Danse du Trompeur Just twiddled it a little-is this better?

Lily, As this is your first work and there is no information in your profile I have to guess as to your experience and general age. All poetry has structure and rules, especially freeform. Many time people classify their work as free-form out of a general laziness as they desire to "write what they feel" and don't want to be bothered by flow and meter. The problem is that once you present your work to others, it is all about flow and meter. Specifically, does the message you are trying to convey get masked by the structure your are using or does the structure you are using become the framework for the message. Or, more simply put, does the reader have to work harder to read the poem than the poet did to write it. I bring this up because your flow and meter do their level best to mask the meaning of your poem. There is nothing wrong with free-form using an inconsistent meter to create the cadence of conversation but when you set an expectation of rhyme and the appearance of structure, as you've done in this piece, and then do not follow through, the reader is left at loose ends and has to review their read several times to try to find the cadence you had meant to present. Let me show you what I mean doing a recast of your first verse without changing much but the general structure, clipping out a few words, using a variant form of a word, and normalizing the punctuation. If that sounds like a lot, it's not, really. These are your words presented, I believe, in a way easier for the reader to understand and feel. ----------------------------------- Lost. Wandering a cavern of meaningless promises, trying to hold the dance I thought we shared. Gliding through the embrace of honeyed phrases, reeling at deceptive steps and lies now bared. ---------------------- There are a couple of things going on here. With the re-cast in structure we can accomplish that hard pause you'd wanted in the first line. Removing some of the prepositions reduces word clutter. With the normalization of punctuation we give the reader additional clues as to pacing, and, most importantly in my mind, the rhyming of the piece now becomes incidental rather than expected, an extra bonus, if you will. Now, that's the pacing in my mind after reading the piece 3+ times. The pacing in your mind is probably different. I would love to see you take a look at my suggestions and revisit your work to see if you might find a smoother presentation and let us see the result of that review. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)

I missed this one when you first posted it, and I'm sorry that I did, for I enjoyed it very much. It did take me a couple of reads to fully appreciate the meaning of your words, but that's OK, I'm a big believer in making folks work for something worth having, and this poem is worth that effort. I actually like the long lines of your poem. I enjoy poems that can be interpreted in more than one way, and have multiple levels of feeling and meaning, and this one does that very nicely for me. if anything, I would say lose as much of the punctuation as you can, and lose the capitals...let the readers decide what meaning your poem imparts to them. A great write. Respectfully Jim "Laws and rules don't kill freedom: narrow-minded intolerance does" : Race

Lily, you have done a great job in your edit and revision. The poem now slips like an otter into the sea and carries the reader through to the finish. Excellent work and a solid poem. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)

Nice piece there... :) Priya