The blacksmith metaphor starts off well, then switches to a lightning/rain metaphor. Suddenly we see a murder where little stories vent to peace (suggesting the title) and ending with a pleasant scene. Then, in the last verse, he seems to reform. Just thought you might like to trace my thought patterns as I read it.

Needs a little less hope and a lot more sorrow. Just saying "In the midst of my sorrow" isn't enough to convince me -- when you stumble across hope, I end up thinking you don't deserve it.

I've got an idea for the believers out there. Instead of living your life according to the bible, assume that the bible is a metaphor for your life begining with Genesis (your birth) and ending with Revelations (your death). I promise if you study it like this the knowledge of God will start to become your knowledge.

From a poetry standpoint, I'd simply make all these verbs past tense and fix the rhythm in the last half. Otherwise, good - from a poetry standpoint. From a morality standpoint, as corrupt as ever.

I can't make the utopiawright link work. What's everyone talking about? I want to see!

I love the rhythm to this poem. It was a pleasant read--nice work.

The last verse seems to abandon the blacksmith metaphor completely. I think you may have missed a great opportunity to carry the symbolism through. What if you'd said something along the lines of "For all his wrath in forging a sword to slay his demons he now saw he had beaten the blade and handle flat and was now facing the cross he bore". I know that's kinda cheesy but it was off the top of my head. You see what I'm trying to say though right?

I think it's best to post your recent work rather than something from 2002. Hopefully, since then you've got your grammar straighter and learned to reduce the number of cliches.

Lose "eyes wide shut" or you might as well say she was "gone with the wind". I almost feel this would be better in paragraph form presented as a prose poem.

Oh, didn't get my vote in...sorry!...here I was commenting without voting...oops...thought I had. I have to say all the discussion in this post has been most entertaining...and enlightening. As to my comment of cannibalism: it is not meant as a bad thing; actually taking bits and pieces, ideas, and thoughts that get started, from others, is what fuels the creative fire, so to speak. In this way we feed on others, everyone, and everything. Any writer who states he is not a parasite is a lair. We digest what we read, hear, feel, see, experience, see others experience...and then we write...from where? That depository called the brain. Can we claim everything in there as solely our own?...of course not! How many times I have delved and devoured with hunger what I found within another...with the thought a satisfaction above most others...knowing it had inspired something that I would later revel in...relishing the process of defining or painting within words! I love the challenge of creating something as rich as the situation inspired. LilMsLadyPoet...who eats with sensual relishment...then, with a flourish, licks her fingers clean afterwards!

An urgent whisper...remind me of one of mine> see new post...lol.

It's hard to know if you're serious or joking. Leave it that way. My only complaint is the old English "thee" and "doth." They don't fit the rest of the poem.

"were thee" is ungrammatical. It should be "wert thou". Meaning "free" has to change or the old-timey talk does. Or the sentence has to be something like, "I enjoyed playing 'where's the rat?' with thee" or "I enjoyed singing Dean Martin tunes to thee". Anyway, odd to think of them having grammar then, isn't it?

Back in good form D.

The theme is a little overdone. Maybe if you didn't reveal that he was a rat until the end it might have more of a kick to it.

This poeme really touched my heart. It made me realise that if you pray, and put your faith in God, He will look after you no matter what happens. All those people who cross the road and end up being majorly spazzed up by a truck (as opposed to being mildly befuddled by a bike) have only themselves to blame. If they'd actually bothered to go to church regularly they would never have ended up so hideously deformed. Excellent work -10-

I've seen that ribbon of ski tracks in the snow and it's said that somebody else is lost too or just maybe somebody knows something I don't. The first verse says it's metaphoric, but the first verse is weak. I like the rest.

Dear Amanda, I appreciate the faith of people like you who see an an accident like a spill from a bike and ask only, "what the plan Of God was, through my accident." Then, after reviewing Jusus' suffering, conclude, "This makes me see His love for me." I wish you had left it at that and not included the admonitions in the last three verses. Those of us less gifted in faith, we of little faith, may wish for the contentment of knowing "The Holy Spirit spoke so well" but are stuck in a cycle of wonder at the apparent laxness of God in some situations compared to His apparent goodness in others.

What a Rat he must have been

This is an excellent poem.