[Poetry] The Bard's Poems

Wow, I'm so jealous right now (I'm not kidding but not extreme either)
But returning to topic, both were really good. I liked how the first one you led all but the very first line in the first section with the word "My". It really added to that part and drew me in. I'm going to try and take a guess and say that the first poem is using the death and mingling between the stars to metaphorically express the people who "Stopped reaching for their goals/dreams" and were some of the many that fell short of a meaning. Or in other words, those that gave up on being something more.

Your second one was great too, (bonus points since I don't like chocolate) but I did spy one little type. In line 7 "dessert" probably should have been plural. Since it is a "land of desserts" it just seemed weird, though most likely it was a typo. I was impressed on how you just took a measly brownie and went to contemplation. Would the brownie be royal in the land of desserts (I assume somewhat of Dessert Hierachy). Then to it being a bad omen of things to come (nice metaphor). Going to common sensibility of grasping reality once you get your head out of the clouds. And to the trash can after the whole bleed thing. You have a knack for taking something simple and just stretching it into something so elaborate, so complicated, so dark, so vivid that I paused my music to get a better focus (Kidding).

But all in all nice read and glad you have a nice touch in poetry even if it's only for getting ten psychics somehow.

My first note would be to just remove the abundance of commas. In poetry, a linebreak is a pause already, so the comma serves no purpose. Poetry is grammarless, so I'd say only ever use a comma if you want to insert a pause into a line.

I think your imagery is really nice, but to me, it doesn't feel like poetry just yet. You seem to adhere a bit too much to prose. Although a lot of that is personal taste, I like poetry that generally takes a piss at linguistic conventions a bit more.

There are some lines I really like.
"My eyes popped, darkness filled the empty sockets,"
for example has this great internal approximate rhyme that creates this nice sense of rhythm.

"As you look up at that star-studded sky,
Blind to the death between radiant life,"
Is another one that I think really works well because of those approximate rhymes. The I sound in sky, blind and life is a nice little beat that works well with the extra syllables radiants provides.

I think that rhythm is something you could involve a little more. The sentence pacing is there, but the internal flow of words is a bit too inconsistent for my tastes, while I personally think rhythm is one of the most important aspects of poetry.

Ice said:

My first note would be to just remove the abundance of commas. In poetry, a linebreak is a pause already, so the comma serves no purpose. Poetry is grammarless, so I'd say only ever use a comma if you want to insert a pause into a line.

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I have to say, that is quite a misconception. Not all line breaks create pauses, for if they are mid-clause, they create enjambments which quickens the poem's pace. Line breaks are there for unnatural pauses; commas for natural ones. So there's no real crime in putting them there. (Of course, I have seen some poets choose not to have commas for end-stopped lines but it's purely a personal aesthetic choice, and not one of technicality.)

I do agree with Ice on that while your imagery is rich (and curiously all linked to foods xP *inserts pretentious psychoanalysis of a subconscious desire to quell hunger*), I believe that what he means to convey is that they don't really do anything for the reader. For how I read it, it doesn't really take me anywhere, or shall I phrase it as such, I'm not sure what journey you desire me to accompany you on when you introduce these imagery.

I'm meter deaf so I can't comment on rhythm (I do understand why you struggle a bit given your prose background) but oh, please, never force rhyme or feel like a poem needs rhyme to be deemed as one. Someone once told me "rhyming is necropastoral" and I'm inclined to trust them.

One thing I noticed from reading your poetry is that you use a lot of repetition. This can be effective if the words or phrases being repeated are beneficial to the meaning of the poem, however I've noticed a few cases where you seem to be using it solely to sound poetic.

I'm going to focus in on your last poem, "To Prick a Balloon". Immediately what strikes me is your use of "darkness" to start the poem. "Darkness" is a very abstract word that can be used as a metaphor for many concepts (death, loss, insanity, ...) and is thus not a great word to start a poem with. In editing I would definitely suggest you keep the rest of the line, it provides a very vivid image. Overall, you use a lot of good metaphors (I especially liked "I slither and slide through roiling (sic) waves, how / fragile skin can be tough and sleek as scales") and some very cliche ones that I'd suggest changing; "made my hart (sic) into a lion" immediately jumps out at me as needing work, and "creation's unwanted refuse" is also somewhat trite in its angst. Something like "creation's landfill" would provide a more vivid image as well as being more interesting; I'd suggest you experiment with different metaphors. Don't be afraid to try out something that sounds completely absurd.

I'd also suggest experimenting with other options for structure; the "how" at the end of every line is awkward. Also, you don't need to capitalize the first letter of every line. Even changing those two alone would fix 80% of the stylistic problems of your poem.

The last comment I'll make is on the title. I'll be blunt: It doesn't make sense. From what I can gather the poem is about anguish and delving into the mind of someone on the edge of sanity. The title would be far more apt as a metaphor used in the poem; honestly, I quite like it as that, but as a title, it doesn't really work. The title of a poem should set the scene or establish the mood, and yours doesn't really do that too well. I will say, however, I like the repetition of the concept of stabbing something in the beginning and the end of the poem ("to prick a balloon", "pricked them with the tip". Perhaps the first line could include the image of pricking a balloon.

Anyway, those are just my ideas; your poems genuinely show a lot of promise, but they could use a bit of refinement. I'd suggest you read some of Allen Ginsberg's work; your style reminds me of him.