The Butterfly Sickness

by Dmytra

Published August 24, 2013

In Poetry

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These butterflies are not beautiful

Who have crawled into my eyes

Their claws of crimson rake my skull

As through my head they fly.

Their chrysalises were not of silk

But tar that bubbled from my spout

Raging flames for a gruesome ilk

Rebirth, Un-birth, resplendent doubt.

Blindly and mutely I am kept aware

Only by the pulsing of peeling wings

Two and a thousand mirrors stare

And a strange half-voice shatters air and sings.

A pestilential surge, not my own

But made and crafted by my hand

From a failure's blueprints I was shown

How to beckon them on command.

Inside cold and cracking glass

Such butterflies await

Ghosts of decisions already passed

Spawn of surrendered fate.


Comments & reviews · 6
ChangeTheWorld wrote a review Review · Aug 25, 2013

Hey! Change here! It's great you got so many reviews but here's another!

To start off, I can already tell with the title that this idea is completely original and unique.

Their claws of crimson rake my skull
Very nice line. That isn't how we usually see butterflies at all, so right off the bat you're taking something ordinary and nonthreatening, and making it into something to fear. The imagery I get from this line is also very good, well said and described.

The poem has an amazing rhythm to it and the rhyming is not only accurate, it's smart. Each word is placed carefully with a deliberate meaning and I don't see any lines just haphazardly thrown in there that might bring the poem down. Back to the rhyming, like I said it was good, all but this section, which I stumbled with a little as to the rhythm it should be read in.
Blindly and mutely I am kept aware
Only by the pulsing of peeling wings

My suggestion is to maybe change it to "Blind and mute" just dropping the ly. But I also want to say if you do not change it, that is not something the poem will suffer from having been left in.

Overall this poem has really great potential and it encompasses so amazing imagery and vocabulary, so I'd like to commend you on that. My last note is just that I'm not sure what this poem is trying to tell me. I see an inner struggle, and some kind of failure to control those demons inside of her but I'm not sure what I should be taking away from the whole thing if that makes sense. You obviously know what you mean, and I say that because it's written quite beautifully, but we could benefit from a bit more clarification.
Keep writing, you could have a good future in poetry ;)

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NightWalker
Review
NightWalker wrote a review Review · Aug 25, 2013

Hi there Dmytra!Have a good day.So here I am to make a review on your poem!

The Butterfly Sickness-The title actually really caught my eyes to read it.And also the theme here you want to present is quiet nice but its take time to understand the whole part of your poem.

"These butterflies are not beautiful

Who have crawled into my eyes

Their claws of crimson rake my skull

As through my head they fly."

#The first stanza should be clear to make reader see the point here,but I can't see it clearly.What is actually you want to say here is confusing me.Maybe bacause you use such many word as metaphor but it did't work then just ruin all the content here.I am so sorry to say this.I hope you can use a simple words but still in a poetic way,also at the same time not confusing the reader.
I am not give up to find the strong element here.Lol.So I keep read to the second stanza untill the end.So I realized that you might talk about 'hopeless' and fate.

'A pestilential surge, not my own

But made and crafted by my hand

From a failure's blueprints I was shown'

"Inside cold and cracking glass

Such butterflies await

Ghosts of decisions already passed

Spawn of surrendered fate."

Overall,you have your own ideas to make the reader see it.It is actually a good pem to make me think for a while.Not just read,but I do understand some points here.Not that bad,I also struggling a lot eveytime when I want to make a good poem.So we learn together here as a friends,cheer!

Keep writing and I hope to see some poems from you again here in YWS.Good job:)
Thank you.

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Blackwood
Review
Blackwood wrote a review Review · Aug 25, 2013

This was an amazing poem. I like how you took something beautiful as the metaphor for something destructive and ugly, effectively making me as a reader feel like it is turning you weak.

I think some main points I would like to cover is a bit of wording and phrasing.

These butterflies are not beautiful
Who have crawled into my eyes

I feel like saying 'who' feels slightly off. I would replace it with 'that'. I think this is because of the context as well as the use of 'these'. The butterflies seem more like objects in this matter rather than people.

And a strange half-voice shatters air and sings.

I don't think you need "and" here.

Spawn of surrendered fate.

I think you should say "The spawn" not spawn.


A second thing that is a biggy for you is punctuation and capitlisation. The double lines make this poem hard enough to read (single lines would have been better) But the lack of punctuation really messes up on the flow. Also You should save capitals for sentances because having a capital at the beginning of a line which is not a sentance emphsises the word which I dont think you intended on emphisisting as it diminishes the following words.

These butterflies are not beautiful,
who have crawled into my eyes.
Their claws of crimson rake my skull,
as through my head they fly.
Their chrysalises were not of silk,
but tar that bubbled from my spout.
Raging flames for a gruesome ilk,
Rebirth, Un-birth, resplendent doubt.
Blindly and mutely I am kept aware,
only by the pulsing of peeling wings.
Two and a thousand mirrors stare,
and a strange half-voice shatters air and sings.
A pestilential surge, not my own,
but made and crafted by my hand.
From a failure's blueprints I was shown,
how to beckon them on command.
Inside cold and cracking glass,
such butterflies await.
Ghosts of decisions already passed,
Spawn of surrendered fate.


My favourite line was:
pulsing of peeling wings


Good job and keep writing.

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KnightTeen
Review
KnightTeen wrote a review Review · Aug 25, 2013

Hello, I'm HT here to review your work.

I liked your topic, and I thought that you wrote this very well. I liked how you capitalized the first letter of every sentence, and how you continued that pattern throughout the whole work. Your grammar and spelling are very good, and the language that you used was excellent and suited the work.

However, I have a little problem with your punctuation. Or rather, your lack of it. You have some periods here and there, but I can only spot two commas. And they are not on the end of the lines.

I'm not saying that you have to place them on the end of every single line, just at the end of some to keep the flow going smoothly. Right now it feels a little choppy, and if you like it like that then that's fine. But I think that you could improve this work by adding several commas into it.


These butterflies are not beautiful,

Who have crawled into my eyes,

Their claws of crimson rake my skull

As through my head they fly.


Like I said, don't place them everywhere or that will be overkill, but it wouldn't hurt to add a few in certain places.

Rebirth, Un-birth, resplendent doubt.


Did you intentionally capitalize this word? To me, it looks a little awkward with the rest of the poem, and my advise to you is to un-capitalize it.

All in all, I thought you did a very good day.

Happy Review Day!
HT

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Cailey
Review
Cailey wrote a review Review · Aug 25, 2013

Hey there, this is Cailey here for a review from the Green Lanterns. :D

I liked the title of this piece, and I just love how you do the unexpected with it and with the piece. I mean, butterflies are supposed to be beautiful, and usually they're depicted in writing as happy sweet pretty things, but I love that with the very first line you turn them into something else. This makes for some great imagery. I love when authors find a way to get away from the common ideas and make their own piece.

I did notice as I read that there are some places where the rhythm is hard to read, and the flow gets broken by a line with too many or two few syllables. One of these was the fifth line, although part of that was just because I have a hard time pronouncing chrysalises so that word stopped me up every time. Still, if you read this out loud to yourself a couple of times, or better yet have someone else read it out loud to you, you may catch the places where the flow gets interrupted and then you can work on fixing them.

I love these lines:
"Blindly and mutely I am kept aware

Only by the pulsing of peeling wings"

Since again you refer back to the butterflies.

I do think you could make the point of this poem a little more clear, since in some ways it was hard to follow. Then again, poetry isn't supposed to give all the information.

I think that's all. I hope this was helpful, let me know if you have any comments or questions or anything. :D And of course, keep writing!

PS: @VeerenVKS and I are awesome.

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Dmytra
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Dmytra commented Comment · Aug 24, 2013



Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.
— Ann Landers