The Li river

Beautiful Li's husband was sent away to help build the Great Wall. She was hearbroken. Everyday she would climb to the top of a hill with her child in arms to await his return. Little did she know he had been killed serving the Emporer in the construction of his barricade. The Gods, seeing this, took pity on the poor woman standing atop the hills of Guilin and turned her to stone. Their magic could not shut off her tears, and from them sprung the great green river.


looking like some kind of Grand Central Primeval
the Li River beautiful girl stretches a sickly green
choked with tourism smog
the poor lady cries for a husband
off to build newer and better things
leaving poor celestial child
alone
and unaccounted for
calling to the people to fill her swollen banks
maybe if I modernize I can have the one I love back
but alas
he's dead and buried
under stone and endless stretch of wall more modern
than he was able to cope with and all the poor child can do is
weep
she'd be beautiful if she'd smile
but who can part such red ripe lips when choking
on entrepanureal exhaust
exhausting her lungs with a wail unheard
crystal green eyes not weeping but wet constantly
fearing an end that will come she'll be tattered and worn
like her mud-brown cousin*
disappointed
not in her beauty but the lack thereof
dirtied by lovers filling the time
before that long lost eternal
unsoiled clean can return
she opened up for him but
lost
anyway
impure and unstained
women do the strangest things
for love

*the Yangtze river

One word - beautiful. I wish I could write poetry like this, it's lovely.

Really captures the emotion of the topic. If I could critique poetry, I might have a go, but I really don't think I want to change anything. Loved it

I loved this! I have never read such a wonderful combination of legend, emotion, and great poetry before.

looking like some kind of Grand Central Primeval
the Li River beautiful girl stretches a sickly green

I didn't really understand why you put the "beautiful girl" in there without any commas or anything. I mean, I know Li's supposed to be a pretty girl, but I don't think it makes sense right there. At least put commas around "beautiful girl" so that it sounds a little better with the flow of the line.

but alas
he's dead and buried
under stone and endless stretch of wall more modern
than he was able to cope with and all the poor child can do is
weep

I think you could separate the lines a little better here, so that they're just a little more even, rather than having two words and then ten so close to each other. However, I think the single word "weep" works very well by itself, it's just don't make it so uneven so often because it can mess up the rhythm to someone who's reading it aloud.

but who can part such red ripe lips when choking
on entrepanureal exhaust
exhausting her lungs with a wail unheard

I like these few lines a lot because they flow really well and I like your use of a really long word, "entrepreneurial", although it was spelled wrong ( I believe you meant entrepreneurial? ). Anyways, the only other point is that I think you should change either "exhausting" or "exhaust" to something else, because they do not sound good right next to each other.

Apart from these few little errors, this was great! I want to read more of your poems.

-BlueRaspberry

on entreprenureal exhaust

That was really the only mistake I could find. Excellent work.

The only thing that really bothered me about this poem was the lack of punctuation. But as I read it, your breaks are pretty well defined with the line breaks. And with a poem about a river, punctuation would probably just get in the way. I also adore the lack of capitalization, for some reason. Goes back with the flow of the poem.

I wish there were more I could say about this, but it's very beautiful. I feel like I'm just wasting time writing this critique, but hey, when you have something this great, short critiques are awesome.

I want to read more from you. Next time you crank something out, send it my way.

KF