Great opening! Those first two lines both draw the reader in and set an ominous mood. "The wicked know their decent" has a problem though. Either "their" is supposed to be "they're," or "decent" is misspelled, and you meant "descent." After the 3rd line, the poem jumps, and I can't follow it. I assume you meant "descent," and then that "It" in the 4th line refers to "descent," but even then, there seems to be a lot of missing information. Then the "howling wolves" come along for a line and co...

This looks like a character background list for a story. Is this miscategorized? The fundamental question is, do you really want to write a poem, or did you just have this list and think, "Hey maybe this could be a poem?" Could use some fleshing out of physical characteristics, in any case. Maybe if you add other subheadings than just "Yes" and "No," such as "In the 3rd drawer of my dresser," or "Favorite TV shows," etc. This is an unrelated peeve, but what ever happened to the dentist who *d...

First off, this is good language. The first line has a clear rhythm, and it's pentameter. The first two feet are dactyllic: "*Twen*tyfour *tears* from a." (I've put the stressed syllables in between asterisks.) Then there's a spondee: "*dead* *an-*" followed by two iambs: "-gels *eyes* leak *black*" If you say there's a caesura (pause) between the two stressed syllables of "dead an-" then that comes exactly in the middle of the line, which makes the line match an Old English poetic technique ...

Strong narrative. Clear, to the point. Sounds very honest, sort of Hemingway-eque in its short sentences. "I was too drunk to remember his answer." sounds true, and yet doesn't have the same wit as "To celebrate my reasoning abilities." For revision, I'd work on that, and the fourth stanza, which is a little flat compared to the rest. Particularly the last line, which leaves the immediate narrative for commentary. This could also work well as flash fiction.

This is a pretty good imitation of The Raven. I applaud your efforts; it's always a good idea to learn from the masters. It seems to be missing the tension and the suspense of the original. That's probably not as much your fault as it is simply that we're familiar enough with The Raven that we know what's coming. Plus, the inverted syntax and archaic words move us very far away from any sense of urgency. We accept old speech from the original, because we know when it was written. Readers are ...

I see all the pieces of the poem are here. You have great descriptive lines, the blue-lit runway, the ocean of lights, tying in to your use of "harbor," in line 8. I think they could benefit from a reordering, however: Begin with the purely descriptive lines, follow up with purely descriptive lines, and then when the poem is ready for its "volta," or turn, gather the lines that comment upon the scene. Then, return to the purely descriptive lines to finish. This is a structure common to many n...

Good work with the sounds in this poem. I can't help thinking they would become much more evocative if there were some descriptive features to attach them to. It could be as simple as one object casting a multiplicitous knurl of shadows, or it could be an entire room full of furniture, each casting and individual shadow into a common pool. That would help the reader to place the speaker. As yet, there is no setting, except that by the end of the poem we assume someone has been sleeping, becau...

My favorite line is, "Unplug the sky and watch it burn." It makes absolutely no sense, but that can be corrected. The poem has a wealth of ideas, but instead of stopping to dwell and explore these ideas, it jumps on to the next one, never really allowing access to the reader. My guess is that either there's something that you knew it was about, but knew it so well it didn't occur to tell it, or this was generated as part of a free write and didn't have a subject to tie it together. Revision d...

I like "brand new useless thing." I think it's the rhythm I like as much as the words. "brandishing" and "ironing board" is original and interesting, but for all that, it does not make sense. An ironing board is just too large, awkward, and non-weaponish to brandish. If you cut down on the adjectives and reduce redundancies, you'll get to the core of this poem. For instance, "toxic river/salt water sea" are both describing the same thing. Pick one. And a small nitpick: it's "ensue," not "insu...

I think what you've done here is lay out the rhythm of the poem you want. One can only do so much at a time, so the next thing to do would be to identify and tighten up that rhythm until it's regular throughout the poem. After that, the job is to plug in the words you want instead of the current placeholders. The rhythm is great. It captures the hesitations and uncertainties of a first date quite well.