The world grows older
But its people ever younger
A diminishing earthly feast
With eaters mad with hunger
Man, a minuscule beast
A plague on healthy order
Digging graves with smoke and steel
Damning all to wreck and slaughter
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This is a punchy poem, getting a lot into a really small space. There's a lot to dissect here, and I like that. You do a lot of juxtaposing of opposites and playing on ironies. I feel like the message of this piece is that humanity is destroying itself. Whether it's referring to climate change specifically, or other self-destructive tendencies, war, etc, it doesn't need to specify.
One thing I want to common on is the rhyme scheme. I'm not sure about it. So it's:
A (older)
A (younger)
B (feast)
A (hunger)
B (beast)
A (order)
B (steel)
A (slaughter)
For some reason at the end I was expected it to end on a B instead of an A. I don't know enough theory to understand why that is, or if was just me, but I thought I'd let you know. Maybe I subconsciously assumed it'd end on the one it didn't start on. But for some reason, I found the rhyme scheme jarring. What makes it so difficult is it's so close to having a pattern: if there was a B between the first two As, you'd have a structured A/B/A/B rhyme scheme. But maybe it's intentionally a little off, since the message is that not everything's alright, instead, everything very wrong and destructive, and it should make the reader a little uncomfortable? I'm not sure.
Hope this review helped a bit.
-tgirly
Hey there LewisPencastle2! My name is Tuck and I'm delighted to be reviewing your piece tonight. Let's get started!
My overall impressions were that even though this was a short poem, it did a good job of still having an easy-to-follow plot with some exposition and set-up, a climax, and a resolution. I also liked that you consistently used a higher, elevated tone throughout and were consistent with that. You also conjured good images with your vocabulary and that helped to make it more vivid.
Two lines that confused me were the first two, "The world grows older // But its people ever younger". It didn't seem to contribute to the overall meaning of the poem, and also was a contradiction that didn't seem to be fleshed out like it needed to be. Maybe this is just a me thing, but either way it's worth considering that some people might be confused by that and consider how you could make it more clear.
A more minor, nitpicky detail that I thought I would mention briefly is that I would have liked to see the title tied more into the poem. It was a fitting title, but you didn't mention the idea of a zenith or a height at all in the poem, so just slipping that in somewhere would have made the title fit more with this particular poem and tied it together.
The consistency of your metaphors revolving around the theme of consuming and taking, taking, taking until there was none left was fantastically done as well! You used strong literary images here to extract the appropriate reactions from your reader, and it was truly masterfully done. It's clear that you have experience both reading and writing poetry, and there's not much else I can critique about this! I hope to read more from you in the future, and in the meantime, keep writing and perfecting your craft! You're headed towards truly great things, and I would love to be a part of them
If you have any questions whatsoever for me please don't hesitate to reach out; I'd be happy to reach out!
~Tuckster