Story - take on the topic was OK. You could've written about a loooootttt of things by interpreting the topic phrase as you did - "getting lost in a haze of emotion". Not really a criticism but it gave you a lot of leeway in what to write about. Flow/rhythm was good. Rhymes were a little basic but they served well enough. Liked your description of the hospital room where the character's wife is giving birth as a "safety zone with only a few witnesses included". You did a good job moving the story through the labour, birth, and then the first few minutes of the baby's life, adding enough detail to paint the picture and emotional state quite well. Didn't like the rose line - corny, and in a couple of places you misused words (eg 'strength as a giant' should be either 'strength OF a giant' or 'STRONG as a giant'. The word 'asunder' was also misused). Not sure about the "repair her conscience" line. What did she do to damage her conscience? Maybe you meant consciousness... Right after that line you needed to refer to the baby with something besides the pronoun 'she', because you'd just been using it to describe the wife and so it was confusing for the reader. All of these things are minor faults individually, but all together they did take something away from your verse for me, unfortunately. Still a pretty decent verse overall. Good job.
Zen - your take on the topic was more ambitious, - contrasting the literal meaning of 'lost in a haze' with the captain's emotional state, - and you pulled it off well enough. There was nothing to nitpick at in terms of your word choice as there was in your opponent's verse, and your rhymes were a little more impressive. These are the deciding factors which are going to make me vote for you. You also moved your story along nicely with a good choice of descriptors - liked the return to the gulls. Good, solid verse. Thanks for the read.
v/ Zen
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The Bad Guys
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