Blaze Heart

This I like even more than "Summer Days". I'm not too sure about the closing lines they somehow reduce the gravity of the piece. Excellent effort though. Keep going.

I'm not too sure about the last couple of lines, but overall it's a pleasing piece and sometimes if you make changes it alters the whole atmosphere.

Scratch says they reduce the gravity of the piece, I can't say how you should alter them, though.

Well Raphy you have five stanzas that develop an intensity, and this serves to draw the reader into the work well. You have developed the imagery of isolation, cloister, and mutual reliance. This, juxtaposed with the image of the consuming fire (lovely writing in the third stanza) and the idea that this fire is somehow a catalyst for action and spirit all serves to build. I honestly don't know what the last two lines bring to the party? I would edit by simply deleting them. Please remember that these are the subjective opinions of an unpublished amateur. I think that this is an excellent effort.

You may be an unpublished amateur, Scratch, but your work is damned good and your opinion means an awful lot. I write intuitively and I don't pretend to know much about the stylistics of writing, and speaking from that viewpoint those last two lines don't feel as if they belong. I just had another read without those lines and the piece works perfectly well without them, Raphy, but if you want to have a play with them to see if you can make them less jarring it would be interesting to see the result.

Only you can make that decision, Raphy; though suggestions are always helpful, don't let anyone twist your arm.