The Pulschnip

[Pilgrim]

The Pulschnip


In multifarious, mystic ways
the Pulschnip spends her darkling days;
A-loitering here, a-prowlering there,
at no small distance from her lair,
Her purposes to profit.

The Pulschnip is a cunning creature,
who hides each grim, nefarious feature
Behind a smile so wondrous guiled
as would inveigle some sweet child
Her appetite to surfeit.

And if upon a cloudless night
the moon is gleaming pearlsome bright,
She’ll scud about till break of day
to schnip a dozen souls away,
And will accept no forfeit.

Behold the Pulschnip if you dare,
at midnight dark or noonday fair;
She’ll fix you with her winsome gaze,
then bind you with her magic ways,
Her purpose soon accomplit.

Ah, sad! the victims of this Beast
that filches humans for its feast.
Where is the knight or warrior bold
who’ll slay the Pulschnip in its hold,
And make this world more parfait?


_______________

[syntheticsunset]

A few small nits:

- The capitalization at the beginning of the lines isn't consistent.
- The repetition of "purpose" and "purposes" in the first and fourth stanzas feels like an accident. Perhaps you could change one of them.
- I might replace "a-prowlering" with "a-prowling".
- In the first stanza, "no small distance" feels a bit lazy, as though it's only meant to fill in the meter.

Bigger points:

- In the second stanza I'd love a description of the "grim, nefarious" features – are we talking sharp teeth, claws, what? – instead of just being told "they're really grim, trust me."
- Stanza three makes it sound like the creature's prowling behavior is contingent on moonlight, but then in stanza four it seems that the Pulschnip may be active any time of day or night. If stanza three is a full moon reference, that could be made clearer.

Overall, the rhyme and meter are well done, the subject matter is interesting, and I found the diction delightful.

[billy]

sadly, parfait doesn't rhyme the poem has a good refrain, some good rhymes

PHP Code:

if you want to indent just type the amount of [ind] you need 


and it will look like
[ind]this
[ind][ind]or this
while its a nice little rhyming poem, it doesn't have a lot of depth, a few images would help it shine.

The Pulschnip


In multifarious, mystic ways
the Pulschnip spends her darkling days;
A-loitering here, a-prowlering there,
at no small distance from her lair,
Her purposes to profit.

The Pulschnip is a cunning creature,
who hides each grim, nefarious feature how?
Behind a smile so wondrous guiled guiled is a good word
as would inveigle some sweet child
Her appetite to surfeit.

And if upon a cloudless night
the moon is gleaming pearlsome bright, a good image, you need at least one for each verse.
She’ll scud about till break of day
to schnip a dozen souls away,
And will accept no forfeit.

Behold the Pulschnip if you dare,
at midnight dark or noonday fair;
She’ll fix you with her winsome gaze,
then bind you with her magic ways,
Her purpose soon accomplit.

Ah, sad! the victims of this Beast
that filches humans for its feast.
Where is the knight or warrior bold
who’ll slay the Pulschnip in its hold,
And make this world more parfait?


_______________

[Pilgrim]

A few small nits:

- The capitalization at the beginning of the lines isn't consistent.
- The repetition of "purpose" and "purposes" in the first and fourth stanzas feels like an accident. Perhaps you could change one of them.
- I might replace "a-prowlering" with "a-prowling".
- In the first stanza, "no small distance" feels a bit lazy, as though it's only meant to fill in the meter.

Bigger points:

- In the second stanza I'd love a description of the "grim, nefarious" features – are we talking sharp teeth, claws, what? – instead of just being told "they're really grim, trust me."
- Stanza three makes it sound like the creature's prowling behavior is contingent on moonlight, but then in stanza four it seems that the Pulschnip may be active any time of day or night. If stanza three is a full moon reference, that could be made clearer.

Overall, the rhyme and meter are well done, the subject matter is interesting, and I found the diction delightful.

---

A few small nits:

- The capitalization at the beginning of the lines isn't consistent.
- The repetition of "purpose" and "purposes" in the first and fourth stanzas feels like an accident. Perhaps you could change one of them.
- I might replace "a-prowlering" with "a-prowling".
- In the first stanza, "no small distance" feels a bit lazy, as though it's only meant to fill in the meter.

Bigger points:

- In the second stanza I'd love a description of the "grim, nefarious" features – are we talking sharp teeth, claws, what? – instead of just being told "they're really grim, trust me."
- Stanza three makes it sound like the creature's prowling behavior is contingent on moonlight, but then in stanza four it seems that the Pulschnip may be active any time of day or night. If stanza three is a full moon reference, that could be made clearer.

Overall, the rhyme and meter are well done, the subject matter is interesting, and I found the diction delightful.

Hello, syntheticsunset. Thank you for your detailed critique.

The small nits.

1. Capitalisation occurs on the first word of the first line, and then on the first word of each alternate line, of every stanza. I thought this was consistent.

2. ‘Purpose’ and ‘purposes’ each relate to intention or design, and were not accidental.

3. ‘A-prowlering’ effects an assonant relationship to ‘a-loitering’.

4. ‘No small distance’ was intentional, being less prosaic than ‘a great distance’.

The bigger points.

1. One of my personal views regarding the function(s) of poetry is that it should stimulate the reader’s imagination. In this respect I think there should be a judicious mix of the implicit and the explicit in what is presented.

The subject of the poem is a creature which regularly slaughters and devours humans, and yet is able, through cunning, to hide behind a smile sufficiently alluring to entrap an unsuspecting child. So far as adults are concerned, the monster’s ‘winsome gaze’ and associated magic is sufficient to enslave the beholder.

I thought there was enough information there to provide grist for the reader’s imaginative mill.

(As an aside, the mythical Medusa had, in addition to a mass of snakes instead of hair, a face so terrible that to gaze upon it was to die. Yet apart from the snakes, the face itself is never described in detail – presumably, the reader’s imagination fills in the details.)


2. Like Satan himself, the Pulschnip is always about, but is more than usually active on certain propitious occasions – in the case of the Pulschnip, on cloudless, moonlit nights.

Thank you again. I appreciate it.

Regards,

Pilgrim.

---

sadly, parfait doesn't rhyme the poem has a good refrain, some good rhymes

PHP Code:

if you want to indent just type the amount of [ind] you need 


and it will look like
[ind]this
[ind][ind]or this
while its a nice little rhyming poem, it doesn't have a lot of depth, a few images would help it shine.

The Pulschnip


In multifarious, mystic ways
the Pulschnip spends her darkling days;
A-loitering here, a-prowlering there,
at no small distance from her lair,
Her purposes to profit.

The Pulschnip is a cunning creature,
who hides each grim, nefarious feature how?
Behind a smile so wondrous guiled guiled is a good word
as would inveigle some sweet child
Her appetite to surfeit.

And if upon a cloudless night
the moon is gleaming pearlsome bright, a good image, you need at least one for each verse.
She’ll scud about till break of day
to schnip a dozen souls away,
And will accept no forfeit.

Behold the Pulschnip if you dare,
at midnight dark or noonday fair;
She’ll fix you with her winsome gaze,
then bind you with her magic ways,
Her purpose soon accomplit.

Ah, sad! the victims of this Beast
that filches humans for its feast.
Where is the knight or warrior bold
who’ll slay the Pulschnip in its hold,
And make this world more parfait?


_______________

Hello, billy. Thank you for your critique.

1. The final word of each stanza is as follows:

S1 – profit
S2 – surfeit
S3 – forfeit
S4 – accomplit
S5 - parfait

I claim the licence of consonantal rhyme in the use of this group of words, citing as precedents Shakespeare (who paired ‘love’ with ‘remove’ in Sonnet CXVI) and John Donne (who paired ‘root’ with ‘foot’ in his poem ‘Song’). Claiming the same licence, I have elsewhere in this forum paired ‘arm’ with ’storm’.

2. The Pulschnip hides (the monstrous aspects of) her features behind her smile.

Thank you again.

Regards,

Pilgrim.

[Brownlie]

The Pulschnip


In multifarious, mystic ways
the Pulschnip spends her darkling days;
A-loitering here, a-prowlering there,
at no small distance from her lair,
Her purposes to profit.

The Pulschnip is a cunning creature,
who hides each grim, nefarious feature
Behind a smile so wondrous guiled
as would inveigle some sweet child
Her appetite to surfeit.

And if upon a cloudless night
the moon is gleaming pearlsome bright,
She’ll scud about till break of day
to schnip a dozen souls away,
And will accept no forfeit.

Behold the Pulschnip if you dare,
at midnight dark or noonday fair;
She’ll fix you with her winsome gaze,
then bind you with her magic ways,
Her purpose soon accomplit.

Ah, sad! the victims of this Beast
that filches humans for its feast.
Where is the knight or warrior bold
who’ll slay the Pulschnip in its hold,
And make this world more parfait?


_______________

The knight who slays this beast shall have a large funeral pyre and then be cursed by christians for his lavish burial.