05-26-2025, 06:51 AM
(05-26-2025, 05:35 AM)JamesG Wrote: In the small Soho cafe, you sat,
A crippled explosion of joy. An arresting image, though it might suggest the beloved ("you") is crippled rather than the explosion being stunted (by respect, awe, or the waiters trying and failing to maintain their gravitas).
The waiters circled you like acolytes the missing comma at end of line here is fine - could be comma, em dash, but all unnecessary
your smile burning them to the ground this line needs to flow better - "burns" for "burning," perhaps, or "charcoal" for "the ground"
Too close to your heat, I stood better word than "heat," perhaps... "flame," but more intense
And like the wax that held not a fan of capitalizing here
my wings to my shoulders narrator discloses that he's an angel - or Icarus
I melted, combusted, my skin a more descriptive, specific word than "my" here?
Sloughed from my body, same here for "body" - "frame?"
My blood boiled and burned how would these two lines look with "my" removed from the second - or from both?
My bones so much ash nice alliteration
Falling to drift out the doorway
To mingle with the crowds in the street. this might be a spot for "mingling" - avoids repetition of "to"
In moderate critique: this is certainly intense, and (fast lookup) Wardour is a film street where one might expect to find a star or idol being served in a club or other establishment. It expresses the devastation of being hopelessly smitten by fame, or just dynamite looks... of someone else.
I found the somewhat inconsistent capitalization and punctuation a bit distracting, but that's just me. Maybe it would work as well with standard forms... but the randomness adds to the feeling that this narrator is dissolving, becoming disorganized before our eyes. So stet.
The wax-attached wings suggest Icarus and the Sun (who is your Daedalus that set you up for this fall?)
I pictured the narrator as male and idol as female, but it could work as well with a male idol. For some reason, I see a female narrator stop with melting - prejudice, no doubt.
Main suggestion is to use less common words where possible. I always recommend checking each use of "the" for better options, but this is such a life-changing, unique moment (for the narrator, not the idol who surely doesn't notice) that "the" is mostly appropriate. Also, as you edit, consider spots where a word would intensify by its absence - those two "My" for example... who else's body is burning? The waiters'?
Concluding: I like the way there's no hint of cynicism - the narrator is really all in. A reader might look down his nose at the helpless fan, but the fan's emotions are genuine.
Non-practicing atheist

