Aerial Lights

Aerial Lights

They told me if
the zodiacs
were in the sky, thus,
there would be lights.

We looked at the moon
the way we looked at mother
when we were too old
to stay home. Seeing that she
was far far older.

"Go forth," the the ram bleated,
and the cows, they mourned for us.
When the monsoon came, the stars
teased the clouds till lightening burst.
Orpheus and Tansen sat
back to back and played in rain.
When crab was served, the King laughed
because his bright mane was dry
and his musicians' chords
were dead forever, silent.

We saw open gates
and the emperor's body,
on his chariot,
passing the churces he built,
from East's horizon.

"Come home," the maiden told us
and we went to Odin's halls.
Past the dunes, the jackal's scales
tipped and I saw my heart there
pounding so hard it would rip.
I mourn in strength, my arrows
drip. We opened tinted wine,
but they caught the blood-red whiff.
We sing, sing in harmony--
the scorpion's sting shall find us all.

We hid silently
and watched falcons roosting
past the hills' eclipse
and Babels rising
past new moon's umbra.

The welling goat-herd passes
in an ominous flurry.
The sign of the tides wane on
and the deliverer births
a new star. The water-bearer
fell and his tears spilt away.
Can you remember how,
on that clouded night
the fish came and
the clouds broke?

We saw the protector of beasts
stung on duty by the mantle ray.
We saw the friendless wolf's head
hung from the walls of empty mansions.
We saw the grand hall of spears and gold,
empty as the silver dunes of the paradise
in the night sky-- tranquil in the sunlit moon.

We saw the aerial lights,
the illusive passions, the fevered hopes,
as our eyes lit up with things in our heads.

Can you see the trees accross the bay
with the reddest flowers that he could pay
for? I do not know the Mower of all things
but at night, on our roof, the Florist sings.

This was incredible. You have stunning imagery, everything flows well, and of course there's a lot of hidden meaning in this. Did I catch references to the Tarot with the emperor and the chariot? You did a marvelous job of following the progression around the zodiac without being blunt about it--such as how the crab was served before the lion king (cancer comes before leo, etc.) I actually had to read over this a couple times to catch the more subtle archetypes in there, so congratulations! I don't have anything bad to say. This is brilliant and it flows as smoothly as a chart wheel (provided you don't have a zillion stressful aspects to Saturn.)

Fabulous. I wish people would come to look at your poem and see how lovely TRANSITION is in poetry. It's really hard to capture such flow, especially in a long poem, and keep it constant. Even as free-verse, I could see how you wanted me to perceive the information dealt. Also, just one critique...

Notice how as you go along your poem becomes more and more detailed? This is good because it's easy for someone to read, but I need you structure your poem in an arrangement that can be more easily understood. I know this is asking a lot because it means you need to break up stanzas and somehow order your thoughts to make this poem smoother. If you can't do it without compromising the message, it's fine, but at least try.

Also, this poem was absolute imagery which is great, but it's pure aesthetic .

The only meaning I got was in the first two stanzas. In fact, I think it would be better to cut those out because it makes the poem less concrete. The purpose of the poem begins to become hazy when you move to the third stanza, which feelings like the beginning of a poem by itself, because it is consistent with all the others stanzas below and different from the first two.

Either cut the first two stanzas out and spit the poem into two, or cut the second stanza out, because it left me trying to search for the meaning about the mother getting older. I really felt that it would be clarified or supported in the rest of the poem and it was not, which is why the poem became less concrete.

It's lovely imagery, really lovely. I really wish I didn't have to go into things because it makes me feel like you may think less of this poem, and I think it is really fantastic already.

Wow… just, wow! This is really, really great poetry. Longer poetry usually has a hard time holding me, but this was incredible.

It was very unexpected and unique, very different.. Your rhythm was excellent. And I liked how you kept your verse-lengths consistent in the middle, but different in the beginning and the end.

“We saw the aerial lights,
the illusive passions, the fevered hopes,
as our eyes lit up with things in our heads.” This was definitely one of my favorite verses. I like how you waited ‘til almost the very end to make reference to the title. (or maybe it was the other way around, and you took the title from almost the end)

I was tempted to say that the 2’nd verse doesn’t really fit, because it’s slightly vaguer, it’s less concrete and definite, and more indistinct than the rest of the poem.
But while I was actually reading the poem for the first time, I didn’t notice that the 2'nd verse was any different. I think it fits into a kind of transition your poem does. It gets gradually more definite, more distinct and clear-cut, at least in the first few versus (after that it pretty much stays the same). So, yes. I think that the 2’nd verse fits in quite perfectly.

“Can you remember how,
on that clouded night
the fish came and
the clouds broke.” There should be a question mark at the end of this.

The only thing I can really see any problem with is the last verse. I can’t really see any good reason for it to be italicized. I just don’t think it’s necessary, and I think it distracts from the actual words in the verse, which are lovely. If you just wanted it set apart, I think it’s enough that it’s the last verse, and with the rhyming in it, where there wasn’t rhyming in the rest of the poem, I think it’s better without the italics.


This. Poem. Was. Brilliant. It was beautiful, and unique, and clever, and I can’t find anything to fault you with. You did a terrific job.


*adna*