A hundred, a hundred and ten, a hundred and one.

Hey Matti!

Shady here with a short review for you this fine evening!

Overall, I liked this poem quite a bit. It was intriguing, and obviously filled with emotion. I'm not sure I fully understand the thoughts behind it, but it was definitely clear enough to get me thinking, and to appreciate the work and emotion you obviously poured into this piece.

The only thing I think I'd change is:

Someday, night clears; we see the stars.

~ This doesn't feel like a strong enough line to end this poem-- though the idea definitely is.

It just doesn't feel like the right...tense, maybe. (Sorry, my prose-reviewer is showing, I know. )

Try, maybe, something like "Someday, night will clear, and we'll see the stars."

Make it more futuristic, since you made the 'hope' present tense, and the 'despair' past.

Just my thoughts.

Great job!

~Shady

Hi mattimias, here are a few of my thoughts on your poem:

I see hope then, that in this world
We may someday behold the stars.
Despair that shadowed, misery that swirled,
Envy that darkened; all never a farce.

I like how you attempt the beginning here. You hold some promise that we will find something later with the line "We may someday behold the stars." It's very metaphysical. But instead of breaking free of those metaphysical bonds, you are held captive to them. Abstraction in this sense is doing little for you. "Despair", "misery", "envy", who cares? You don't give us anything other than a dark, swirling amorphous blob, so there is little the reader takes out of this.

An unimposing rhyme

Your rhyme scheme works here; it was nearly invisible to me until I looked for it, so that is good. Unfortunately I think the content here needs a rework, so that means completely altering your rhymes because you likely won't be using the same words. But I have confidence you would create the same unimposing scheme.

Yet still our hopes - that small, faint spark -
Remains within Pandora's box:
It cannot flee; we chained that lark;
We took the keys to all its locks,
And threw it down abyss most deep
That none will find it 'til Judgement Day.

This stanza tries to give a little more, but I think we're still stuck in the abstraction and violating some of the biggest rules of not writing melodramatic and purple poetry. In general, "abyss" is a tough sell because us readers have been assaulted with its use so much that it is rendered practically unusable.

The topic in the stanza also still lacks originality. The themes of faint hopes and escapes and all that needs new perspective, otherwise we are stuck with themes we can read from any ol' poem. Or read the same poem a thousand times. Nobody wants that.

"Judgement Day" is interesting to bring up here. Is it ironic? I am leaning toward yes, but you ought to clarify what exactly it is that we are looking for in the stars because that changes the meaning of including "Judgement Day" a ridiculous amount.

With that said, it does not speak well of your poem that we wade through all of the mucky abstraction and still come up short. You need to make clear what seeing the stars means. No skirting around this one, I'm afraid, because if you're going to use a metaphor, you cannot establish only one side of it and keep the other a secret.

Endure the torments. Survive all pain;
Never shall our heads be bowed.
Though walk we 'midst that dreadful rain,
Strode bloodied paths, wept tears that flowed
Someday, night clears; we see the stars.

Honestly that first line is a bit unbearable. It needs to go. It's rather juvenile and sounds as though it comes from a heavy metal song. And the imagery in this last stanza has little redeeming quality. I suggest scrapping it all and saving only the last four words since they are the most important to bring the poem full circle. But you need to do something else with this last stanza. The poem just collapses.