Published November 30, 2006
I have been in there for countless years,
My mind has been going as if with gears.
Countless nights I’ve lain awake,
My mind trying to formulate an escape.
Seasons gone by, their change unnoticed,
Prisoners gone, skinniest to hugest.
The prison yard was bright and dusty
The sheets and pillows were always so musty.
The walls always held an ice cold dampness,
The floor was dark grey, showing the prison’s glumness.
After three years, I had it all planned,
Outside of the prison there was a wide grassland.
Finally, the expected night had come, a storm rages,
Outside and I reviewed the plan I’ve had for many ages.
I grabbed the flashlight, I’d stolen, under my pillow,
And I pulled out the loose bars from my small window.
I set them quietly on top of my bed, and pulled the bench across to the sill
Over the sill, my sheets flew, while I moved by sheer power of will.
The lightening flashed across the dark night,
The thunder rumbled as if in a fight.
I slid down my sheet, into the grass,
Slippery and wet, and covered with moss.
Into the night, I flew unseen,
The day after, a cell, empty from my brilliant smokescreen.
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I know I'm repeating what others have said here, but in some places the rhyming sounds forced. Try perhaps cutting the rhyme altogether, or playing around with rhythm instead, and you could get some interesting results.
Places where the lines don't really rhyme:
Also with this one:
'a storm rages' may rhyme, but it doesn't make sense here. This is because it is in present tense, while the rest of the poem seems to be in past.
My favourite line was this:
It's simple, but it sounds good, as well as providing us with action.
So, overall, I would say that it's a pretty cool topic that you've tried to write about. Just remember that poems don't need to rhyme, but if you do decide to do something with rhyme, don't force it; let it come naturally and it'll be a thousand times better.
Keep on writing, Pros!
Kay.
(Critting for the Cabassi...
Very much forced the rhyming. Grossly forced. If you were to ease the rhyming, you would open so many doors for yourself. There are a million words to choose from out there and just because it's poetry doesn't mean they have to match up and rhyme so precisely. It's the difference between a smooth creek and a steep stair case as far as flow goes.
As always,
Miss POKE
I agree with M-M that your rhyming was forced. Also some of your lines were way too long.
Perhaps the worst part of this entire poem. The lines drag on across the entire page, you don't need the comma in the middle of the first line (this also happens in a few other places) "sill" is repeated too closely together, and "I moved by sheer power of will." is wordy.
Don't force a rhyme and don't randomly stick commas in your poems. Commas go where a pause naturally occurs when reading it out loud. Keep writing!
I wasn't sure about this, firstly the idea of entrapment and escape is quite a tired one, at some point we all feel trapped and as a result of that it is difficult to express entrapment in an original manner. My other big problem with this poem is the use of rhyme. I felt the the rhyming in this poem felt really forced, sometimes awkward.
"The walls always held an ice cold dampness,
The floor was dark grey, showing the prisons glumness."
And at other times not actually rhyming.
"I slid down my sheet, into the grass,
Slippery and wet, and covered with moss."
Rhyming is great if done well, but I felt that the rhyming in this spoilt what would actually have been an alright poem.
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