Your rhyme scheme is fascinating.  It is consistent for awhile, but then you interrupt with a few out-of-place phrases and pick up with a new sound.  I love it when I see poets create rules and then break them in their work.  I also think that the choppy and jarring feel the irregular scheme creates helps illustrate the speaker's distress. It's a beautiful piece.

Wow! The first time I read this I was so enthralled by the unique rhyme and rhythm that I didn't even pay attention to what the poem was saying. But then, I reread it, and the message is equally fantastic. Great job!

I think this is my seventh time reading this poem and it amazes me that I'm always finding a new picture in my head and a new description of things I thought I caught before. It seems as if you packed a life's worth of thoughts and ideas into a poem. It's great.

First, I would like to say that this is a masterpiece. This is one of those poems that makes you stop for a minute and just read it over and over. One of the things I like is the rhythm, which is supported by the unusual rhyme scheme. It has a sort of a pulsing feel to it, like the wind battering against something. And toward the end of the poem the montage of descriptions and ideas just takes off and picks you up when you read it. It seems like a train of thoughts, almost, but I'm sure they took awhile to come up with. Wow. I can't wait to see your next piece!

This was a great work of art.  It was spectacular both in presentation and in meaning, while not overly emotional or confusing.  It made me think of somthing I might have written.  The rhyme scheme and meter where unique, discordent but pleasant all the same.  Lines 15, 16, and 17 didn't feel right, though.  The ryhme seemed put on and separate from the general point of the poem, almost unnecessary.

I also had a problem with the ending.  I'm a firm believer in strong endings, and although I loved the line "searching for my true allies" I think that if you had to break the flow of the meter for the last line then it should have been a steady trail into a line with fewer counts than the one before it.  The line you have is more counts, so it makes the reader stop, take another breath, and then find nothing to blow it out on, if you can understand what I'm getting at.  Other then those suggestions, I really find you poem most amazing.  Two thumbs up!

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Wow, that was a long time ago... Writing styles age faster than we do!

Looking back, I don't even like this poem -- I messed with my flow in all the wrong ways and didn't even pay attention to what I was talking about.

If I remember correctly, I wrote this during the passing period before my English class and put it up here for extra credit. I haven't really looked at it since... You guys really think this is good? I'm having trouble believing that, as in my eyes this is so far from art that I'm almost ashamed of it. But perhaps you see something I don't, since as the writer I look at it in a different light.