Scum Bags. Black Bags.

Hello, I'm Ashkitten and I'm here to give your poem a review. I'm going to hit you with the stuff I think needs improving first, and then I will tell you what I like about this poem. So first I see that wondering is used out of context and going from the rest of the line, I am pretty sure you meant wandering. An eye wandering means looking all around, an eye wondering makes the eye personified to think for itself and I'm pretty sure you didn't mean wondering. So next, you said the word shrunk a lot, the reason it's important not to repeat words a bunch inside a poem is because our minds have already captured that word, and when we see it over and over describing different things, our mind gets bored. However, a thesaurus can change a word that you say over and over into a bunch of different words that mean the same thing, so you give our minds more to chew on. repetition of words in a poem, unless for purposeful dramatic effect which you are not achieving here in this poem, makes the poem seem redundant and doesn't let the reader connect as deeply because description is key. Like if I had a poem where I said the girl is small, her small hands grabbed the small box. That would seem extremely redundant, even if I used it throughout the poem,
The small girl sang a song,
She dreamt to one day be free
Her small hands reached up high
Clear blue skies, she wished to see
She saw a small box, and in it a special key.
She unlocked the chains, and ran away
Now she could finally be free.

I wrote this on the spot to explain differences in repetition because I don't know any other way to explain it clearly without giving examples. So the word small is repeated and that makes this poem completely redundant. I could use the words little, small, then tiny, and it would make the world of difference. They all mean the same thing but I'm giving the reader more words to digest. keep in mind my poem was written only for this example so it's not polished but watch the poem transform as you replace the word small with little, and tiny. It doesn't make it seem as lazily written. So now it's,

The little girl sang a song
She dreamt to one day be free.
Her tiny hands reached up high.
Clear blue skies, she wished to see.
She saw a small box and in it a special key.
She unlocked the chains and ran away.
Now she could finally be free.

Now as you can also tell, the word free was repeated but that's because it's for dramatic effect, being that the poem is about her freedom, it is allowed because it's there for a dramatic conclusion. The poem wasn't about the word small, and repeating it had no dramatic effect, therefore changing the words with a thesaurus, and only using the word small once, helped the poem grow in the readers eyes. as poets we are expected to be a weaver of words. Think about that for a moment and imagine that each word has its own color, if we were actual weavers and we used the same colors over and over, that 1 color we overused would drown out the rest of the piece. I hope I have made it clear enough to you. I will tell you that a thesaurus is a poets best friend. It also helps you find more fitting words that roll of the tongue better, also, I feel like there could be just a bit more story to it. But I have a feeling that once you change the repetitive words, you will explore some new lines.

And the line two bodies in black bags as still as lead.

That line read awkwardly to me because lead is still because it's inanimate but it's better known for being a descriptive word for heavy.

The tenses are also confusing because the narrator tells it like its something that already happened yet you have present tense moments in it.

The scum bags won't stop for a dime.

There's two things I don't like about it. One that Won't means will not, which means it hasn't happened yet. Very confusing, unless however that is part of what the kid was saying to himself and that could be made by quotation marks, as well as when he says it is just a dream, quotation marks are needed there as well. And where his mother says beware of the black bags, that needs quotation marks because it's a quote his mother said. Be the other flaw with that line is that the phrase stop on a dime, means stop immediately, but I've never heard it used stop "for" a dime. Now are you trying to mean it that they won't stop for anything? Like money? Because a dime isn't a lot of money, and it just confused me, I've heard the phrase they wouldn't stop for a million dollars, because that's something that would get someone to stop doing something but a dime? I don't know I just don't buy into that line.
I really hope that helped. As other reviews have discussed the rest of the errors I will stop there with the critique part.

Now for what I liked... The title was intriguing, it definitely captured my attention and made me want to read the poem. It has a certain raw appeal to it I liked. I liked that the element of surprise was that the black bags his mother warned him about were body bags. I liked some of the description, I kinda felt like I was there watching this all go down. I also liked the amount of suspense. It kept me wondering, what was going to happen to the boy and his parents. Overall a pretty good poem and I look forward to reading more of your writing.

Hey there! This is a pretty good poem, but to me the rhyme scheme is a little sketchy. The meaning is good, but there are a few things I want to point out. When someone is reading this work, it is a little hard to read through, the lines seem kind of choppy and doesn't just flow together the way poems kind of should when you read them aloud. Then, there was a couple of grammatical errors.

"His palms sweaty, his head heavy," for this line there either needs to be a comma after head or a was, as in "His palms sweaty, his head was heavy."

"His father shrunk back with despair" in this line, shrunk needs to be replaced with shrank

"Under the bed he sat, shrunk" this line doesn't really make sense to me, because of the "shrunk" I'm not entirely sure what you were intending for this line

"He shrunk further low between the two cots" there needs to be a comma after further, since there seems to be a natural pause when reading

"The scum bags still wouldn't hault" it is spelled halt.

Other than that good poem with good concept.

Wow this poem had a very powerful story! I was compelled to read as this snippet of a demonic tale unfolded making the reader want to continue on after it had finished. Whilst this was a really good story and the rhyme worked most of the time, the rhyming scheme was quite confusing. I couldn't pick up a set pattern (which I like in poems) making me have to pause whenever the rhythm went in a different direction. However, if I were to consider this from another point of view... The rhyming being all over the place could represent the panick that this boy was going through - when we are in distress we make no sense. That is the only thing that I could pick up as note worthy. A cool poem! -Marshymallow