> > Silver shards
> > Broken dreams
> > Glitter on the
> > Horizon
> > Left behind
> > Their siren's song
> > Calling still.
> > In my rose garden
> > Besieged by colors
> > Heady musk
> > The fear of thorns
> > Has yet to fade
> > Hands remain still
> > Waiting for the rose
> > Perfect enough to risk
> > The pain.
>
> To me, this reads like two poems -- the first ending with "Calling still" and the second beginning with "In my rose garden". Each section evokes a different feeling for me, and I have a little trouble making sense of them together. That's not to say that they *don't* make sense together; only that I find it hard not to read them separately.
>

I think I have the same problem in scanning. For me, though, it seems more like a technical problem of grammar which (for me) leads to a discontinuity after "calling still." There are abrupt changes in past/present verb tense, for example. Assuming I'm getting this terminology correct, Kiki for the most part is using transitive action verbs to give the stanza a quiet, telegraphic "snapshot in time" quality. I like that. The "calling still" bit signals a change because it's an intransitive gerund(?), but the reader's eye finds it unclear how silvery glittering shards can be calling still. Well, at least I THINK that's what I wanted to express. Maybe I'd scan it better if everything were changed to intransitive gerunds, i.e. Left »» Leaving, Hands remain »» remaining, etc. But that's just me stumbling over the words, of course.


> An unrelated observation: Personal associations with particular phrases can really get in the way of enjoying a poem on its own merits, I guess.

(-: Too true. There's no way I'll ever read any future poem about lakes, or gem-encrusted sunsets, without thinking nostalgically of "The sapphire-sprinkled lake of wine lies tranquil in the dusk."

Wolfspirit