I had somewhat of a religious debate with my friend the other day, resulting in the inspiration for a poem. All of my real life friends say they love it, but you know how friends can be. I figure if I can get some real criticism, it'll be here.

The One Who Rejected The Lord
by Jameson Harrigan

His spirit has been consumed
by his hate of all things.
His soul, burned away
through selfishness, through lust.
Suffering has become all but
a joyless past time,
an echo of emotion lost long ago.
Innocence is a word that lacks
meaning or means of understanding.
Here at the end of the universe,
his universe, draped in the fires of sin,
he shall confront the moment of passing,
and immortality will be lost forever.

It's good, but somewhat dreary and depressing. I would know mind you, I write some terribly gloomy poetry. I like it though, and appreciate the message it conveys.

I think it would be more suitable on the Showcase forum however. Keep writing all the same, I love to read other's poetry.

It sucks. Seriously.

Damn freelancer.

It needs a better flow and rhyme scheme is what I think he means... >.>

No, I mean the exact opposite. I think the flow is great and it is technically sound. I think the subject matter sucks.

Ahh, but this is not what Darth J asked. There is a difference.

Criticism involves how the object of examination was constructed and organized, not the subject matter involved. It's about how it was written, not what it was written about. You're talking about opinion. There is a difference between opinion and criticism. Opinion relies more on bias, while criticism [should] rely more on actual knowledge of how to write poetry.

Plus "sucks" isn't a terribly helpful description, and isn't going to improve anyone's writing.

I think you want "pastime" for "past time".

Also, "means of understanding" is a little awkward and doesn't add all that much to the meaning.

As a whole, it's a little on the bland side- perhaps you could put a little more fire into it, as it were. (I mean that somewhat literally: see if you could work some more fire/heat imagery into it, not through the stereotypical things like saying 'flames' or 'burning' or 'ashes', but through something more creative. For example, you could use "crisped" for "burned" in line 3. What you want is tangible pictures, feelings, smells, which are much preferable to vague metaphysical ideas.)

On the other hand, maybe the blandness is meant to suggest the emptiness of the subject's soul? If that's the case, try to bring that out more.

And I don't know if it's intentional or not, but the alliteration of /h/ is nicely suggestive of Hell, even though you don't need to say it directly..

Feels a bit akward. Doesn't flow too well. Don't shy away from using a dictionary to find a shorter or longer word to express an idea. And don't shy away from using an abstract metaphor. Not everything has to be so explicit.

I like it

I don't. I don't see much flow.