No One Knows Her

[lukeJones]

Cold and pale, she was lying there
Eyes to the sky, at nothing she stares
A spark that once flashed, gone, no longer aware
The muttering crowd talks about things that are fair

No more light, extinguished
Guesses of so many things unfinished
The good times to come now she would miss
No more dreams, all diminished

“But a better place she will find”
A tunnel and light away from her mind
Or a single flame will become her guide
To fiery eternity with her kind

For on that road she is a stranger
A block to the reality she now hinders
No one comes to find, no claims for her
But we pretend we all know this beautiful stranger

[ChristopherSea]

Hello lukejones and welcome to the site. The first thing that I noticed about your poem is that the structure and content is held hostage by rhyme. Each stanza has two or more lines that sound like reversals for the purpose of rhyme. The first stanza has three of them, followed by a proper sentence, but it is unrelated to the others, thereby sacrificed for rhyme. This makes lines sound awkward, but they can be readily fixed. Some offenders and possible fixes would be:

From: A spark that once flashed, gone, no longer aware.
To: The spark that once flashed is no longer there.
From: No more dreams, all diminished
To: The impact of her dreams has diminished.
From: The good times to come now she would miss
To: There are so many good times that she will miss.
From: A tunnel and light away from her mind
To: There's no light in the tunnel of her mind.

I am not saying these fit your poem specifically, just illustrating how to iron them out. Also, a closer adherence to syllable count would sharpen the meter (8-13 syls herein). I would try a rewrite with no adherence to rhyme to craft good lines that flow and then perhaps try rhyming them again. Leaving some natural line terminations and rhyming every other helps to make a poem sound less constrained. One question to ask yourself, Do we know anymore about her after reading the poem? Good luck!

[Volaticus]

Hi lukeJones,

It seems to me that the structure or construction of many of the lines are awkward, for the sake of the rhymes.
For instance:

"Cold and pale, she was lying there
Eyes to the sky, at nothing she stares"

could be

She was lying there, cold and pale,
her eyes to the sky, staring at nothing.

But then it'd mess up the rhyme. You could either try without the rhymes, or you could experiment with different rhymes, till you find some that doesn't sacrifice the structure or meaning of some of the lines.

JMHO.

[billy]

hi luke,

don't force the end rhyme, if you have to force it then don't rhyme.
don't double up on phrases, they become redundancies, i bolded a few of them there are more. don't excess verbiage. i've underlined some of it.
not a bad effort

Cold and pale, she was lying there
Eyes to the sky, at nothing she stares
A spark that once flashed, gone, no longer aware
The muttering crowd talks about things that are fair

No more light, extinguished
Guesses of so many things unfinished
The good times to come now she would miss
No more dreams, all diminished

“But a better place she will find”
A tunnel and light away from her mind
Or a single flame will become her guide
To fiery eternity with her kind

For on that road she is a stranger
A block to the reality she now hinders
No one comes to find, no claims for her
But we pretend we all know this beautiful stranger

[alatos]

Cold and pale, she was lying there
Eyes to the sky, at nothing she stares
A spark that once flashed, gone, no longer aware
The muttering crowd talks about things that are fair

No more light, extinguished
Guesses of so many things unfinished
The good times to come now she would miss
No more dreams, all diminished

“But a better place she will find”
A tunnel and light away from her mind
Or a single flame will become her guide
To fiery eternity with her kind

For on that road she is a stranger
A block to the reality she now hinders
No one comes to find, no claims for her
But we pretend we all know this beautiful stranger

Just a noobs take here. The last stanza just doesn't seem to flow with the rest of the poem. Maybe you wanted it that way for effect, I don't know. While the rest of the poem rhymes, or nearly rhymes, the last stanza doesn't. hmmm. I mean hinder and stranger and for her are similar, but I feel like you could definitely improve the rhyming of this poem, and it would be awesome! But just my humble opinion...