Pumping Iron

It's time for some good 'ol fashioned peer editing guys.
Now, most of you know that I write a lot of poetry, and that I love poetry (maybe even as much as knitting...please, hold your gasps of horror and shock). I say "as much as" and not "more" because they are two totally incomparable arts. I like to think of knitting as being more under the category of playing music, which sounds totally kooky, but I have an explanation. When you, say, play a Bach piece, you are pouring yourself into the piece, but it is still laid out there for you to do, as it has been written, with perhaps a few modifications depending on your personality type. Knitting is just like that. You knit what the pattern tells you (unless you're one of those really inventive knitters who comes up with their own patterns, personally I like to tweak age-old motifs to fit my needs), and the knitting will of course reflect your feelings and experiences during the project, if for no other reason than that your stitches will get tighter or looser depending on how you feel, though I like to think that knitting is affected on a deeper level than that by what we experience when we're working (more on that on another day).
Writing, is like musical composition. It is taking your emotions and experiences, and creating something totally new and unique out of your own head using all manner of symbols and sounds. This is why writing and knitting are incomparable, and why I love them both. One provides the calm, security in knowing that one stitch looks one way and the other looks the other, and when you do weird things with them they make clothes, and the other provides the ability to expand and throw yourself inward and outward into some magical pool of words and feelings.
What's sad about this is that, though I've talked a lot about knitting, I've talked very little about writing. This is partly due to the fact that I haven't written a poem in almost a month, which is a rare and depressing thing for me, so right now I'm trying to get back into the groove of things. I thought that I'd do this by putting up a couple of my poems, and asking you guys to critique them, so I can get those poetic muscles moving again.
These are from my submission to a competition last fall:

Glass Hearts

In the spyglass I see

An image distorted and cracked,

And I know the cracks were made by me

With a single selfish act.

Our hearts are fragile things,

Composed of hopes, love, and fear,

Held together by glue and knotted strings,

That we offer to those we want kept near.

In the looking glass I see

A self that understands you

Grinning out triumphantly,

Because now, I’ve been selfish too.

I’ve taken someone’s heart,

Tender and trusting,

And I’ve taken it apart;

Abandoned it for my desiring.

Is the mirror fogged or clearing?

Is the image my soul revealed, or has your breath,

Upon my lonely fearing

Led to my kindness’s death?

Having once forgiven you,

Myself, I can now forgive

For breaking his heart too,

Because after you, my heart still lived.

The End All, Lose All

A young man, stumbling,

(Blind.

Broken.

Heartless)

Towards the end all,

Lose all.

The shade of suburbia

Lies

Shattered at his feet.

Burning oil drums line the pavement.

(So many lost boys

Holding candles of hellfire,

The wax dripping

Down their burnt digits.)

The light catches his eyes,

And you’ve seen them before:

When bombs are dropped

On innocent souls in the night;

When sweaty burgers are shoved

Down gullets into swollen bellies;

In the faces of chemotherapy skeletons

Lying prone on hospital beds;

In your own face

(Creeping closer).

He falls to the dusty concrete,

Shallow cheek pressed to the ground.

Next to him is a fallen barrel,

Its oil spread into a sticky pool.

He lifts himself up on quaking arms,

Stares deep at his own reflection in the pool,

And with a self-satisfied grin,

Collapses,

Not to breathe again.

So, tell me what you think guys, leave comments, all that jazz.
Night.
Thing to be grateful for today: Peer editing