Brief and poignant. Not bad.

Sleeping eyes instead, maybe? Good tale.

All I can say Al, is that it's beautiful.

That explains why all the good poets are dead.

Love it. Super use of the language. I wish I could say something more interesting, but I'm exhausted. And it's only 8.30am.

An old-time poem in a modern cage. Really nice.

Caught the moment just right. Like reading Dr Suess on a bad acid trip.

I think I like it but it's probably because I'm reading the last verse as sexual innuendo.

Just watched "Saving Private Ryan" didn't you? Captured the end quite well and with few words.

hi im maria i really like your poem i think its exellent!!! well done mate

hi people i just wanna say im back ill be posting my new poems of the last 4 years jaja bye

You're a good story-teller. I'd get rid of the "eyes wide shut" though, because it's overused. I think the story needs resolution - some ending that deals with the conflict between the two attitudes.

The understated last verse leaves us wondering, imagining, as a poem usually should. The "I suppose" line could be read as the end of Verse 2 or as the start of Verse 3, or both - a nice touch.

The poem sounds like a battle along some border but I have no idea what border battle you're implying. Still I like the beat poet intensity of it's cadence.

Funny. The self-berating narrator calls himself a "good poet" in the title, assuming he's a chain smoker. Well, what else matters. Light up. I like the style.

I hope you weren't expecting us to give you any improvements for this, because really, it's excellent. Except for 'already been chose', but that's because I'm English and pedantic. A lovely read.

Fire Technology? Where the hell are you being taught? That sounds awesome - pyromania for the educated masses. Also, the last stanza made me burst out laughing. Shameful sentiments.

The beginning promises some fierce, ugly obstacle to which a well-aimed stone is fatal. But to compare the blithe thing, laziness, to Goliath--well, I think a giant slug would fit better. Still, the very unexpected turn has appeal. And being unbelievable is a trait of non-fiction.

I’m trying to remember the history. Without looking it up, I think this is Normande a few months after D-Day. The beach was secure and the Allies were moving toward Berlin. I kinda wish you gave the setting for us dummies. Some good language here, but I think “who’d” is no better than a simple “who.” “whittling of wind” is nice, but “remaining only” seems odd and not quite true. I don’t quite get how birds struggle for purchase, unless they are fighting to get the ring. No doubt there’s a true story behind this.

This is more of a letter (epistle) than a free verse poem, in my opinion - I wonder if nentwined might consider adding that as a category. If I'm brutally honest, this won't score very highly among many writers here. That's not meant as an insult and I don't want you to be offended by it. It's just that everything contained in here has been written countless times before. Love poetry now has got to the stage where you have to be original - even if it's just one brilliant, inspired line or passage around which the whole poem's built. As it stands this is a collection of cliches. For example, 'bleeding from the wounds in my heart' is just about the ultimate overused phrase in the world of teen poetry. I guess you could argue that it's how you really do feel. But then...don't you think that everyone else feels that way at some stage? And so if everyone wrote a poem describing the same thing, wouldn't love poetry get very boring very quickly? Be inventive. Read lots of poetry on here, note all the recurring images/phrases, and never, ever use them. The dancing in the park passage here is good - write about that. Write about dancing to no music whatsoever. Use 'love' no more than once in the poem though. "Show, don't tell" is very appropriate for that. Just telling us that you love someone makes us as readers feel nothing. Okay, so I've done a bit of critiquing. What I like about this poem is that the language is kept simple (something with which I struggle in my poetry) and, unlike 99% of poems like this, the grammar is pretty accurate and you've managed to capitalise 'I', which a hell of a lot of people don't do, and it annoys me ;-) Well, that's it for now. Hope this was of some use. Peace.