A Witch

[groberts01]

I have every intention of workshopping it!

There's a hill bowed alone under clouds,Interesting use of "bowed alone" couple.It is a little over-poetic in that by using "bowed" as an adjective you leave confusion. If you could clarify. "There's a bowed hill, alone, under clouds" or " There's a hill, bowed alone, under clouds". This is not pedantic. It is an attempt to remove uncertainty of intent. Thanks for explaining this to me.
Woven with roots and the long hairThere never was a good poetical reason to capitalise every line start. Now it is simply pretentious serving only to confuse. As you are not making any attempt at meter, your poem..your choice....you DO need to help the reader along. Stumbling on awkward ground irritates the reader. Broken (or no) meter is fine if the subject matter is chaotic but thus far I am getting smooth imagery but jagged syntax. One or the other.
of wild grasses, wildflowers and forget-me-nots.This line is very weak. It is not as though there is a shortage of wild flowers that you cannot name genus but only generalise. Again, it is mostly a failure of syntax that forces your hand. You write " ... and the long hair of wild grasses, wildflowers and forget-me-nots". Long, hairy forget-me-nots? No. Only a suggestion:
" woven with roots and long hair of wild grass,
mixed with moor moss and forget-me-nots". Note that this form removes that "the" word. "The" is definitive. Used as you have, it implies that you are referring to a defined "long hair". Not any old long hair, not long hair over there, not long hair we wear...but THE long hair. "the" is an excuse for an adjective. Try enriching imagery by putting something descriptive in front of "long hair" or just leave out "the". I was aware of this, I thought it made the grass seem important, being 'the grass'. But I hear what you're saying. 

Come night, she arrived with bare feet I am having difficulty accepting an arrival without feet.  (Perhaps saying that someone is 'with bare feet' is something said only in my region to mean they aren't wearing any shoes. I didn't realise that.)I note that you are writing in past tense. That's fine, but "come night" is future-predictive. It has not yet happened...better, maybe, "When night came, she arrived on bare feet". You are thinking your way through the piece in a time-continuum known only to you. Thought does that. Once you have written it, right it. This is in Serious Workshopping and you should NOT be displaying basic errors. Thanks for pointing it out, I hadn't noticed this mistake.
To tip-toe a slow, wandering path,
Until she reached the peak. Again, you could make much more of this. As it is, you merely note a not unnatural progression...if you wander up a hill, you stop going up when you reach the peak. This is over-wordy. That means it uses a lot of words to say not a lot.
Then she drew back her shoulders, and sighed, Ask yourself why you felt you needed to say "Then". You use no meter and so there is no reason to add a half foot here and there. She is at the top of a hill. What did she do? Easy. "She drew back her shoulders and sighed hard". You do not need all the commas BUT I can see that you are trying to inject dramatic pauses. That is commendable. The caesura between "...sighed" and the next word to come is a breathless pause. A comma will not do it. Try a colon if you must, but for this reader a period would suffice. Frankly, the next word is part of the problem. "Sighing hard" is probably a bit of a contextual conflict....but it gets worse. See next.
Hard. So the breath left her lungs like an animal Oh dear. Classical error here. I do it myself, which makes it classical. Now, do you mean to compare her breath to an animal, her breath to an animal's breath, her breath's leaving to an animal leaving a cage (dirty?), her lungs to a cage, all of the above but only to an animal from a DIRTY cage? It is a mess of mixed metaphorical musings. Think VERY hard what you mean to say and then say it in CLEAR but metaphorical way. Metaphors should CLARIFY not obscure. I see what you mean. Back to the drawing board.
From a dirty cage. The hill wore the sky
As a big cape, You are feeling sleepy....you are going to sleep....look into my eyes...you see a cape....describe the cape.....errrrr.....BIG. I'm afraid I like the stark simplicity of the word 'big', and I probably won't change it Yes, you are now sick to death with this poem and you are worn out trying to think how to write poetry and you just want it all to end....so you give up on it and go to bed, your mind buzzing with ands, as'es, so's, nexts, thens and ats. You're right, my messy use of little words is frequently appalling - I'll work on it.Next day.....
And it began to cry for her.

So the clouds took her poetry Yipppeee....a good night's sleep. Let's go! So.....oh bugger, you did it again. DROP THE "so". It is of NO consequence. It is not even conditional. I was trying to imply a kind of magic throughout this poem. She's a witch, and whatever is going on on top of this hill is being controlled by her. I'm saying that in this fantasy world a crying sky would definitely lead to clouds taking your poetry.
and hurried to replace it with grey fog. Hmmmm. Why and why the hurry? the answer will be forthcoming... Ok, I get it - the descriptive words I use should all serve a purpose. I'll be more aware of my tendency to use filler words in future.
Next, their rumbling stole her hunger, Nope. Where the hell is this off to now? Have you had breakfast yet. Why is she hungry? Are you fully awake? The storm's taking the witch's vitality - poetry, hunger, zitz-zic-shrak. Hold it. Just relax. Calm down and READ your work. Hey, I did! I'm just not very good. These comments are really helpful in teaching me what to look out for. Read it from the beginning. Look for continuity. Help the reader to understand what you are seeing through words that are not orbiting around in your head. Pin them to the page with order and precision and intent. You are becoming self-indulgent and uncaring. You are writing as if you believe no one will care to read your work. Tough. Look at your next line...
Reaping first her belly then her heart. Reaping a belly? No. Not good enough...not even granting poetic license. It is just plain wrong.
Starry black fists digested it as it climbed, What is IT? You do not say....and in not saying, you immediately think you have and so plough on....
They packed it into the air, so it became the thunder.....but I still do not know what "it" is, and now "they" are here, too. Who the hell are "they"? You do not say. Hang on. Let me get the gist of this, if you pack "it" in to the air, "it" unarguably becomes thunder...if you say "so". Hmmmmm....it's a puzzle alrighty.

Like this her life’s crack-bam and zitz-zic-schrak, Utter prize-winning gobbledygook. I can make no sense whatsoever from your syntax but worse, far worse, I have not the energy to try. You win. I give up.
Cut open the night as great blades of lightening, LIGHTNING. lightening means "to lighten".
And spilt into a Storm like boiling car-oil. What kind of coffee is that....you have gone completely hyper. That was the idea!
At each shot of the starter-pistol
Races began between frights of tearing wind
Which rode as horses across the flashing night.
A mania like rapture stirred the sky
Into a battlefield, a playground, a murderer. Now I really must go. There are Auks squabbling in my ink-well and I think the wardrobe is following me. Damn this eternal battle with the flying orange...I will kill it, I swear. Haha, I really like nonsense writing, so I can't take that as an insult to the poem.

So the Eye dropped to her knees soundlessly,
Her blue lips flat-lining, her lids half-closed.
She pressed the length of her body,
Still and white to the waves of sodden ground.
And though a storm will only last so long,
Time passed, and she grew colder.

And as the storm rose up
she started to die.

Hi,
there are just too many problems with this to list. I do not want you to lose what it is that goes tick-tock in your head, but the beat is just too fast for you. I am talking about THIS piece and this piece only. You need to cut out all the nonsense, write clear english, stick to your comfort zone, clarify by sharp metaphors, punctuate with precision and never give up.
As an attempt at poetry it is totally without merit, having none of the required parameters I'm going to have to disagree., but that alone would not eliminate it as a piece of poetic endeavour. You worked hard to get it this far, now bang it in to shape I will!. This is Serious Workshopping and that is why you posted your words here. Workshop it.
Best,
tectak

I do have trouble putting myself in the mind of a reader so that what I write means something to anyone other than me. Thanks for your critique.