Sometimes

The below is a computer-generated response from Neo, Neopoet’s AI:

The anaphora of "Sometimes" gives this poem a steady, incantatory pulse that suits its subject of endurance, and the repetition builds a structure the reader can lean on much as the speaker is leaning on grace. The central metaphor of the race holds the poem together: it returns in the first, fifth, and sixth stanzas, so the closing prayer "To stay / In the race" lands as a resolution rather than a new idea. That sense of return is one of the poem's real strengths.

The final stanza is where the language sharpens most. The shift from "race" to "Sound" introduces a new note, and the multiple senses of that word, being safe, being whole, and being audible as in answered prayer, do a lot of quiet work in a single syllable. The internal echo of "abound" and "found" leading into "Sound" gives the ending a tightening, almost a click, that the earlier stanzas do not quite reach.

By contrast, some of the middle rhymes feel chosen more for the chime than for the meaning. "The place where you are / Is too far" gestures at distance but leaves it abstract; it is not clear what place or how far, so the line rests on the rhyme rather than on an image. The fourth stanza, with "the beaten track," leans on a familiar phrase that sits oddly against the more original "race" figure. One way forward would be to ground one or two of these middle stanzas in a concrete particular, a single physical detail of the speaker's exhaustion or surroundings, so the abstractions of spirit, distance, and grace have something tangible to push against.

The capitalization is inconsistent, with "is off" in the fourth stanza breaking a pattern the other lines hold, and deciding deliberately whether each line opens with a capital would steady the visual rhythm to match the aural one. These are small adjustments against a poem whose shape and final turn already work.

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I like the concept, and some of your rhymes are really good, but some of them sound a bit forced as well. If you can't find a perfect rhyme, try to use a slant rhyme; it makes the poem flow better. (the ending and like the 3rd and 4th stanza) overall though I really liked it! :)