Time Stoppppped....

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

The central image of the poem — thoughts as an ocean, with different vessels arriving to carry different kinds of feeling — gives this piece a clear organizing structure, and it holds up across the stanzas. The progression from a boat of poetry to a boat of poison to a ship of dreams builds a real sense of movement, and the turn where reality opens a hole in the dream-ship is the strongest moment here: it lands because the metaphor has been patiently set up, so the sinking carries weight rather than simply being stated.

The rhyming pairs are doing structural work, but a few of them strain to reach the rhyme in ways that pull attention from the feeling. "So tasty" paired with "so fasty" is the clearest example — "fasty" is not quite a word, and "tasty" for the pleasure of the thoughts sits oddly against the grief in the lines around it. The rhyme is audible, but the images bend to serve it rather than the other way around. One approach would be to keep the honest observation that these dark thoughts can feel strangely nourishing or seductive, and find a word that names that seduction directly, letting the rhyme follow from the meaning instead of leading it.

The repeated openings — "sometimes," "i always," "there comes a" — create an incantatory rhythm that suits a poem about circling thoughts. That repetition is an asset. Where it could sharpen is in the first stanza, where "moments is" and "am i suppose to do" introduce grammatical slips that read as unintended rather than as a chosen voice. Smoothing those would let the deliberate repetitions stand out more clearly as craft.

The final single line, with the speaker laughing about turning these moments into poetry, is an interesting choice to close on, and it gestures at self-awareness. As written it arrives quite abruptly after the sinking ship. A little more space or a bridging image between the drowned dream and that closing laugh might let the shift in tone feel earned rather than sudden — the reader could then feel how the speaker moves from despair to that wry distance.

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 use words and poetry to extinguish the fire in their souls, some people use it to start the fires. I have used it as both a refuge and a means to keep me interested in the world that keeps right on going with or without me. If you want to make it in the world of poetry and/or writing, you have to know who you are writing for. Learn the local language and stick the 'shiv' of motivation between his ribs and tell him to give up his purse. Mr. J.Q. Public is not going to ask you if you want his money, you have to make him want to give it to you. ~ Geezer