Written in the Color of My Love

I thought I'd write a quick critique since it's requested.

The main things that you're working with a ton of cliches, which become especially apparent in fixed form poetry. I think the best way to revise this pieces would be to go in, find all the cliches, and kill them. Follow that by checking your modifiers (adjectives, adverbs) and nixing those, too. Once you have the bare bones of the piece, you'll be able to see what you're aiming to achieve.

You also need to check your fragments. Poetry has to be grammatically sound, just like prose! You have a lot of bits (like "melted snow with ink as warm as blood") that are not complete sentences. If you can create a narrative by using complete sentences and proper syntax, you'll be in much better shape.

Finally, I think it's important that you read some modern poetry. You'll find that, even in formal poetry, most poets do not capitalize the first letter of every line. This is an antiquated form. If you'd like some great formal poetry to start with, check out work by Roxanna Bennett and Jen Karetnick -- I think both of these ladies have work available online in magazines, but they also have some great collections that you can buy or order at your library.

Bravo for trying your hand at form, though! It's not easy!