the Great

My brain hurts. That was amazingly good! I always see your name next to a poem and sigh and think, well, here is something that's going to be irritatingly good. My favourite part was the last line, the inevitabilty of it. How long did this take you? Please don't tell me it was the work of a minute because that would be depressing.

I hope you're feeling smug, you have right to. Gold starring.x

In the second line of the poem. Is that lion thing a metaphor? I can't tell.
I believe in the first line of the second stanza you need a comma or something around the else. (or somewhere in there). Also 3rd and 4th lines of the second stanza. Th 3rd doesn't transition too well to the 4th. Its kinda annoying.
You use 'and' a lot and you have either A) a lot of run on sentencing... Or B) You put them all there on purpose.(I am not going to point any out if you did do it on purpose.)

Now onto imagery! (Yay.)

The rush of glimmer, fire of salt burns
like fireflies in the dark, insects
engulfed in flames,Better connection needed faces pressed into the
charcoaled embrace as they follow blindly

Now what I didn't like here is that you use the fire of salt. And I have no idea what that is, unless you mean salt(sodium) in water? And then from the rest of this I see a bunch of little lights but they are faces? What? I think you need to make a better connection there. Also who's faces? That part tripped me up quite a bit.
I didn't have a big problem with the rest of your imagery... Other than most of it kept me saying "Oh.. Meh.. That's sort of cool, I guess." in other words a bit boring. Like the firefly's and face part. If this poem is about action why use such calm imagery?

he'll carry himself
to the edge of cliffs to dearly part
with the dirt to clutch his own heart

Is his chest open or something? Did he rip his heart out? Who is this anyways?

there will be a Seleucid virus sluicing
through the vapors of an ember air

What? What does that have to do with ANYTHING.

Your poem seems like it should have ended after "laugh at those unlucky to be confined above". After that It just seems dragged out. In fact most of this seems dragged out. A lot of useless description(to the story in advancement and in telling how it works)and that confuses the reader.
Like:

may only bite the sword that tames
the water from Hydraotes.

I feel as though a lot of this isn't connected. Practically all of it actually. I refuse to point it out. Its 6am too. I'ma go to bed and edit this when I wake up. Sorry. Then I will continue refreshed.

Hi Gal.

They say that across the Damascan plains
where lions sleep with dirty manes
and wish to howl but for bitter tongues
may only bite the sword that tames
the water from Hydraotes
(and nothing more),

The first line confuses me. Across the Damascan plains what? I tried reading this from different points of view, but I couldn't find the ending thought anywhere. That ruined the otherwise fine stanza for me.

for there is not such a flat land else
where there lived hooves beating
beating like a drum in mountain lair,
beating drums of silver and gold

I like the hooves a lot, but I'm not too sure about the repetition. Even as an effect it doesn't work that well.

fireflies in the dark, insects
engulfed in flames

What's with the repetition lately? Yeah, this is not technically repetition, but it still is. I haven't read your work for a while now, so I'm not sure if you usually do that, but at least I don't remember it. I sometimes like the kind of repetition you had in the last thing I quoted, but when you have it like this, two images for the same thing, it usually just annoys me.


I've read this poem twice now, and I will have to read it again to properly grasp the idea. The repetition and occasional rhyming wasn't something I expected to see, but the latter I liked and the former not so much. I've usually thought that if you want to rhyme, you rhyme the whole poem and not just bits here and there, but then I've also usually come across with poems in which it's not done well. In this it worked better in my opinion.

I liked the last stanza a lot.

I hope I could help!


Demeter
x

Galerius,

I found this a terribly exciting bit of poetry here. I loved how you included mythology. I thought it was very fun to read, and the analogies you used were very cool. Well done. My favorite piece in this was the fact that sometimes, you had rhymes and it sounded so awesome to the ear. I always read all of the poetry I encounter out loud, so I can listen for a beat (which your poem had plenty of!) and rhymes. I love rhymes. Anyway. Your poem was fantastic. I made a few comments in the attachment below, but they weren’t anything special. I’m no poetry expert, but one thing that I found just a little too jarring were the ‘ands’ on their own, special line. I don’t know what type of effect you were going for here, but to me, it seemed really jarring, and hard to get back into the groove. That’s about the only thing that I really found with this poem. It’s really beautiful—it really is. I hope the few comments I made were helpful, or at least encouraging in the least.

Good luck with future endeavors. If you would like something else critiqued, give me a PM. I’m doing 100 reviews in 15 days, and I have a lot of reviewing to do, and I’d gladly accept anything. You’re a really great poet, and I hope you know it.

-Jared

As requested Gal.

I'm going to look at this poem as a whole rather then stanzas. But I will say that this is a great poem and you deserve a pat on the back for this one.

I find your language a little bit too flowery for my tastes. At the beginning it works, but it grows tiresome after the second stanza. You are overpowering your idea with your language I feel. At first we have the connection but then it becomes line after gorgeous line because the words are too big and strong. They smother the story behind the words and it beings to appear slightly random.

I have a huge disliking of the use of 'and' in this poem. It's extremely choppy and draws my attention away from the rest. Specifically the and as it's own stanza in a sort. As well as the repetition of 'and' in the third part. It creates a full stop in the middle of a line which ruins your flow entirely.

The final stanza is decent, but I feel it doesn't quite match-up with the rest of the poem, leaving a downfall at the end. Your use of alliteration and the sudden lack of flowery language makes it threadbare in comparison.

The part in italics is fantastic, probably my favourite part, besides the 'and's.

Hope this was the slightest bit helpful. Marvelous job ^^

Kamas

Hey, you,

Galerius wrote:They say that across the Damascan plains
where lions sleep with dirty manes
and wish to howl but for bitter tongues
may only bite the sword that tames
the water from Hydraotes
(and nothing more),

The most important thing that you need to fix in this stanza is the end of it, because, as I believe Demeter pointed out, this fills us in description wise of a location, and nothing happens there, so it's otherwise mostly pointless.

"Howl but for bitter tongues" is not exactly terribly appreciative, dear. I don't know if it's the "but for" that I don't like, or maybe it's just the arrangement of the wording of this. I understand that what you're getting at is that the lions wish to howl, but bitter tongues hold them back, but please, I'd recommend rewording that part.



 

for there is not such a flat land else
where there lived hooves beating
beating like a drum in mountain lair,
beating drums of silver and gold, solid to
the touch but too quick to fold
at the sight of the approaching army,
coming around the pass and around
the wheel as Damascan plains wail
behind, the dust into river and well.

Not too sure I like the "beating drums of silver and gold". I'd imagine this is a signifying of a status of importance, but I would personally be able to appreciate this much more if you didn't use such a cliched image to represent that, dearie.


 

The rush of glimmer, fire of salt burns
like fireflies in the dark, insects
engulfed in flames, faces pressed into the
charcoaled embrace as they follow blindly -
beggars in armor rushing to the lamp -
the light of the horse rolling its eyes
and neighing its apology to the sky, brash
spittle and lips scuttling away
against themselves as its rider looks toward
Death and avoids her gaze, ashamed
and suppressing a swelling with a bitten lip
and an aversion of his fermenting mind to
dine with dreamjuice and wine on his promises,
make himself drunk and spent
 

I really like this part. Concealed rhyme and rhythm is excellently pulled off in this stanza.

and
 
the forests wait as the tribes irate
echo a cry of their own, fashioned in
wood and divorced from metallurgy,
spreading like horse spittle against the
shields and standards of an army
philandered by its love of the ground
and lust for the sky and nightmares of
Persian ranks gone by and hallucinations -
Ptolemy's grown wings, they whisper as
the horns of elephants grow near and thundering
footsteps grow nearer, he'll carry himself
to the edge of cliffs to dearly part
with the dirt to clutch his own heart

You are consistent with original wording and images mostly throughout this poem, and here, I don't think repeating spittle does anything for us.

and
there will be a Seleucid virus sluicing
through the vapors of an ember air
and
a snake voicing forth the triple head
like Cerberus donning scales, howling with his
wolfen blood the wishes of Antigonus, will unite
under a battered banner split apart by the seams
and
strangled by our dreams
and
murmurs from the streams
of Erebus, erudite as they walk forth to
laugh at those unlucky to be confined above

Yummy. I like this heavy usage of mythology here. "Strangled by our dreams" is far too cliche for this poem, Gallery; I think it needs to take a detour and find its way to some love poem or another, because it sticks out far too clearly to be of any good use! Especially since you have such open rhyme close following.
 

where a young body, old man, middle-aged crisis
of a kingdom brings some wine to his lips
and drinks more than is in the cup
as he sputters on his bed,
a spear in his side,
a viper on his left, an adder behind,
a cobra to the right,
and the crows impatiently waiting ahead.

I like this closing and I don't. I like the anti-climatic, subtle ending thing that doesn't defenestrate us off some cliff or another, but your language took such a nosedive into simplicity, and this could work, but you need to execute it gracefully, and you're not quite doing that here.




I enjoyed this poem; excellent incorporation of action and excellent play on words. You have a way with them (that I envy ), and you effectively display this throughout. Just remember to focus on making your thought trains sound complete, dear, and you should be all good.

Two thumbs up; keep it rolling.

June

Hi there, Gal. I've stopped by to give this a review, as you asked.

So, I rather like this poem. What draws me in is all the archaic references that you make. I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff, so when I saw that this was rather chock full of them, I have to say I was hooked.

The only problem I really have with it is that there might be too many of these references. Not everyone will know what you mean when you use them (I know I certainly didn't). You may want to consider trimming them back a little to let your meanings shine through a little better. That's just my opinion though.

I still liked the poem though. I have to admit that the meanings and things in a poem often go over my head. So oftentimes I just look at how the words flow together and if they sound good. And, these things were accomplished here.

Good job with this. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send me another PM.

Good job, and good luck.

-Conrad Rice

Hullo! I enjoyed reading this one, I loved the references and the rhythm of it and found it to be a great change from most poetry I've read lately. Here's a few comments and suggestions:

They say that across the Damascan plains
where lions sleep with dirty manes [Perfect rhythm, awesome rhyming couplet.]
and wish to howl but for bitter tongues
may only bite the sword that tames
the water from Hydraotes
(and nothing more), [Hmmm. So there doesn't feel to be an ending to that first line and the transition from the third to the fourth made me stumble. I'd suggest:

They say that across the Damascan plains
the lions sleep with dirty manes
and wish to howl but their bitter tongues
may only bite the sword that tames
the water from Hydraotes
(and nothing more),

it's also very hard to read out loud because there are no suggestions of where we can breathe and though that helps build a relentless rhythm, the reader needs a breath here and there. At the very least you should end the stanza with a full stop instead of a comma.]

for there is not such a flat land else
where there lived hooves beating [A comma here would be good.]
beating like a drum in mountain lair,
beating drums of silver and gold, solid to [Any particular reason you don't end this stanza with gold?]
the touch but too quick to fold
at the sight of the approaching army, [I'm not sure I like this line. It feels out of place to me, perhaps it's the sudden move away from subtle references and metaphors to actual facts. I'm not sure.]
coming around the pass and around
the wheel as Damascan plains wail
behind, the dust into river and well. [Very good use of half whymes.]

The rush of glimmer, fire of salt burns [Fire of salt? That seems a little confusing and unclear to me. I'm not sure what image you're trying to portray. Ruch of glimmer is a little tacky too. It isn't as strong as your other lines.]
like fireflies in the dark, insects
engulfed in flames, faces pressed into the
charcoaled embrace as they follow blindly -
beggars in armor rushing to the lamp -
the light of the horse rolling its eyes
and neighing its apology to the sky, brash
spittle and lips scuttling away
against themselves as its rider looks toward
Death and avoids her gaze, ashamed
and suppressing a swelling with a bitten lip
and an aversion of his fermenting mind to
dine with dreamjuice and wine on his promises,
make himself drunk and spent [Maybe start this line with to? The flow feels a little off.]

and

the forests wait as the tribes irate
echo a cry of their own, fashioned in [I'd really like to see an echo of that first stanza here. Irate is such a fun word to rhyme with. Maybe you could slot frustrate in after own?]
wood and divorced from metallurgy,
spreading like horse spittle against the [I think someone has already said this but don't repeat the image of horse spittle.]
shields and standards of an army
philandered by its love of the ground
and lust for the sky and nightmares of
Persian ranks gone by and hallucinations -
Ptolemy's grown wings, they whisper as
the horns of elephants grow near and thundering
footsteps grow nearer, he'll carry himself
to the edge of cliffs to dearly part
with the dirt to clutch his own heart
and
there will be a Seleucid virus sluicing
through the vapors of an ember air
and
a snake voicing forth the triple head
like Cerberus donning scales, howling with his
wolfen blood the wishes of Antigonus, will unite
under a battered banner split apart by the seams
and
strangled by our dreams
and
murmurs from the streams
of Erebus, erudite as they walk forth to
laugh at those unlucky to be confined above [Love the flow of this stanza, the use of and to give the reader that slight pause and then throw them on to another reference. Very nicely linked together.]

where a young body, old man, middle-aged crisis
of a kingdom brings some wine to his lips
and drinks more than is in the cup
as he sputters in his bed,
a spear in his side,
a viper on his left, an adder behind,
a cobra to the right,
and the crows impatiently waiting ahead.

An interesting ending. I quite like how it ended with the image of the crows and I love the metaphor of drinking more than what is in the cup, very nicely thought out. I think you perhaps go to far with the last grouping of lines though, could one be removed to make the ending quicker and to stop the pace slowing down so much? Or maybe you could give the lines a stronger beat.

I hope this helps a little and if you have questions or write a revised version, feel free to pm me. I'd happily take a second look,

Heather xx