Why follow a rhyme scheme, then desert it, then take up another half-arsed one in the last stanza? I can't see that it contributes anything to this poem; there seems to be no formal point to doing it. It jars.

I've come back after a long time away from the 'ranker and found this - this is great. It's a perfect couple of moments. Well done.

Apart from the last two lines, which I don't like because they seem over-sentimental and Romantic, this is ace. teh first stanza could be a poem by itself.

I admire the spirit behind this but the expression is too simplistic and cliched to really make me feel the force of the poem. This states a case rather than creating an imaginative response to inequality; perhaps you could try creating a character or a voice that expresses what you mena without resorting to bald declarations?

I'm sorry, I know a lot of peole think really highly of your stuff but I find this verbose, navel-gazing, self-regarding and, worst of all, unmusical and unrhythmic. This sounds like prose and rather than expressing your 'insanity' merely goes through the motions of explaining it; the ultimate effect is extremely unconvincing.

Supreme Dreamer says it all except that the last line in bathetic - that weak final rhyme lets the whole structure down. Also ;It could of been; - 'it could have been'. 'Of' is not a part of a verb and never will be. Jeez, I'm sorry you're taking all this crap over your grammar, but I think it's because people see something they like in your writing and really want you to get better.

You posted this on my 30th birthday and very fitting it seems.

It's been on the site so long and I've never seen it. t's great, really beautiful and delicate. This is tops.

Rockmage do you give everything a ten? Even when something is full of cliches, you praise it. Do you have any sense of critical distinction? Does this poem really make you feel the fear, terror etc of the narrator? If it did, it would deserve a ten. But it DOESN'T.

This is loads better, evocative, precise, yearning and not prosaic at all (if still a little verbose).

1. I'm sorry, this poem has contravened that 1997 European Directiev outlawing the rhyming of 'bad/mad/sad' for at least another 4 centuries.

2. Honestly, there are plenty more fish in the sea.

Holy crikey this is hard work, like a 21st century Arthur Hugh Clough. I think there's a novelist in you waiting to get out, rather thsn a poet.

Very pretty. I don't get the ancient Rome bit either - is this an erudite allusion? If so, please enlighten us, I'm intrigued!

Well, it's sort of clever and witty, but in the end, does it really say anything worth saying? This feels like it should be a scene in an angst-ridden indie comedy film, like Donnie Darko without the rabbit.

Sort out these commas - you shouldn't have one after Webster, for example. And I'm confused by 'as' - you're not comparing him to anything, you're just making statements. The descriptions are nice though, and so are the rhymes.

Get rid of the last line - it's unnecessary.

Is this about Ovid? I like it a lot. Come back poetandknowit, you've not been on the ranker for a long while.

Very atmospheric and a really nice use of metre. And the cross-rhyme of 'mars' (should be capitalised) and 'stars' is beautiful. This exotic stuff and I agree that it sounds as if it's leading to something else. Is it?

Is this a satire? It's very badly spelt, whatever it is.

No no no. Wasn't this copied off the back of a Shania Twain album?