Demolished Peace

Hey there, Rhia here to review.

First off, maybe you already know this, but I'll share just because I wish someone had told me earlier, to get rid of double spacing between lines you hold shift+enter. Then you can use plain old enter to get a space for stanzas...

...which leads me to my first nitpick. THis was long, which is fine and dandy, but there are no stanzas, which makes it just trudge on and on. Think about splitting it. And, just because the conception seems to be that all stanzas need to be the same number of lines, they don't. You can put stanzas in any time you feel like the pause will have a good effect on the reader.

My only other nitpick is that some, actually, most, of your rhymes are tired, worn-out, cliched rhymes. When I read the word "fate" I immediately expect to be reading "late" soon. So, I want to be pleasantly surprised and not read "late". Then, I do, and it kinda takes some of the intrigue. You did better than lots of people who rhyme their poetry. On this site, so many rhyming poems not only used cliche rhymes, but write lines that are awkwardly worded just so they can have a rhyming word at the end. In those, the theme and meaning almost gets lost. Don't think that I'm picking on you because I know how hard it is. I rarely rhymme because I so often get terribly involved in making it rhyme, use cliches, and just lose the truth and feeling to my work. So, my advice is a) try more internal rhyme-words rhyming within the line has that same desired repetition and flow, but avoids that choppy stop go beat. Also, you aren't stuck to one rhyme scheme. You can rhyme within the line as little or as much as you want. This is what I usually use if I want to rhyme. It's kind of like the alliteration of rhyming.
b) Practice slant rhyme. Honestly, this is harder than regular rhyme. If you read some of Purple's work on here, she uses slant rhyme beautifully. Anyways, those are what uneducated people dismiss (incorrectly) as "almost rhymes", which is the gist of it, but it works better than rhyming. That subtle change in sound is unexpected to our minds as we read, which draws our interest in, surprises us, causing more focus rather than a loss of interest.

Here's a great example of slant rhyme I found in a Dickinson poem
The Soul Selects her own Society
Then shuts the Door
On her divine majority
Obtrude no more

Unmoved, she notes the chariot’s pausing
at her low gate;
unmoved, an emperor is kneeling
upon her mat.

I’ve known her from an ample nation
choose one
then close the valves of her attention
like stone.

It's different, so it's more interesting.

Okay, other than those things, I loved the idea behind this. You had a lot of thought and a lot of truth to it. THe meaning was well thought out, and like I already said, you didn't sacrifice the sense of it or the meaning for your rhymes. Overall, very well done. Keep it up!

The meaning to this is just.... Wow. When I was reading the first part, I was a little hesitant, and I didn't think I would really like it. But, I was so wrong, this is wonderful. What you are saying about humanity and life is very clear, but at the same time, not over done (I hope that makes sense).

The only thing I noticed is that some of the lines (more often in the beginning than the middle or end) are lengthy enough that it seems rushed and forced. I would maybe cut out some of the extraneous words or use other words that don't require as much breath. For example, "Evil is here, whether you like it or not, we can’t be endeared,". I would take out the 'whether you like it or not' as that is implied throughout the poem. Rather, I might say "Evil is here, and we cannot be endeared."

This poem really is incredible!

--Grey