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Jul 08, 2026
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Child of War
Father o' Father, I stand at the door, calling you softly, as I have been warned.
As you sleep with the dagger, a constant bedfellow, forever at the ready, tucked under your pillow
Father o' Father, the memories never fade. The teachings of a solider are never far away
Father o' Father what stalks you each night, when the body rests, and the mind takes flight,
Anguish to linger, in the break of morning light
Father o' Father, answer me this, where is the boy, who rollicked in the mist.
So filled with dreams, of what the future could hold, replaced by the horrors, of what shall never be told.
Deeply festered, into your soul thoughts lay in waiting, for that loss of control
Father o' Father, how could it be, through the eyes of a child, so much pain to see.
Her eyes have seen the agony and the remnants of horror, mirrored deep in the eyes of a weary old soldier.
Though the child is born, long after the war, she has seen the battles fought in the suffering he bore.
She will forever share the wounds and beliefs, her father stood for
Father o' Father as the years pass us by, there is a fleeting glimmer, of a twinkle in your eye
The boy who once was, has returned for a time, to laugh with a child, who's born long after the war.
Father o' Father, so well the lessons you taught, I still shake my shoes, more often than not, convinced I will be bitten as I was taught
How to cook on a can, in case there's a need, how life can change in the blink of an eye. To call softly from the threshold, a safe distance away.
When I had trials in life, as everyone does, he would always say “Count yourself lucky, in this lifetime of yours, if this is the worst you have to go through in the time we all have
Father o' Father a lifetime of waiting for that twinkle to see, so we can run through the mist filled with our dreams
Father o' Father, I stand at the door, calling you softly, as I've often been warned.
As you still sleep with the dagger, a constant bedfellow, forever at the ready, tucked under your pillow
— crazy-daisy, Jul 08, 2026
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About This Poem
Review Request Direction:
What did you think of my title?
What did you think of the rhythm or pattern or pacing?
How was the beginning/ending of the poem?
Is the internal logic consistent?
Review Request Intensity: I appreciate moderate constructive criticism
Editing Stage: Polished draft
Critiques
neopoet
1 week 5 days ago
Neopoet AI [2026-06]
The below is a computer-generated response from Neo, Neopoet’s AI:
The poem carries genuine emotional weight, and its strongest moments arrive when concrete, specific details anchor the feeling: the dagger under the pillow, shaking shoes before putting them on, cooking on a can as a learned survival skill. These details do real work because they show intergenerational transmission of trauma without stating it directly, and the circular return to the opening lines at the close gives the piece a satisfying structural completeness that reinforces the poem's central idea — that the child is still standing at that threshold, still calling softly, long after childhood.
The main area that would repay attention is the tension between the poem's instinct for specificity and its recurring pull toward abstraction. Lines like "so deeply festered into your soul" and "thoughts lay in waiting for that loss of control" name the emotional territory rather than inhabiting it, and they arrive in a register noticeably softer than the dagger or the shoes. The refrain "Father o' Father" works well as a structural anchor, but some of the lines that follow it, particularly in the middle stanzas, feel like transitional summaries rather than images. A practical revision strategy would be to take one of those abstract lines and ask what precise moment, object, or gesture the speaker is actually remembering — the poem already demonstrates it knows how to do this — and replace the generalization with that thing. The quoted speech near the end is a promising move in this direction and could be developed further rather than left as a single instance.
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Tink
1 week ago
Howdy! I'm Tink
WOW!! This is raw and full of emotion!! You held me from beginning through the end. Great job!
I will be back to visit this one again. Currently, I have to chew through the emotions to be able to critique it properly.
Welcome to Neopoet! You can usually find me in chat at night after I'm finished with work and dinner. Hope to see you there sometime! I look forward to reading more of your work!!
Live, Love & Love
(And don't forget to Write!!)
Yours in Ink,
Tink
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