Monsters of the night

A desperate cry in the night. Searching for light in the midst of darkness. I liked your poem. I will not vote on this one because I cannot vote on someone's emotions that are as raw as this... A pleading cry... I sincerely hope that you find your way back...and that your cries are heard. Wolfy.

Hello Feebie Like Wolfy says, the emotion in the poem is very strong, almost palpable. The poem depicts the poet's fight against demons in the night. I regard these "demons" not in the literal sense of actual evil beings, but rather as concepts like stress, depression, reliving horrible experiences, worry etc. They are described as "inner demons", in other words, emanating from the psyche of the poet. The poet pleads with the demons to "please find another soul to torment" and "no longer do I want you to have any say". And the poem ends on a hope of note: "no longer will you haunt, for I will someday find my way back!" The feeling of pathos that the pleading of the poet creates, is relieved at the end with this show of defiance and hope. What can be done to improve the poem? The poem consists of five quatrains. The first three and last one are in aabb rhyme. The fourth one in abab rhyme. Is this significant that the fourth quatrain has a different scheme? Possibly. This is where the mood changes and hope starts appearing: "for my soul craves, needs the much healing light" This quatrain signals a significant change in the seemingly hopeless situation. The question is, why go back to the previous scheme in the last quatrain? Wouldn't it be better to use a different scheme to emphasize the change in mood? The poet chose to use a fairly set pattern: quatrains and rhyming schemes. This unfortunately trips up the poem somewhat. Because of the demands of these restrictions, the poem contains line of forced rhyme: "away" and "any say" and "black" and "way Back" in the last quatrain. The internal rhythm in some lines are not optimal either: "for deep within they always hide these monsters eating away at me from the inside" Here the second line runs away and loses poetical tension due to the confused rhythm. I would recommend that the poet rewrite the material and dispense with the imposed rhyming patterns and quatrain stanzas. Write the poem as free verse - but keep in mind that free verse isn't lawless verse. It requires its own inner tension and rhythm. Good luck!

The Nature of Feebie is Irrepressible! Straight and honest as all your work. Perhaps some of the longer lines could be re-worked to improve the flow, e.g. "these monsters eating away at me from the inside" "these monsters eating my insides" I know that changes the meaning and imperfects the rhyme, just an example. Perhaps more useful "I beg of you, please finally let me be for my soul craves, needs the much healing light" "I beg of you, please let me be my soul craves, needs, that healing light" neither of my suggestions are very good. I only offer them because often I can't see how to improve my poetry unless I get concrete examples. cheers, Jess "Are we having fun yet?"