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[Shepherdess]

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[calxaed]

Hello Sheperdess and welcome,
The sentiments expressed in this are ones that I'm sure everyone agrees with, but I think that it needs a bit of work.

Flies flit from eye to mouth,
Of the child in the dirt,
Grit and grim adorn his flesh,
Ground in well over time.

With this and the next couple of stanzas you're on the right track, painting a picure of misery and suffering without directly voicing those feelings. You're showing us, and this is the right thing to do, You draw the reader in, which forces him/her to imagine the scenario. The language here is a little awkward though and there are some typos. In the third line you have 'grim', is that supposed to be grime. I don't think 'adorn' is the right word, dirt covers, obscures etc. Also its not necessary to start each new line with a capital letter.

His age no one can tell,
For his growth it dose not show,
A bag of bones describes him well,
His face a skull with skin.

In the first line you reverse the normal subject - object order of the clause, which doesn't sound natural, 'No one can tell his age' would be fine. I realise you're doing it for the sake of the rhyme, but I think its a mistake to twist grammar to meet the needs of your structure. Getting rhyme to sound natural is very difficult(I can't). Typo in the second line 'dose' for 'does'. This whole second line is odd, I know you mean that he hasn't grown because of a lack of nutrition, but this is an odd way of putting it, growth isn't something that shows or doesn't, either he's grown or he hasn't. The next two lines both contain a cliche, 'bag of bones' and 'skull with skin'. It's always best to avoid using phrases that you've heard or read before. One of the things good poetry does is show familiar things in an unfamiliar light, forcing readers to rethink them. If you recycle jaded formulations the impact your words have is seriously diminished.

He feeds on trash, dead rats and grease,
Nutrients not one,
The rats are dead, he did not kill,
They starved each and everyone.

First line good(iambic). The idea of him eating rats that had died of starvation is cool, kind of a reversal of the expectaion that rats feed on dead humans, this is what I mean by unfamiliar, although 'each and everyone' is again a bit of a cliche.

At this point you go a bit astray, instead of showing and describing you begin to tell and preach. The final few stanzas are a bit like a charity appeal, which is a noble thing but not poetry. Nobody likes being told how to feel or have their emotions blatently manipulated. If you do that the work becomes sentimental and turns readers off, its not engaging. Of course we all try to manipulate emotions with what we write, but its best not to make it so obvious and heart-on-sleeve.

I'm going to echo the advice that Jester gave in his response to your other post(which was better), read as much modern poetry as you can, i'd add to his list Willam Carlos Williams, Elizabeth Bishop and Stevie Smith. Also older stuff like John Donne or Swinbune can help give a feeling for rhythm and sonics.
Don't take this criticism too much to heart, we're all here learn.

Cal

[RobertFlorey]

Imagine: If you Can


Flies flit from eye to mouth,
Of the child in the dirt,
Grit and grim adorn his flesh, [Grime?]
Ground in well over time.

His age no one can tell,
For his growth it dose not show, [does?]
A bag of bones describes him well,
His face a skull with skin.

[Reversal used to be fine, it isn't well received now,
unless you play some tricks with it, depending on
the rest of the text. Here it appears to be a deliberate
reach for a rhyme word, whether or not it really was.
The first stanza doesn't rhyme, so this one doesn't
need to either. Anyway, you can 'fix' it easily, if
that fits your style by leaving out 'it.

For his growth does not show.
His growth is slow, it does not show
Like that.
The imagery is so far is quite good, although other
people will say that 'bag of bones' is too common.
But you've got to start somewhere or you never
get anything written.]

He feeds on trash, dead rats and grease,
Nutrients not one,
The rats are dead, he did not kill,
They starved each and everyone. [Needs a comma after 'starved'
or else you are saying that the rats starved everyone.
After they were dead, too.

This is hard. Poetry is highly compressed information. It doesn't
have to be literal truth, but it can't be inaccurate. There are lots
of nutrients in rats and in grease. Depending on the trash, there
may be quite of lot of nutrient in that as well. 'Nutrients not one'
is hyperbole. Sometimes hyperbole is just the right trope to use.
But here you're painting a picture you want to be convincing.
If your audience catches you in a mistake like that, they may
not believe in the competency of the rest of the work, foolish
as that may be.

For an example of how to go about 'fixing' a thing like that:
He feeds on trash, dead rats and grease,
What kind of nutrients are these?]

So small,
So alone,
So utterly sad,
Not a life for anyone.

[Nicely done
you might try
So small,
alone
so utterly sad;
not a life for anyone
and see if it fits]

There is no hope in his small heart,
There is not one sign of love,
To pick him up and hold him tight,
A dream you can only think of.

[There is nothing wrong with this.
But if you haven't played with it,
it's almost always worth it to do so.
For example:
There is no hope in his small heart,
not one sign of love.
To pick him up and hold him tight
is what he must be dreaming of.
That's not very good. But it's just an example.
The reason I bring this up is that the
verse is so poignant. But the last line
(in my single opinion) doesn't quite
carry it through.]

The question Why? [The question: why?]
So loud and shrill; Shout it far and wide,
For this shrivelled lad, [shriveled]
Is not alone.

[Now, I'm not saying that when you got to
this verse you were tired and kind of pooped out,
but it doesn't rhyme, and it doesn't have the kind
of meter that compels the reader through
as do the ones above.

This is a good place to use a metaphor,
where you borrow qualities of something
quite different than your subject, the child
and make that something equal to the child,
like a stunted flower.

The question: Why?: so loud and chill,
shout it far and shout it wide,
for this stunted flower is
one of thousands in the field.]

Thousands, Thousands he represents,
To many for us to count,
Millions right across the world,
The saddest song no doubt.
[The meter is off by one to many syllables
in the first line.
Thousands, thousands he stands for
Thousands, Thousands he counts for
Thousands, Thousands symbolized]

If this was you or yours,
If this was at your door,
Would you ,
Could you remember?
To fight the hardest War.
[This stanza has a very slight lack
of focus, in my single opinion.
That is, if it were you that was a child
and starving slowly to death, you couldn't
help at all. So that question is moot.]

Can you feed the children?
That cannot feed them selves,
Can you save the dying? [How can you save…]
By giving of your self.

If each and every one of us,
Help a tiny bit each day,
That small and helpless shrived boy,
May not have passed away.

[Very nice finish. Something that points the
finger of shame with lots of bathos.

I think you did a really good job.
Don't take my remarks to mean otherwise.
If any of the them inspire you to make changes,
that's wonderful, but if not, that's also just fine.
Above all, with your talent for making powerful
but disturbing scenes meat for thought, you will
do all a great service if you keep on writing, and
writing, and writing.]