Walking With the Fog

[tectak]

Walking with the fog
cool breezes wash my skin
as cloaked villains bask in sin.This is a dramatic start...and with rhyme. Well done. You could make things easier if you just made rhyming couplets as in:  yeah, might try couplets on an edit. going with triplets may have made some awkward phrases/rhymes later on

Walking with the fog cool breezes wash my skin
as cloaked villains bask in sin

You still have the reading form, and the lack of metre, but the rhyming option is now less worrying. Old advice, this, but be wary of "as". Do you mean "whilst" or "like"...it may be obvious but take care.

Along the pitiful road Interesting use of "pitiful" but this anthropomorphic leaning begs questions to which there are no concomitant answers. Why...indeed, how...is the road pitiful? If you are going for wordplay on "pitted" you cannot get away with it because the reader is not yet confident enough in your word choice.
the dark parades
and light masquerades.Nice idea and very nearly comes off but again, that word "masquerades" is an obvious forced rhyme because...well...it simply doesn't make sense. Masquerades as what and why and how? If you cannot find a word to rhyme with "parades" then change "parades". it is your poem...and to be fair, the idea of "...dark parades" is just fine as long as "parades" is a verb. yes, i meant parades as a verb...and masquerades in this context was supposed to mean "disguised or passed off as something else" but now i see that i may have messed up the wording, which could lead to the confusion of the meaning. Will try to reword that

The path moves
ticking with gloom
while the hour is well past noon.No...dreadfully forced. I mean, come on...it IS dark, you said so...and this couplet in its entirety says very little. I feel for you...there is a dilemma in every line because the wish to be poetic is so apparent. Can I help? Who knows...but:
Along my (the, a, night's, black, etc) path time ticks my tread
with every step increasing dread. oof, looking back on this line it is terrible. and it doesn't have any meaning to the poem as a whole, that isn't already given.

A simple but CONNECTED two lines...and it is connectivity that you have issues with. Stick to your concept and make the words work for you...not the other way round.

You can, of course, change the drift of a line without losing its direction...as, for example, " On unpaved path time ticks my tread, with every step increasing dread." You can see how a simple change "opens up" the stanza to more interesting imagery. The options for that one word "unpaved" are many...So.: On gravel path, on rock-strew path, on fractured path, on ghostly path, on pitted path, on unknown path, on endless path, on unlit path, on....well, you get the idea.     


Deepened shadows chase my eyes I can "see" this. Chased by shadows, yes...but in your own good time just try to find a more applicable word than "deepened" because a shadow is by nature a lack of light...ipso facto...dark as can reasonably be expected. Try to keep up the suspense and fearfulness...a little work will make these shadows scare the shit out of you...flitting, sneaking, ghostly even, or rack it up with, maybe, rakish or scurrying or threatening or darting or.....but not "deepened". yeah, that word was stuck in my head for whatever reason, and i originally used it in another part before crossing it out and then it popped up here again. neither time it made much sense, well...it did in my head, but that seems to be a reoccurring theme
and interlace a grove of trees Avoid and-iness. You use "and" to connect your thoughts but "and" is just a shopping list to the reader. What's more, "interlace" can be negated easily by, say "entwining wraith-like, in the trees..."
whose life is rationed out, for free.I have no idea what this means but I just know you are going to tell me...which if so, is a pity because you SHOULD tell me in the poem.

What a lonely trail, the one that's straight  There is another trail? You do it all the time. "the one that's straight" is without alternative...but why should a straight trail be lonely and a twisting one not? You think thoughts but just lose your grip on "meaning" before you put them on the paper. I really believe that you could get something good out of the poetic endeavour if only you could PONDER before POSTING...not for the benefit of the crits, but for yourself. Writing poetry is a doddle...writing GOOD poetry is bloody difficult...belive me, I know. (and I am reminded regularly ) uh-huh, i need to start waiting a few days before coming back to refine, and then post.
defiled by just one mere gate,
that beckons...come here, don't wait. In view of what has gone before, I think you should look at this verse and truly decide if it makes a contribution to the rest of the piece. "Defiled" by a gate is something I have never come across...  

Who yields to flowers, and also bramble
they feel a call to drift and stumble
so far from home they tend to crumble. Stop. Enough. you are now tired of your own poem. Take these last two stanzas away, go and eat something sustaining then , after a snooze, rewrite them in to a meaningful end. That first line is horrendously contrived...and who are "they"...and what on earth has crumbling blooms (I think) to do with the "who" that is yielding. This stanza is a train crash and you CAN do better. 

Still an aura does existThe "still" is superfluous...it may not be so if you changed "exist" to "persist"
an effervescent sort of mist this is conceptually good...do not lose it...but lose the primary school-yard  expression "sort of".....try "..an effervescent (glowing, soaking, drenching, chilling, choking, humid, stinging, smoky, acid etc) mist"...but NOT "sort of"...sheesh.  
encapsulating this devilish tryst. I like this stanza but again, I have absolutely NO idea what it is about. If you could just link it saliently in to the body of the poem you may be surprised to fnd that you get a beginning, a middle and an end. Right now, I cannot help you further because I have a sudden headache and need to lie down in a darkening shadow.

yimbus, 
 You are brave. This critique is in mild and so any comments by this crit should be taken to be of minimalist intent. I really believe you want to write poetry...and by any of many definitions whatever goes...er...goes...but please, please make clarity a priority THROUGHOUT. Your rhyming attempts are of varied success BUT it is apparent that you really tried to pull this one off. DO NOT JUST DUMP IT...it is recycleable.
Best, 
 tectak

thanks, will work on it later. I definitely need to form some sort of fluidity of events with this poem, as right now there isn't much chronological (or any type) of order with this piece. I will start trying to wait before posting, so i avoid some of the mumbo jumbo that can come out of my head when I'm in the "sort of" state/mood that I'm in while writing...although it will still always happen, just to spite you.  

Good egg...but in spite of yourself you spite yourself...not me
Best,
tectak