I like what you do. However, your words don't seem sufficient in engaging my imagination. Poetry is not just about ordering words on the page but, like all good literature, it must engage your reader.

Books on writing might say "Grab your reader by the neck and don't let go." However valid that sentiment is it is an obscure one for those whom have not come to understand their motivations in writing.

Your generally succinct structuring reminded me of the Yeats poem A Cradle Song. So I will use it as a focus.

THE angels are stooping
Above your bed;
They weary of trooping
With the whimpering dead.
God's laughing in Heaven
To see you so good;
The Sailing Seven
Are gay with His mood.
I sigh that kiss you,
For I must own
That I shall miss you
When you have grown.

Notice the "flavor" of words like stooping (to stoop - hunched shoulders, peering down and into the cradle)
Trooping - marching under an authority
Whimpering dead - zombies

Also, in stanza 2, notice how it is all framed, like a framed picture; see the picture.
God in heaven, the sailing seven are happy (planets floating about with smiles on their stinking faces)

Stanza 3 brings it back down again.
I sigh that kiss you, for I must say, that I shall miss you, when you have grown. (I will miss you, the baby, when you grow into someone else.)

Stanza 1 - Lesser Celestial beings.
Stanza 2 - God and the planets
Stanza 3 - A father ruminating on his child.

So, how do you engage a reader's imagination? By understanding how you can coax their minds into creating their own images, not just telling them words. Let's play with some images for "Here I lay" comrade.

1. Here confined
2. by hungry vines.
3. Seething roots
4. feeding the possessed,
5. Heavenless earth.
6. With ceasing breath
7. I ask simply, why.

1. (Why confined? It's more interesting than 'lay')
2. (Hungry vines? Yes, they are hungry and they confine you.)
3. (Their roots seeth? They must be active.)
4. (Feeding the possessed? Sounds ominous.)
5. (Heavenless with a capital meaning its not just the 'night sky' but maybe the good (God) is gone.)
6. (Why is the breath ceasing? Does it have something to do with being eaten by hungry roots?)
7. I ask simply, why.


Here I lay, (You are here)

Slowly bleeding. (Bleeding slowly)

In a world of demons seething, (Does the world seeth with demons or do the demons seeth in this world?)

But I couldn't help but hear of angels fleeing. (How could you not help it? It's an empty picture)

Still trying to find my reason to keep breathing. (So you're dying slowly and don't know why you shouldn't be.)


If you write, start with an image and try to put as much meaning into it as possible. So how do you grab a reader by the neck? You make them hallucinate. Do not overthink or overworry, that is the surest way to keep your page white. Start with an image and play with it. If you don't have the words to play around with, then you are a painter who has not seen enough paintings, a poet who does not read poetry, a swimmer without water, or a soulless heaven who believes in god.

Read poetry by the masters and try to understand what they are doing with their words.

Also, if you are so inclined, could I use this feedback in a modified version to post as a tutorial of sorts?