Depression burns like acid rain dripping..... dripping.... dripping from tar paper roof above to gather in oily puddles in hollows worn in tired steps by generations of those who passed her by time and again. A door hangs askew from its rusted hinges; broken windows stare out blindly into darkness punctuated with sirens and flashing light. Bare walls, stained from too many years of neglect tell tales unheard by human ears; of lives lived, loves lost and of birth and death. Decay, the smell of mold and dust. Will no one recognize the beauty she once was? Perhaps some society, historical or otherwise will one day restore the piteous empty shell; or some distant future wrecking ball remove the final remnants of her presence, to make room for condos for those who are worthy. Again, I need help with the punctuation here, I know something is missing but cannot seem to get past my own interp of the bit.

The beauty of poetry...no need to worry over punctuation. some may disagree but you actually don't need it at all if the arrangement is right. Use your line breaks as you would punctuation, to set the pace of your poem lines, create suspense, etc. Again others may disagree, and I do believe in learning form but its your poem, poetry is art, paint the page with your words, the effects of punctuation in poetry occur in your placement of the words, their rhythm.

L8 "Broken" is an emphatic I think you should capitalize the start of this line.

Im a little confused also by L4-L6 at first I get the impresssion that the hollows are inside the house and the rain is collecting on a stairwell as it falls through the roof, but then you say steps as they pass by would suggest outside that kind of threw me.

thanks tjames... how would you suggest i clarify the fact that the steps are outside instead of inside? In the final I will make sure that Broken is capped.

Drop the word "above". The roof isn't enclosing but just exists. As an observer you then place yourself outside.

You set up a nice tone in the poem, dark without being angst-ridden.

Punctation (since you asked) -

Line 11 should end in a comma instead of a semi-colon. If you don't want to use a comma, a colon would also work. Semi-colons separate phrases that could be independent sentences.

L13 - It's a sentence fragment. Sometimes they're useful to drive home a point, but I think placing a comma at the end of the line and tying the phrase into the next sentence would work better.

L16 - Same as L11.

I'm a stickler in some areas: if you're going to punctuate the poem, besides a very occasional period or question mark, ya might as well do it right. :-)

Nitpicks:

In L3, I'd put a definite article:

from the tar paper roof above

I took the drips to be outside the house, but maybe it would be clearer if you said:

dripping..... dripping.... dripping
off the tar paper roof

L4-5 You use the word "in" 3 times in 2 lines. It doesn't quite hit me right. I'd change one of the instances to another preposition:

to gather in oily puddles in hollows
worn from tired steps by generations

Hope this helps,

Cres

(Sigh, must remember to preview post when playing with html!)

I disagree with Azha about punctuation...it makes more difference than in regular prose because it not only clarifies the sentence, but directs the way the sentence should be read.

Ok, made some punctuation changes, and removed L13 as I could find no real way to tie it with any other line and of course the mind went numb when trying to think of a line to tie it to. I think it reads a bit more easily now. Again, thanks to everyone who posted a comment and/or suggestion. It truly helps to have someone outside of the writing to proof it and offer suggestions as I know that I become to close to what I have written and cannot see the errors. ~~ Depression burns like acid rain dripping..... dripping.... dripping off the tar paper roof to gather in oily puddles in hollows worn by the tired steps of generations of those who passed her by time and again. A door hangs askew from its rusted hinges. Broken windows stare out blindly into darkness punctuated with sirens and flashing light. Bare walls, stained from too many years of neglect tell tales unheard by human ears, of lives lived, loves lost and of birth and death. Will no one recognize the beauty she once was? Perhaps some society, historical or otherwise, will one day restore the piteous empty shell, or some distant future wrecking ball remove the final remnants of her presence, to make room for condos for those who are worthy.

It does flow much better now. I really like it. It brings back memories of an old mansion we broke into when I was a kid - an old abandoned house, rumored to be haunted. It was a grand and glorious old house, so sad in its state of neglect and decay. Sadly, no historical society saved it, it was torn down to make way for a small subdivision. But all those houses are just pretenders in her place. jon