This is Kaos here for a review!
The flow in the first stanza is or feels a tiny bit off to me when you read it aloud because a lot of the lines feel like they stop and then start going again. It kind of felt like each line stopped for a moment, and then starts again. The lines have trouble connecting and transitioning with each other, and if you read it aloud, it shows. The lines just felt a little individual and I thought you could connect them more, possibly.
The imagery in the first stanza gives off something pretty strong but I think you can add more to it. Who took the chairs out of the room? A more impacting thought, who took his chair out of the room, or was it left there to be the only one still there? I also felt the last three lines were a little lacking compared to the other ones, probably because it was just a little typical to me and I thought having some imagery with the faded noises of instruments would work well in the first stanza as everything just feels like it's kind of fading and it would definitely add to the atmosphere of it.
Those fade away,
and I am left with the wind,
vainly trying to drown out
muffled tears.
The lines here could use some rewording so that it isn't as awkward, and it would also be good if you put a period somewhere in the middle of this stanza and then rework the second set of lines so that they can stand up on their own better. The image here was weaker and the piece here could use some stronger images. So now the speaker is crying and I didn't really get the phrase "muffled tears" and thought you should elaborate. How do you muffle tears?
The third stanza did what it needed to do, but it didn't really do anything more. Add to the idea of grief and don't just go with what's usually associated with it, transform it into something that's your own. My problem with it was that it didn't try to explore anything more and I thought that there were things that the first stanza had set up for but were never really used. Maybe only music can break that silence, because that's where the poem started out on and you kind of drop it until later on in the poem.
In the fourth stanza you had a sort of interesting idea with a stranger 'midst mourning, I interpreted this as you didn't know the person too well and you instead watched and was in the middle of the grief that was happening? The lines here are more generic which was disappointing because there were a lot of images that you could have chosen to create with it. I wanted you to expand on the speaker not knowing the person and it hurting more to acknowledge that they weren't the one that was directly affected though it did spread to them. An image. Sorrow spreading like it is a rash. Write images that make people think in a new way rather than just going with what's the norm and writing about lost souls or tears. Express it through those images, and you may ask how to create those. You have to think of what it /feels/ like to you. Is it eating away at your stomach? Is it dull? Is it a sort of numb?
The second to last stanza didn't really do anything for me and I was hoping that there would be something that rides back to music, because there's a lot of things you can do with the concept of music. It would be good to put this in the second to last stanza instead of what you already have because it's what you already said before in a sort of less depth.
The last stanza felt like it could potentially be a really powerful and dynamic ending but the wording on the first two lines kind of killed it. I suggest playing around with taking out "will not" or making "cannot" "can't" and then taking out the "will not" or something else you can think of.
I hope I helped and I wish you well.
Points: 220
Reviews: 1081
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