December Moon

That regal, radiant empress rules the starry vaults of night,
She braves the lonesome darkness with her brilliant, silver light.
The winter air is bitter and frigid breezes blow,
But that divine celestial goddess fills me with her glow.
She casts ethereal shadows on the virgin snow.
Tonight, she's full and luminous, but gradually she'll wane,
And a slender, shining crescent is all that will remain.

I like it! It's cool how you finally find out WHO she is (the moon, of course!), because some people just leave you guessing at what they are talking about. I like that you told us.

For some reason I loved this line especially,

She casts ethereal shadows on the glistening, virgin snow.

Nice poem!

Just some mechanics:

Goddess is spelled wrong.
The rhythm is off on L7, perhaps cut "glistening".
I like the unstructured rhyme. It's refreshing.

It's simple, and I appreciate it for what it is. I enjoy the simple rhythm, the rhyme makes it seem all the more celestial and ancient, which adds very much to the affect of the moon being a goddess in itself. Whether this is a reference to anything more, such as a specified religion or person, I am unsure.. But as it is, it is well.

I liked that it rhymed, but the rhyme wasn't consistent. I would like it if you put lines 3 and 4 together, as well as lines 5 and 6. That still leaves line 7 also rhyming. 8-12 can also be done like that. Obviously, when you read a poem, you don't stop at the end of lines. It works okay. It's just...okay, if you splice lines together like I said, they'll be couplets, right? But then that "snow" one is like a...triplet? It sounds okay, but structurally a bit awkward.

In the first line, I'd like to see "That regal, radiant empress" changed to "A regal, radiant empress".

Simple, nothing new, but great meter and very well-done; an enjoyable read.

Colleen

Thank you all for your feedback.

Cadmium, thanks for your suggestions on the structure. I'm a bit confused about how you think I should combine the lines... Did I do it the way you meant? I actually think that the rhyme was consistent in the original version, but the rhyme scheme is probably more obvious in the revised poem. However, I think I'll leave the first line as it is, the way you suggested sounds awkward to me.

I liked it! Send it somewhere!

I particularly liked the last line. It made me think of horizon.
But maybe after "glow" you should take away the period to let the line flow with the next.

This version of the rhyme scheme worked well, for all that couplets are difficult to do - they can sound singsongy at times, so well done [I didn't see the original]

I like that there's some variation in L5 -- that you have that one line as a sentence, while all the others are spread in halves over two lines. If the sentence/line structure had been pretty much the same, this would have sounded more repetitious than it is; a little variation can set off a less-formal pattern nicely, something to keep in mind for form work.

This is a really pleasant little poem. Your rhyme and rhythm are simple, yes, but very effective and some of your imagery is beautiful. With these poems, I usually find that the subject is either blatantly obvious from the very beginning or still a mystery by the end but, with yours, I wasn't completely certain that it was the moon until the last few lines.

To improve this, I'd suggest that you try to edit it so that every couplet has the same number of syllables because there were a few lines out of rhythm. Other than that though, I enjoyed it so good work!

This was lovely. The couplets were perfect, and the imagery was beautiful. I'd put a comma after "bitter", and a two syllabyl adjective before "glow", and change "on" to "upon". I loved the last two lines.