A friend of mine was writing a poem for a competition. The topic was good works and kind words. He hasnt finished it yet, but he'd like to get some feedback about what he's writen so far.

Good works and kind words
Make the world smile.
Kind words smooth the shadows from your face,
The glazed desolation from your eyes,
And the desperate search for someone.
Who can reveal the truth?
Whispers echo in your mind.
Your nothing but glass
People look but can’t see you
And the darkness that over comes you.
Its like you’re the only one here
No one can see you,
You just want to lie down, sleep,
And forget your troubles.
Tomorrow comes with nothing new
And nothing to look forward to.
Then something penetrates the dark,
Piercing through; black shards falling at your feet.
Shattering into a million fragments
Each a reflection of your face
Close your eyes, and breath
Kind words sooth your trouble mind
And a hand lifts you up
Good works help you on your way
And you shimmer with golden brilliance
Radiating warmth.
You feel away, and alive
Like all the shadows from your life are melting in the sun
And flowing away from you to hide in darkness.
And for the first time in days, the sun comes out

thats all he's written
your feedback would be much appreciated

I'm not very good at discussing poetry, so I'll just point out an apparent typo at the beginning of the eighth line (Shouldn't it say "You're" rather than "Your"?) and leave the rest of the thread to other people... unless & until it goes interestingly off-topic.

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Hopefully it will, but I promised him he'd get feedback. Don't make me a liar.

And I do believe it should be you're.



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Those who forget the pasta are doomed to reheat it.

To further pedant, I think it should be "close your eyes and breathe", not breath, and "troubled mind" rather than "trouble mind".

All the same lines as Magda...

I think "sooth" should be soothe.

I don't understand "you feel away". It shouldn't be "awake" by any chance, should it? Or "aware"?



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Could be away in the sense of getting away from it all.



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"I've often said that the difference between British and American SF TV series is that the British ones have three-dimensional characters and cardboard spaceships, while the Americans do it the other way around."
--Ross Smith

Yep., I wondered that too. Would it read more easily if

'black shards falling at your feet.
Shattering into a million fragments
Each a reflection of your face'

changed very slightly to:

'black shards fall at your feet,
Shattering into a million fragments
Each a reflection of your face.'

? Though it may mess up the scansion.



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If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

I hate to point out another typo, but here goes:

"Its like you’re the only one here" should be changed to "it's like..."

Also, the punctuation is kind of inconsistent which often becomes distracting.

There are some nice images, though.

And to think it was the best (and only) in his class...



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Those who forget the pasta are doomed to reheat it.