Mountain Man

Hi! Very nice job!

I would say that I agree with Monsters. You shouldn't need a picture in order to create imagery in your writing. That's what writing is all about. You need to be very clear in the meaning behind the poem, as well as the description involved, or else the reader will get lost.

The reader's job is not to figure out what is going on, but rather to use your words and imagery to create an experience for themselves. You have to attempt to use color and adjectives and the like, even if it is an allusion to a vague part of the bible. The writer has to imagine all of this themselves, instead of creating a dull description. Think of a movie scene. How would you describe what a character or background looks like? It would need color and adverbs and more, and this is exactly what writing is, a picture in your head you must describe so that anyone can imagine it.

A few other technical things:
"within the husk of me"- 'within my husk' sounds a bit better. It's smoother and has a much better flow. It's simply easier to imagine.

"to the glimmering wreckage"- How about "to SEE the glimmering wreckage" (sorry typing on my ipad and can't use italics). The person isn't actually going there, so it's looking and not visiting the wreckage.

"I know if you saw them,
those scabbing scales would drip right off,
flowing down with the tears."

This part is very vague. I don't know what's going on here. Since I assume she's climbing up the man(?) you might want to mention it's HIS scales. Simply mentioning his name, Mountain Man, would help clear up some confusion in the work.

Also instead of drip, how about "fall"? Unless the scales become liquified, they can't drip off.

This is a work that has a lot of great things in it, and has the potential to get better. Please take our advice! We don't mean to sound cruel, only trying to assist in the improvement of your writing. Let me know if there's anything you need!

So this is not very clear which leads me to question what it is you are actually looking at. What do you mean by rotted scales? What do the scales look like? I would move to a lower degree of abstraction at the least- a slight degree of technical writing. What type, color, detail ect. are you refering to? It is gobbeldygook. What do you even mean by rotted scales? Sorry but I am completly lost and this needs some degree of clarification as it is now. It seems as if the whole poem was written with the intention to be cryptic.

Examples;
The clouds are casting you above them into a "fallen place," yet it is above the earth and you literally said you walked there up the mountain. Which is it?

Why is there bloodshed, enough to paint the river red?

Why are there mushrooms ON the clouds?

_
Anyways, this poem seems to be lost in translation. If you want to have a more hard hitting poem I would make it a little more obvious and use your literary techniqes to enhance your meaning and not hide it. Just an opinion.