10-25-2017, 02:37 AM
Hi Lydish, some nice images and phrases here,
and I think the edit certainly improves on the original,
however, I don't think your title does enough
and it becomes less relevant as the poem progresses.
Spring returns dressed in cherry blossoms,
and melts into the waiting laps of embracing lovers.
Nice opening, but the jump from 'spring' to 'we' seems a bit abrupt,
so I'd suggest re-framing the piece in couplets.
Is 'laps' just there for the alliteration?
(If it melts (which implies some form of liquid)
into their laps then the image is close to one of incontinence)
We run gentle fingers across the budding magnolias
braided into his willow hair, falling into his eyes,
nice line
brushing blushed cheeks in the wet smelling wind.
A bit too overwrought, I think. Not sure you need it.
Spring lingered in the magnolia covered grass
not keen on the repetition of grass or magnolia
until summer stormed in, furious [all] hurricane hair with cheerful [and] wildflower eyes.
you don't need 'furious' after 'stormed', and both are a bit at odds with 'cheerful'.
“Won’t you stay?” Our whispered wonder.
He caresses our lingering grasp with genteel grass.
'grasp' and 'grass' don't make for particularly good sonics.
Also 'lingered' then 'lingering'.
Why do they want Spring to stay?
Summer stomps, a tornado through town—hot passion and sunburnt weathered arms.
again rather overwritten. First a hurricane now a tornado? It just feel like repetition.
I think if you could be a bit more concise, using sunburnt, weathered arms,
sweating skies and drowning rivers (nice line by the way), it would improve things.
Summer leaves paradise with sweating skies and drowning rivers, a parched paradox
I don't really know what to make of these two stanzas, there's an unexplained move
from the opening 'rural/idyll' scene to an 'urban' one, no sign of Autumn and nothing
about how this season affects the 'we' in Spring. Then there is 'I' all of a sudden.
Spring is two steps forwards, and I am one step back.
Through snowmen, down ski hills, past coal smudged highways. By yellow spots in snow banks left by shivering chihuahuas and shitzus and hobos, too, hoping for goodness outside empty soup kitchens.
there's an ambiguity with 'hoping for goodness outside...'
Either they are outside hoping for goodness (from the kitchen) or
it is outside (the kitchen) where they hope to find goodness.
Winter is a sleeping bear whose stomach howls for sustenance. No one wakes.
We float down rivers brushed with green-again willow trees, sun recovering icy banks; we are cherry blossoms dancing across smooth waves and tadpole pools.
We dream of spring.
No idea who 'we' is now, nor why they've returned to the piece, and where has 'I' gone?
If there's a narrative linking the seasons/passage of the year, I'm afraid it eludes me.
After a strong start it just seems to lose its way, or perhaps that was just me.
Best, Knot.
and I think the edit certainly improves on the original,
however, I don't think your title does enough
and it becomes less relevant as the poem progresses.
Spring returns dressed in cherry blossoms,
and melts into the waiting laps of embracing lovers.
Nice opening, but the jump from 'spring' to 'we' seems a bit abrupt,
so I'd suggest re-framing the piece in couplets.
Is 'laps' just there for the alliteration?
(If it melts (which implies some form of liquid)
into their laps then the image is close to one of incontinence)
We run gentle fingers across the budding magnolias
braided into his willow hair, falling into his eyes,
nice line
brushing blushed cheeks in the wet smelling wind.
A bit too overwrought, I think. Not sure you need it.
Spring lingered in the magnolia covered grass
not keen on the repetition of grass or magnolia
until summer stormed in, furious [all] hurricane hair with cheerful [and] wildflower eyes.
you don't need 'furious' after 'stormed', and both are a bit at odds with 'cheerful'.
“Won’t you stay?” Our whispered wonder.
He caresses our lingering grasp with genteel grass.
'grasp' and 'grass' don't make for particularly good sonics.
Also 'lingered' then 'lingering'.
Why do they want Spring to stay?
Summer stomps, a tornado through town—hot passion and sunburnt weathered arms.
again rather overwritten. First a hurricane now a tornado? It just feel like repetition.
I think if you could be a bit more concise, using sunburnt, weathered arms,
sweating skies and drowning rivers (nice line by the way), it would improve things.
Summer leaves paradise with sweating skies and drowning rivers, a parched paradox
I don't really know what to make of these two stanzas, there's an unexplained move
from the opening 'rural/idyll' scene to an 'urban' one, no sign of Autumn and nothing
about how this season affects the 'we' in Spring. Then there is 'I' all of a sudden.
Spring is two steps forwards, and I am one step back.
Through snowmen, down ski hills, past coal smudged highways. By yellow spots in snow banks left by shivering chihuahuas and shitzus and hobos, too, hoping for goodness outside empty soup kitchens.
there's an ambiguity with 'hoping for goodness outside...'
Either they are outside hoping for goodness (from the kitchen) or
it is outside (the kitchen) where they hope to find goodness.
Winter is a sleeping bear whose stomach howls for sustenance. No one wakes.
We float down rivers brushed with green-again willow trees, sun recovering icy banks; we are cherry blossoms dancing across smooth waves and tadpole pools.
We dream of spring.
No idea who 'we' is now, nor why they've returned to the piece, and where has 'I' gone?
If there's a narrative linking the seasons/passage of the year, I'm afraid it eludes me.
After a strong start it just seems to lose its way, or perhaps that was just me.
Best, Knot.