Demons

[rowens]

"The demons paw my scars,
the marks of hate they made
The cuts and lacerations,
slit by Satan’s blade."

and,

"my demons I must keep."

Are what seem kind of forced....The intention of the last line is understandable. Just the sentence form is a little distracting, though it does have a ring of hysteria and obsession that comes through nicely.
You can look at those parts more thoroughly if you want, and see if any of your ideas about them change.

[billy]

hi ff,
on the first read i saw that everything was done in couplets. why not use that to make each one stand out separately by having a space between each one? if you removed 'the from the beginning of each sentence, each sentence would become more powerful.

The demons are feeding,
they gnaw upon my soul.
The demons hide within me
they have complete control.
The demons will not leave me
they torture me with fear.
The demons have no faces,
but I know that they are here.
The demons paw my scars,
the marks of hate they made
The cuts and lacerations,
slit by Satan’s blade. this section makes it an obvious cutter poem and in doing so takes something away from the poem as a whole
The demons fire my hatred,
my evil bile they spill.
The demons splash my anger,
poisoning my will.
The demons taunt and mock me,
they tear me from my sleep.
The demons they will kill me, try 'want to' instead of 'they will'
my demons I must keep.

the last line feels a bit to obvious and because of that it's weak. you could end on the line above and that would leave the reader hanging for the next line but it won't be there. (have the demons succeeded, why isn't it finished) you'll have set up a bit of interaction by allowing them into the piece in order to work out what the ending is. (just a suggestion of course)
some will call it a list poem and in some ways it is but being a list poem doesn't mean it's bad. i think this is a good attempt. the cut and blade concepts are pretty cliche so i'd suggest redoing them or just removing them.

good effort.

thanks for the read.

[addy]

Seems my opinion differs from the boys . I actually liked it from "The demons paw my scars// ..." onward. Everything before was suitable and serviceable as establishing narrative but didn't shine so much. I liked "The demons splash my anger, poisoning my will" especially.

Maybe you could spruce up the ending. Considering all the abhorrent things the demons are doing to the narrator's soul, to kill seems an almost idly phrased threat. Of course, that could be your intention.... it's undramatic because it is an inevitability, not a threat. In which case maybe it needs more of a build up to that.

Thanks very much for the read

[rowens]

At first I thought the critique "obvious cutter poem" meant 'cookie cutter poetry'; there's nothing wrong with writing a simple poem about your demons, or about Satan's demons. It's only that everybody's done it once, or many times. The scars and cuts seem all right, but are these your demons and is this your poem, or is this Satan's poem? Is it your Satan, or anybody and everybody's Satan that makes cuts and whose demons paw scars?---Have you trapped your demons in this poem, so others can see them and feel that they're real, or are you giving an account of second or third hand accounts of demons you might've overheard?---You can show the meat of these demons in a poem, and their venom leaking out of your emotional wounds. Something, not necessarily more gory, but something that lets people see the things creeping, lurking, burrowing, drooling, burning, snoring, melting, fuming, twitching, phasing, churning, multiplying, crawling, etc. Make the imagination hurt. Show why you had to get these demons out and put them in a poem.

[Philatone]

for what it's worth, i liked the flow of this, though it stumbles in occasional spots for me.
i would try to do away with some of the inverted-syntax lines ("my evil bile they spill"). also, the ending strikes me as a bit weak. it almost felt as though the ending lines were inseparable from any of the other parts; i want to get hit with a hammer at the end. the punch i got instead was lacking.

[Wildcard]

Hi Fidofood,

I read this a few times and then read the critique and I would have to say that in the end, I agree with Billy's take on it. The wording gets a little repetitive, like a chant (which lends to the repetitive nature of the wording), but it seems that the poem might actually work better as a sort of introspective flow . . .

All-in-all I feel that this has some really good ideas and the way that it is being expressed interests me.

The demons are feeding, --I like the dark imagery a lot, but feel that it might be better worded more concisely, just a suggestion, but maybe take these two lines and turn them into one: "Demons are feeding, gnawing on my soul."
they gnaw upon my soul.
The demons hide within me
they have complete control. --I hear a lot of soul/control rhymes . . . cliche, to my ear
The demons will not leave me
they torture me with fear. --The next three lines I like. I can feel where you are taking this because I relate personally and because you have expressed it very well.
The demons have no faces,
but I know that they are here.
The demons paw my scars,
the marks of hate they made
The cuts and lacerations,
slit by Satan’s blade.
The demons fire my hatred,
my evil bile they spill. --I don't think you get anything from twisting your grammar here. jmo
The demons splash my anger, -- Great two lines here
poisoning my will.
The demons taunt and mock me, -- 'taunt' seems redundant. I think 'mock' works better alone.
they tear me from my sleep.
The demons they will kill me,
my demons I must keep.

The ending needs work imo. The idea is good, but the wording could be better. Again, jmo.

Thanks for sharing