Never got a listening ear
Aways felt
-Felony fear
The end too far-
yet so near
Down rolled a traitorous tear
Didn't end my tale
-I was called queer
Empty head
Hell's frontier
Looked up,
Saw the devil's here
With a shiny knife
-a noose for me to wear
Squeezed my eyes tight
Muttering prayers unclear
Saw 'm show a toothy grin
-while i begged for 'nother year
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This poems headline grabbed me since it already evokes quite a strong sense of emotion an emotion we have all felt at least once. That unique blend of disappointment and anguish when the universe just dosen't seem to care.
The poem's first stanza and my personal favorite deals with the emotions the title evokes. The speaker here is lamenting about never getting a listening ear. He is also afraid of some sort of impending doom, most likely death considering the next few stanzas. The line that makes this stanza my favorite is "Down rolled a traitorous tear" As it casts the lines before it in a different light. What makes such a tear traitorous? Maybe that it reveals the speakers true emotions to those around him and if he views that as traitorous that would explain why he never got a listening ear. As he is afraid of opening up which then would link the lines about always feeling fear to more then the impending end. A hint towards this is calling it Felony fear linking fearing (showing emotions) to being illegal. All overall beautifully done and a great stanza.
This also starts your poem within a poem as all marked lines read together are
"-Felony fear
-I was called queer
-a noose for me to wear
-while i begged for 'nother year"
Which I think is a nice idea, but could be executed better by being linked more to the overarching poem. This mini poem is just a reiteration of the larger one, without adding to it. So its still very cool and a great Idea I might personally pilfer but it could be used to greater effect, like telling us more about the speaker of this poem for example.
The second stanza raises the interesting question of what almost ended or tried to end the speakers tale/life. Could it refer to the tear from stanza or the impending doom he will face soon or maybe an unseen force the one or ones that called him queer? If you want there to be a concrete answer you have not given one but If you didnt want to that is fine as well as it is a purely artistic choice.
"Empty head
Hell's frontier"
Is leaning more into the impending death/doom themes of this poem by conjuring images of someone at the gates of hell or starting to go into hell.
"Looked up,
Saw the devil's here"
Expands on the representation of hell in this poem by introducing the devil who is clearly intend on killing/hurting the speaker with his knife and noose.
Then the last stanza my second favorite recenters on the speaker and shows him still afraid of death and praying leaning more into religious themes which started with hell. The ending is also a nice cliff hanger and as Query said the southern accent in the last line and the noose also make me picture a stereotypical western-like execution.
The rhyme scheme in this poem could also use some patching at certain points.
All of the stanzas exept the first one seem to follow this formula
A
B
C
B
But in the third stanza here and wear, whilst looking similär do not actually rhyme when spoken out loud. Such is the folly that is the English language but we must work with it.
Overall I am a little bit confused about this poem and what you are trying to say with it. You build a lot "vibes" for lack of a better word, the frustration and the repressed feeling in the first stanza. The imagery of hell and the devil executing the speaker and so on but I can't make out what you are trying to communicate in this poem. Is is that isolation leads to death? Is it that fear of death leads you to the "execution"? Maybe I just don't get it and that's fine not everyone gets every poem, not every poem is written for everyone. I think the setup, so to speak, is really good, you just need a killer punchline and with that poem withing a poem you already got a great vehicle to deliver it with.
Hi! It's Cozmo here to give a short and sweet review!
To start off, I immediately noticed the heartbreaking emotion and tone of the speaker in this poem, almost like a scream for help or an exception of fate—it was hard for me to tell, but I thought it was cool to see both sides of the coin.
From the very first line, "Never got a listening ear," I could already tell the speaker's feelings and how they react to being ignored and pushed away when they need help the most.
The first half of the poem seems to be about the torture and pain that the speaker is going through, and we can feel it without too much explanation. In the second half comes the edge of the speaker's suffering, and the devil appears to be drawing them into this horrible fate.
It is truly a heartbreaking poem, it is fantastically written!
Well done!
3/31/25
Hey there, Pirategreengirl!
Welcome to YWS.
First of all, I want to say that I love the way this poem sounds in my head -- I think it's all the short lines, plus the recurring -ear rhyme you've got going on! It sounds like it would be a great poem spoken aloud.
In this first stanza, I love the phrases "felony fear" and "traitorous tear" -- they're very evocative and I like the alliteration!
I notice that you use these dashes, "-", both at the beginning and end of lines. Usually, dashes might indicate a break in thoughts -- like I'm moving onto this, now -- but that doesn't really seem to be the case in the first stanza. "I always felt felony fear" seems like it should be one complete phrase. Anyway, I just thought I'd point out that I'm not sure if the dashes are always helping your poem.
This stanza is interesting because it's like a collection of little short thoughts -- "Empty head / Hell's frontier" is really cool, even though I'm not sure how those thoughts are connected. I like the image they evoke!
The first two lines, "Didn't end my tale / I was called queer" make me wonder what the narrator's reacting to in this poem. In the first stanza, they aren't heard, so I wonder if that's the "tale" they weren't able to end -- because no one is listening. And in the second line, is someone bullying them?
I know you're working with a pretty short format and shorter, more ambiguous lines, but it would be neat to slip in a little more context, too!
I thought this stanza was a neat development in the poem! To go from the narrator's internal angst to sort of an externalized devil is cool.
I was a bit thrown off by the line ending in "wear," since you've been pretty firm about the rhyme scheme. While "wear" looks like it should rhyme with all of the other "-ear" words, it doesn't when said aloud, so it was a little off-putting.
That said, I can't think of an easy word to substitute that would have the same effect! But it might be worth thinking through your rhyme scheme to see if you really want to rhyme the same sound throughout the whole poem and, if so, the best way to make that work.
To me, this stanza fit the least with the others in the poem. Using 'im and 'nother, combined with the noose imagery and felony fear, I got a sort of wild west vibe all of a sudden. XD I'm not sure if that's what you were going for, but to me, it feels like a different tone than the beginning of the poem.
The lines are longer here, and the rhymes are a little bit pushed. It would be interesting if you added another line here connecting to the line above about the narrator not finishing their tale -- like, would the additional year give them the time to do so? And do we know if they got that request?
Overall, I really like the flow of this poem! It's quick-moving and the sounds of the language kind of suit that.
Story-wise, I can tell that the narrator is in anguish and sees death (metaphorically or literally) coming to them, and they want more time. But it's a little harder to tell what was happening with no one listening to the narrator and why their head is empty. I imagine the "fear" parts relate to death/the devil coming, but maybe there are other things they're afraid of, too! It would be interesting to see some of those ideas come together a little more.
I think you have some neat phrases in there that help to build the imagery!
Feel free to ignore any suggestions that don't suit you, and let me know if you have any questions.
-Q