hubris

"To defy the lightning is to be victorious." -Victor Hugo

in the wildest storms he runs to chase the lightning
unmindful of hail and rain his gaze bright and feverish
and in the jagged landscape torn apart by light he is
a fey shape dancing amidst bolts and winds
whose wild laughter mingles with the tempest’s roars

he fears not man for he is one of them if only sometimes
and he fears not the earth having left his mark on every
continent and the ocean has rumbled under the
dark hull of his ships but yielded always to his will
and so only the sky remains now to mock him

so he defies the thunder for that is victory in itself
and he knows one day soon he will climb upon the
highest mountains and plant his flag there and he will take
a plane high into the blue and he will dart between the
clouds and open his arms wide and jump and say I win

(and he will fall laugh and try again)

This was really very good. I really did love everything about it, from the actual structure to the imagery to the message behind it. I just have a few little complaints.

My first and main complaint in punctuation. You have none. While it was fairly easy to figure out the flow of the poem, you need punctuation to make it flow better, and just because, well, you need punctuation. Just a few commas or periods here and there and you should be fine.

Two other things I noticed was the quote at the beginning and the parentheses at the end. I like the quote, though I'm not entirely sure it's appropriate to use one at the beginning of a poem. As for the parentheses at the end, I feel like it doesn't entirely fit. I understand what you're trying to do, though I'm not sure that parentheses works best. I would definitely get rid of them, and then maybe just make that last line a separate stanza.

This really was very good. Just change those few little things and it'll be even better.

Main comment here is that I LOVED the image of him chasing lightning - it's actually quite new and fresh, so that's why I enjoyed it. However, the rest of the poem seemed not to live up to its opening line - I expected to see a lot more different staggering ideas popping up, but they were...well, they weren't cliche, exactly, but just not as startlingly new as that first one. With the idea of 'hubris' = pride, right? I think this needs to be made clearer to the non-Greek-speaking audience - I don't know how I know it, but I'm not a hundred percent confident everyone else will.

So...dazzle us with some fantastical imagery. And, above all, have some sort of an PURPOSE in your mind of where you want this to lead us intellectually. Try to throw a bit more emotion in there, too

this poem reminds me of Kansas lyrics. I think your best tool for revision will be condensation. The whole "he fears not this, he fears not that," thing is a little much, personally I think the poem would be a lot stronger if you undid all the inversions. I really didn't like the third stanza. The whole great victory thing seemed dumb, but then when you mentioned the "plane into blue" It just felt too forced. Like you were trying to hard. I think a little subtlety is in order. But, I do like the VERY end, the parenthetical piece... although I'm not sure if you need the parenthesese. You need a pretty convincing reason to do so.

best,

After reading a terrible poem this is so refreshing, I have no complaint of this, the non-punctuations works well. And it really captures the quote. I certainly saw the scene clearly, my only sorrow is this ended half heartedly you do well with first two stanzas bringing us up then flop us down hard and leave the ending anti-climatic, what you need is to keep the readers flying and feeling that indefinite high you bring. I can't think how, but clearly you can as you've shown.

I hope this helps.