04-01-2018, 05:38 AM
(04-01-2018, 05:03 AM)alexorande Wrote: On Actias LunaDelectable telling of luna moth and flame (or mere bug-zapper). Personifying the flame as the speaker-viewpoint is novel (except when then pursuing it as a metaphor for consuming love, here avoided... I think).
I found your wings, greener "found" may be problematic (see below)
than the faraway willow tree in spring, adorned beautiful alliteration, also referring back to w-ings
with tips as lissome as a sundown shaft of light, more nice alliteration in the key of S this time
only more evasive of a starlit maw. I glow alike
and you come to me. Is it because I have no mouth
to devour with, let alone speak these words? is "with" necessary here? reader unlikely to think moth threatens to devour speaker, esp. if "to" repeated before "speak"
If I did, I'd only tell you
to stay on the wall you're perched. Do not draw too close could "to" be eliminated, with emm dash ending previous line?
like so many of the grey-winged ones who tap my skin until
they go up in flares of light and dust. "burn" or even "die" in place of "go up?"
Get away.
Get away.
Get away.
You singe your wings
and morning came. only suggestion/confirmation of a human analogy, nicely put. The sudden past tense is a little confusing.
The one point I find (g) frustrating is in L1, "found" and the comma. Light of the speaker/lamp "finding" the moth is nice (but why past tense?) but that comma turns the verse into a string of sentence fragments where it would be a catalog of discoveries without it. That's as I read it, anyway.
The play of verb tenses also confuses me. If this is love-analogy, I could see it as shifting back and forth between present time and memory, but in the nature-story (with sentient flame) what would the poem look like all in present tense, or all in past tense?
Just a few suggestions and comments, not to be taken too much to heart. It's quite enjoyable and a bit challenging (had to look up "Saturniid," had been barking up the Greek mythology tree and trying to decide if it was Saturn trying to avoid consuming Aurora or something).
Very good.
Non-practicing atheist

