The Perpetually Incriminating Uncertainty of Us

Hi. Welcome to the party.

Ok, so I almost didn't read this because of its length. Not that a really long poem is bad (in fact many of my favourite poems are over a thousand words long), but around these parts people tend to keep away from very long poems unless you're well-known and very good. Galerius wrote some true monsters and he was both well-known and very good, but that was well before your time. Just a thought.

Anyway. This poem lacks one thing, and has too much of another. The thing it lacks is imagery. Imagery is the heart and soul of modern poetry (by modern I mean the last 200 years or so). Imagery is what separates poetry from things that aren't poetry. Prose fiction might describe action, or characters, or whatever, but poetry describes a moment. The key to writing the sort of poetry that's important, the sort of poetry that really gets to people is describing a familiar moment (like the one you have here) in a way that is both unique to you and resounds with the reader. This is done primarily through imagery. You have to take something that only you understand and put it in terms everyone understands. You with me so far? You have some almost-great bits here. Hypnotic in stanza 2, tracing a map, whirlwinds and hurricanes, squeezing into crevices, fingers brushing on hands, a poem cutting like something sharp, and a few others. These are a good start. But the trick to a good image is accuracy and detail. Once you've introduced an image you have to expand it, develop it, explore it. For example: "Frost on the grass". Great, an image. "The first frost of August, crisp and glassy, on withered grass that hasn't seen rain since last I saw you". Now a developed image, describing the attributes of the frost and the grass, and connecting them to an emotion that the reader can relate to. Detail, accuracy, specificity. Try working these things into your images. Also, to make a poem more coherent and to communicate your point more efficiently try connecting your images. Have a running theme. Maybe all ocean images, or industrial, or all about mould, or something I don't know. But try to link three or four or more images together one after another to create a sense of depth. For example, after you introduce the idea of the body being a map and stuff maybe throw in a bunch of other wilderness images to tie it all together. Remember, detail, accuracy, specificity, efficiency. These things make effective imagery.

Speaking of efficiency, that brings me to the thing we have too much of; everything else. Poetry is about efficiency of language; communicating complex ideas in a concise manner. Like I said, this is done through relatable, complex imagery. Everything else is just wasted space. To immediately improve this poem (and every poem you write) go over it with a fine-toothed comb and mercilessly remove everything that isn't imagery, then remove every image that isn't 110% vital to the meaning of the poem. The poem will probably end up half or even a third of its current length, but what you are left with will be much stronger that what you currently have. Good luck.

K.

I really like this poem. I feel like it's very emotional and you have a strong main point to it, but I feel like there are a lot of unnecessary sentences that you could cut to make the poem more concise. Maybe revising each little verse to make it 4-5 lines apiece at the most? I think that you have a lot of excess here, and if you just found the repetitive places in the poem and cut them, it would have a lot more strength behind it.
Keep up the good work! Thanks for writing!

First of all i like the poem I think that you get a good point across. A few suggestions I would give are first, shorten it. You have a very long poem here and it can get repetitive. Here is when you would want to take into account the Quantity vs Quality rule. While you have a lot of excellent words that convey your story, when you overdo it the feeling of the piece gets lost on the reader and the meaning of it gets muddled. This brings me to my next suggestion. I think that your poem would greatly benefit if you were to give better descriptive words than more of them. For example, when you say
"It seems

everything is a 'but' or an 'if' or an 'or'

I come up with excuses

that fly from the tip of my tongue

Only silenced by your tongue,

when I taste the inevitable."

First you shouldn't have "it seems" and "everything is a 'but' or an 'if' or an 'or'" on two separate lines it would sound better if they were on one line. I think that if you were to say instead,
"It seems that everything is an 'if' 'and' or 'but'
I keep coming up with excuses that fly from the tip of my tongue
but they're all sliced by your tongue
and I am forced to taste the inevitable."

it looks shorter and evokes more feeling. Other than these few details I think it is a great start. I look forward to reading another one of your works. I hope you continue writing and I bid you good luck with your writing.