the second line, put a colon after friend. It'll scan better.
-Don't go into second person POV in the third line. You can rewrite it like this: "he's a smudge of darkness gone before illumination" or something like that.
-add a period after the second face.
You can really take off from this stanza. If this one is first, you could easily make up a story about the "Shadow Man." Just make sure it's not too similar to Slenderman, though.
This poem has got potential to be great. I can't wait to see it when it's more polished. I hope this review was helpful to you. Happy poeting!
Thank you for your reviews, i'll try to revise this poem and i personally havent heard of the slenderman?
It's been slightly edited nw.