Poetry / Core

This piece says a lot!!! Yeah, we can really feel your anger, pain and frustration due to the narrator’s experience of betrayal of this woman.  The narrator is not only upset, but has “reached his core..” reached his limit..of “enough is enough,” kinda attitude.  I also got the feeling that the phrase:

“This leech has now reached the core,”

may allude to the fact that the woman who has hurt and used the narrator has sucked the narrator dry…leaving him with nothing…left alone, high and dry.  That was my interpretation. I thought it would have been even more powerful, if you could have used more metaphors and imagery in your expression of emotions..just as you did in the last line “the leech….”  Just a suggestion, I think that would make your words scream off the page even more, as they already do.  Good job.

very nice poem of a couple who’s as in a depression suppressing age of zoloft and other anitdepressents is a ticking timebomb.  

when it’s going great – great
when it’s not going great – it’s horrible.

the first four lines hook you and want you to read through. and once you finish with the final handfull of lines it entices you to reread.

This is clearly an expression of deep internal anger, but I don’t see it as translating effectively to a poem with an audience.  It could potentially work in this form as song lyrics, but poetry in my opinion needs to go a step further.  The last line, “this leech has now reached the core,” could be a good jump-off point.  Why not turn that into a metaphor that runs through the entire piece?

There are many good images in this poem. I love the ending of the first stanza and the sad, but common truth it points out:  that it’s easy to stick by someone when the roses are in blooming, but much harder (and much more revealing) to stand by someone during times of difficulties and strife.
My overall impression is that it’s a little too general – it spans, so to speak, 10 years of time, and refers to general things that have happened which contribute to the mistrust which is the them of the poem.  From this point of view, it’s hard to be emotionally moved, or at least to be deeply emotionally moved by the content.  One way to overcome this, is to get more specific, either in the beginning or end, so that the poem has some momentum and purpose to it.  You sort of do this with the last time, but I think a little more would offset the generalities and give the reader some sense that the poem is reaching a resolution and that the writer is going to go now to a different place – that is, now that the leech has reached into the core, the “person” is going to do something different with the relationship.  However, because it’s so general, and because it suggests a long pattern of the person already recognizing that things have been bad over and over again, it’s hard to tell where the person might go – now that the leech has reached into the core.  In the very least then, I think you should give some indication of what’s going to happen next.  Is the person, despite of the leech, going to stay in the relationship? be consumed by the leech? will they break free, after these ten years of prison?  will they break free only for a little while and return, because that is all they know?  This is what, in my opinion, would take this poem up a notch or two.  

The second stanza is definetley overshadowing the first… I like the meaning behind the poem and the second part is fine just the way it is the first however needs some serious rewrite.  First get rid of the rhyming… if you want to stay in consistancy with the last stanza only rhyme the last two lines… otherwise just ex the rhyming all together… it throws off the piece.  I think right now that is your biggest problem.  Take care of the rhyming first and then see if the first fits better.

Wow, this is not at all what I was expecting.  Very powerful piece, with good use of emotion.  I really felt myself drawn along with this work.  Phrases like “Hold me up when life blesses, Kick me when life tests us” are incredibly strong, and come at the reader from a sideways point of view.  Also, loved the line, “Say you want to save this, But no effort is received.”  I’ve been through this time and time again with a lot of relationships, and I think this is a line most readers can identify with.

Not to nitpick, but I’m not sure that you need the commas at the end of every line.  They don’t really add or take away from anything… the eye naturally breaks there, so it’s a little redundant, though certainly not a deal breaker.

Also, the opening line seems a little less powerful than the rest of the piece.  I like the message, but the wording seems a little weak compared to the clear anger and fist-in-the-air feeling of the rest of the poem.  Maybe try it again a few lines into the poem, or tweak the wording so that the message is the same, but with a more powerful image.  I’d give you one, but I’m running on verbage-empty right now.

Great piece, constructed so everyone can identify with it, but still keeping it personal.  Going on the favorites list.

I think you should pick up your six-string and put this to music, as it seems more lyrical than poetic.

Cathartic to be sure.  I’m not too enthralled with the subject, but that’s neither here nor there.  To me, this kind of poem belongs more in a journal.  It just sounds like uncreative venting (which has its own value).  I found the first stanza too choppy.  You are cutting short sentences, which many poems do, but it sounds forced and inhibits the flow.  Perhaps if I read it more like a rap song, it would work better for me.  The second stanza is more coherent in its expression of thought.  I think some effort to make both stanzas adapt to the same rhythm might make this shine a bit more.  The only memorable and uniquely crafted line is the last one.  I suggest you take that last line and start a whole new poem with it, focusing on the metaphor.  

The topic is good, it’s just the way it translates into an unnatural speech partern. Does’nt sound like this is the way you’d normally talk.

This work is very creative. The  subject matters hits home for many who will read this piece. “go ahead and take another pill” How true this is in today’s world how many feel the need to take a pill to get through. “Hide behind your god” another point many will use not to deal with the real facts of their own life.