On that night of side stream smoke,
I sat amongst men whose
shoulders’ slope showed
smiles that come hard fade harder,
like forcing beauty into stones.
Our friendship had lit oils at the
bottom of a tub of viles
we had drank in entirety earlier today.
I saw, in distance, ten thousand fireflies released,
behind which, a cloud of poison,
illuminated in the insect’s splendor,
touched a glimmer of fear
in every smoking soldier’s eye.
I wish those smoldering ghosts
hadn’t been hung so high.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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Original Text:
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125,007 Literary Works • 672,815 Reviews
I do believe you may be my favorite poet on this site, gummy. ^^ This is positively humming with imagery--even if there are a few spots in which the punctuation could use a little caffeine. ^~
Lovely beginning; I felt like I was personally being told a story.
A few points, few of them related:
(a) I happen to think that stones are pretty
(b) I don't think the stones line has anything to do with what comes before it.
(c) the second line was nice. Short, sweet, to the point.
My head is spinning in confusion.
The second stanza is a bit shaky on the whole, but it, and the poem, end nicely.
Besides punctuation as has been mentioned, I really liked this. The beginning was very catching and interested me with their rhythm. It was sort of choppy in the second stanza but that can easily be fixed by rearranging the lines. Great job on this.
Keep it up!
~Rieda
First off, here's a link that I think'll help, plus reading it will make Claw happy:
Poetry and Punctuation
Now, you've got a couple internal rhymes here, and they work nicely, but I think you could take that idea a step further. Try to incorporate another few rhymes into this, and I think it could really add to the flow.
S1 was difficult to know how to read, and the lack of punctuation hit hardest here. L4 is a good example of what I mean. Also, lines 6-8 are bordering on awkward in their wording.
S2 is very broken up in the beginning, and it makes for stop-and-go staccato reading, which really doesn't work here. In S2L5, I liked the idea of 'smoking soldier's eye', and I think you could even go further with it and tie in an image of a smoking eye, as well. If I'm making any sense, that is.
S3, I liked. These are two very potent lines, and they help tie in [no pun intended] the whole image here.
Overall, good imagery, you need to work on the wording and punctuation.
~Ed
It's looking nice as a whole. It flowed well and I like your use of description. I figured it was rather hard to understand the poem and align the stanza's to clarify what it is you were trying to say. But after re-reading it became clear enough to me
Makes up for the whole misleading trip created in the second stanza 
In the second stanza you deepen yourself in a certain topic, I have to say this is my favorite stanza it's very well described. Although it lacks a certain coherence with the stanza shown above. As if all of a sudden you were being way "off-topic". It's nicely written but leads the reader to another image until the last stanza where everything falls in place again.
You're ending, the cherry on the cake
Nice job, nice read.
Cheerios, Chandni
This poem is rather deep but, at times, your punctuation (or lack of) makes it hard to read and disrupts the flow. Also, the second stanza should start with 'I saw, in the distance' or I saw, at a distance.' Sometimes the is unecessary and can be missed out in a poem but here that's not the case.
Other than that, you use some interesting, rather unusual imagery and I generally like the poem so keep up the good work.