Write, Wrote, Written discussion

A shotgun in the distance
Set the tempo for the race
Footsteps, breaking branches
“Mother, please pick up the pace”
No water in the river
No places left to hide
The women clutched each other
“I’ll see you on the other side”

Nothing of the wood left
Nothing more to deal with

Yelling out their praises
Stampeding through the pines
Guns drawn and smiles twisted
The darkness of their minds
Matching all the forests' shadow
Cutting all the peace to pieces
Eyes empty and mouths hollow
With a single shot, it ceases

Souls untied like balloon strings
Floating up to greet the great king

Powerful!

Not bad. First stanza much stronger than the third, though. They need to be equal in strength.

Imagery needs tightening up--make the precipitating image followed up by the image that naturally matches.

Also: explicate the shotgun. It would mean more if we knew what the threat was. If its a serial killer, that is too trite. If it is maybe a husband/father, that would mean something. Allude to some kind of backstory rather than just 'the chase'.

Check out Goethe's poem, 'The Erl-King' to maybe inspire some tweaks to this. A female version of 'Erl-King' would be pretty nifty.

Thanks for reading, I'll make some tweaks to clear things up.