Ashes to Ashes

Hello~
I like how halloweeny this was. It reminds me of a witch’s chant/curse.
There were some problems with it, however.

Let’s do little nitpicks first.

ashes to ashes

So, you have to be kinda careful with capitalization in poetry. I noticed that you didn’t capitalize the first line, but you did capitalize the second line. You can do what you want with capitalization, but it’s always nice to be consistent. For example, what I do is I capitalize like I would in prose: I put capital letters after periods, but don’t capitalize every line. Some people decide to capitalize every line. Some people decide that they don’t want any capitalization. Whatever you choose, though, should be consistent. So double check through all your capitals, and decide what system you want to go with. ^-^

Your frail bones have turned to rust,

So here we get into the other finicky thing about poetry: punctuation.
Again, you can choose how you want to punctuate, but I would recommend that you punctuate the way you would prose. I find that it helps for both clarity and rhythm. So for this area, you might say:

Ashes to ashes,
dust to dust,
Your frail bones have turned to rust.
The demons have marked mine love:
Your pain and suffering shall be enough.

So I punctuated that the way I read it, although you might think of it another way. This also leads me to another nitpick: “The demon's have mark mine love,”
That’s just not correct. You’re saying with the apostrophe that the demon has something, or is something, but the rest of the line doesn’t fit. Also, I think you’re trying to use Old English, but I feel that “mine” does not fit here, even though old English says it should.

So for the punctuation, I would recommend that you go through this and punctuate it like prose. I know a lot of this is a list, but even lists need verbs in poetry that has any verbs at all. Maybe you could use the word “add” or words like that to make coherent sentences. Let me know if you need any further help with this.


So as for actual content, I think that this could be improved. It’s all fine if you’re just going to read it creepily and scare people, but if you want it to be an actual poem for people to read, ponder, understand, and enjoy, it needs to have a little more substance than it has now.

ashes to ashes,
Dust to Dust,

These lines are so overused. I know they’re probably what inspired this poem, but they’re used everywhere, and I can’t count the number of poems I’ve seen them in. They’re cliché. I’d rethink them if I were you. You can still keep them if you really want to though.

Dust to Dust,
Your frail bones have turned to rust,

So you have some rhymes in places, but the rhyme isn’t consistent. Like capitalization and punctuation, rhyme needs to be consistent. So, either make the poem rhyme in a pattern, or make none of it rhyme.
Also, the rhymes that you do have are so forced. You can see them coming a mile away, and that’s not a good thing. That might convince you to not rhyme any of this, but witch brew rhymes usually do rhyme, thanks to Shakespeare.

Okay, so this next part might sound harsh, and I don’t mean it to sound harsh, I’m just trying to help you, kay?
So your lines… Basically every one of them is nonsensical, cliché/overused, or boring. Or some mixture of those. I’ve pulled some examples.

Your frail bones have turned to rust,

Bones turn to rust? That strikes me cliché, and it also doesn’t make much sense. How do bones turn to rust? I know it’s a spell or whatever, but something that makes so little sense so early in the poem isn’t a good idea. Maybe you can mention magic or spells or something before this so it makes sense?

Your pain and suffering shall be enough,
A heart from the silent,

Cliché. There are a couple words that are just cliché almost all the time. Some of those words are pain, suffering, and heart. Silent is also a word to look out for, although it is not /always/ cliché.

Marks the ingredients for time to last,

This line doesn’t make much sense. I think it’s just something grammatical. Read it out loud to see if it makes sense to you, because it sure doesn’t to me. In fact, read the whole poem aloud. That always helps.

You have taken thy heart,
Of the one where we part,

Here’s another example of your forced rhyme, as well as the clichéd word heart. Also, your use of the old English here again feels out of place.

Etc. Etc. it goes like this through the whole poem.

Anyway, I liked that you wrote this near halloween~
Seasonal poems are always great in my opinion.

Good job, Keep writing!
~fortis

Spooktacular! This is Margo Seuss here for a wicked review on this fine Halloween Christmas. First of all I'd like to say that I love LOVE the phrase 'merry agony.' It's so...paradoxical!
Your repetition of the famous words 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust,' was excellent too. I can see you took the whole 'Ring around the roesy' idea one step further.

What I would reccomend would be to capitalize only the first letter of ever line. Your first line contains no capitalization and your second line has two capitals when there should only be one on the first word.

The demon's have mark mine love

This should be:

The demons have marked my love

In this case you are only pluralizing demons as appose to showing possession (which is when you use an 's).

Attempt to break this poem up into stanzas. This will make it easier for a reader to understand and enjoy. Maybe try breaking it up ever four of five lines. It would also be effective if you made the ashes to ashes, dust to dust one line.

Example:

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
Your frail bones have turned to rust.
The demons have marked my love,
Your pain and suffering shall be enough.

Another thing you could try would be to come up with a consistent rhyme scheme. From your first few lines it would seem that an AABB sort of pattern would work. For example, you have dust, and rust; and love, enough. I would try keeping the rhymes solid. Enough doesn't rhyme with love. You could try something like:

"The demons have taken my love,
A soul thrashing below not above."

If you do choose to go with a ryhming scheme, it would be okay to break it on the last line. This (I think) would emphasize those great last words:'We all burn down in merry agony.'

Great job with this poem. I can tell you have a way with words. I hope my suggestions help, and rememer: a good work is never finished.


Writing is all about experimentation!