Critique my poetry.. be honest.

Question

Cruelty hits the spot of an unsuspecting stranger.

His heart reeks of pain; his nose bleeds with anger.

Affluently speaking, he’s a cold-hearted avenger.

He seeks out his prey; he makes them surrender.

In a world full of doubt, he viciously craves self-control.

Just enough to rouse, but not enough to lull.

Purposefully living on a bank of blood and cherries,

He speaks so low, yet looks so arbitrary.

Guilt rises against him, pushing him against his own will,

His tongue creeps with hate, but his body is still.

He swims against the current and speaks without any words.

His life is summed up in the wing of a bird.

Answer 1

To start with let me tell you that there is much that I like in this short poem of just 12lines !

There is a good rhyming scheme, as in aa,bb,cc and so on. The meter is basically iambic penta meter, but ,many lines are also in iambic hexameter as variation.

All the other 11 lines are moving in a pejorative and negative state of mind and in hate and blood , but with some reticence. However the last line is as though the poet gets a freedom from his littleness and he rises and understands that his life is summed up in the wing of a bird.

It is a very interesting and unexpected end, but so true to the life of this stranger; he hates,he is an avenger, living of blood, but eventually swims against the current and is on a higher plane on the wing of a bird !

The poem needs considerate amount of studying, understanding and entering in the spirit of the poem to understand where the poet is leading us .

Such types of poems bring in us a certain freedom and cleanliness in our emotions, - a katharsis ( Aristotle) or Chittashuddhi ( Hindu philosophy). This is what exactly happens to us in Shakespeare's tragedies of Hamlet, Macbeth , Julius Caesar, King Lear etc..