The Fire

thanks for the responses. They were very helpful.

This is an interesting poem. There were parts I enjoyed, but others seemed to drag it down.

Kindling,
Piled high upon yesterday's ashes
Gathered, clustered.
Within the boundaries of stone and steel.
Within the scorched depression upon the pillar.

Then, a flame.
Erupting, blazing through its predecessors.
A sun's magnificence, contained within man's grasp.
Beauty in its entirety.

My first impression of this is that it flows smoothly and you have a lovely theme. I would suggest that it feels more like narrative poetry than lyrical though? Because it tells the story of the fire rather than the emotions that fire evokes.

Your use of structure is good but I think it could be improved. It might be possible to construct your line in such a way that either the words build to reflect the fire building or maybe you could have the lines grow longer and then shorter in a cycle to show how flames flicker. That would look really good.

Where grammar is concerned, I think you have too many full stops. Fire does not start and stop, it's continuous and in places it would be more logical to use a comma anyway. Here's a line by line -

Kindling, [Good, strong first word.]
Piled high upon yesterday's ashes [Semi colon here perhaps?]
Gathered, clustered. [Comma would work better here.]
Within the boundaries of stone and steel. [Again, a comma would fit here.]
Within the scorched depression upon the pillar. [I'm not sure that depression fits here. Perhaps crater would work better because it has more implications of fire.]

[If you decide to try the structural style that I suggested above, for this first stanza you could have it like -

Kindling,
Piled high upon
Yesterday's ashes;
Gathered, clustered,
Within the boundaries
of stone and steel,
within the scorched
Crater upon
The pillar.

It's an excellent stanza even if you keep it as it is.]

Then, a flame. [I love the simplicity of this line!]
Erupting, blazing through its predecessors. [I can understand what you're saying here but maybe be more specific? Maybe 'across its predecessors' grave would work better?]
A sun's magnificence, contained within man's grasp.
Beauty in its entirety. [Lovely stanza but maybe end on a note as simple as you started with. Maybe 'Entirely beautiful.']

Then, the parchments.
90 years, a century. [Write it as ninety. It's much more professional.]
The works of one, the love of many.

No. No!
Heat approaching,
Closer,
Now choking,
Stifling,
Yes. [Good stanza. I like how it ends on yes and starts with no. If you went with the structure style, you could have these shorter stanzas as half flickers so the first goes short to long and then the next long to short?]

One is cast,
12 years.
The next,
30.
Two more,
55. [Again, write your numbers out in full and I'm bnot quite sure what this is referring to? I get the feeling that the poem is about a specific event, one I have no knowledge of. In which case, I can't really comment on the relevance except to say it will confuse those who are unaware.]

Another,
Another.
One remains.

Sweat,
Tears.
It must be done.
It must!

Delay,
Release,
Collapse. [I like your choice of words here.]

The end.
All because of a fame, [I think it should be 'flame' yes? Or maybe frame?]
All, because of fire. [If your previous line was frame, I think you should switch it with this one so you end on the same note you started with - that of wood and fuel. That could really add to the cyclical imagery you have.]

Overall, I really liked this. I think you could have used stronger words in places and I wish I understood more of what the numbers are about but it's very nice. Good work.