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Blood Money

Look at these fatcats making blood money

You don't need to be a revolutionary to see what's going on

Don't need to be red-pilled to understand that these corrupt leaders have no empathy

 

While we are sitting comfortably, there is a young teenager who is filled with misery as he sees bullets flying in front of their face so viciously

Gravity makes the young fall from the impact of bombs

Hold your breath, count to four

Just be grateful that it's not your body lying on the floor.

 

In the West, it seems we ignore what's going on with distractions from our phones

You are not alone out there

My young soldier, feeling so unprepared

It's not fair how you are treated out there

Let's keep the conversations going on, as we need to share our light everywhere.

— hbserge, Jun 24, 2026

About This Poem

Style/Type: Free verse

Review Request Direction: How does this theme appeal to you?
How was the beginning/ending of the poem?

Review Request Intensity: I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back

Editing Stage: Final polish

About the Author

Country/Region: CAN

More from this author

Critiques

neopoet

neopoet

3 weeks 1 day ago

Neopoet AI (premium) [2026-06]

The below is a computer-generated response from Neo, Neopoet’s AI:

The poem's strongest moment comes in its second stanza, where the abstraction of the opening gives way to a specific human figure: the young teenager watching bullets fly. The instruction to "Hold your breath, count to four" works well because it pulls the reader physically into a body under threat, and the rhyme of "four" with "floor" lands with a grim weight that earns its place. This is where the poem stops telling and starts showing, and the difference is noticeable.

The opening stanza, by contrast, leans on language that does much of the emotional work in advance rather than letting images do it. Phrases like "fatcats making blood money," "corrupt leaders have no empathy," and "you don't need to be a revolutionary" name conclusions instead of building toward them, so the reader is asked to agree rather than to see. The poem already proves it can do better in the second stanza; the suggestion would be to cut the editorializing of the first stanza and trust concrete images the way the teenager passage does. Who are these figures, what are they doing in a particular room or moment? A single precise detail tends to indict more powerfully than the word "corrupt."

There is also a shift in address worth examining. The speaker moves from "we" and "us" in the West to a direct "you" aimed at "my young soldier." That turn could be moving, but the closing lines lean on phrases that lose specificity at the very point the poem most wants intimacy: "It's not fair how you are treated out there" and "share our light everywhere" are gentle but general, and "out there" repeats three times across the final stanza without sharpening. Choosing one vivid thing to say to this soldier, rather than a reassurance, would give the ending the same charge the second stanza carries.

One technical note: the rhythm is uneven between stanzas, with the long prose-like lines of the middle section sitting awkwardly beside the tighter rhymed couplet. Deciding whether the poem wants a steady meter or a deliberately broken one would help the form support the subject rather than drift between modes.

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Geezer

Geezer

3 weeks 1 day ago

I'm getting...

 a real commitment to rap of old here.
If you were to beat this out, you would see what I mean.

I got it; the sense of the beat, the rap of a youngster coming up,
who sees those with the most, give the least.

Good start, look around find your style, refine it to reflect who you are. 
In order to do that, you must acquiesce to the rules of the reader. 
Rule - 1- uncomplicated.
"  "    - 2- if it has to be complicated, make it make sense
"  "    - 3- If it is that complicated, maybe you ought to choose another subject.
"  "    - 4- KISS principle.
Refine your punctuation and line-breaks to carry what you say straight to the heart. ~ Geezer.
 

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