Lilly Hope

Just came back from yoga so this is perfect.

This reads like something you would envision during a Buddhist meditation, though their imagery is a flower rising from mud to bloom (how we ascend from earthly attachments to bloom into our own enlightenment) so it's interesting so see how it's still so fragile. Much like enlightenment, even if it is obtained, it can still be lost.

But the flower dies, and so do we. But if we managed to bloom we can ascend into nirvana.

But I agree with u/essentialsalts, the rhyming is all over the place.

This one is definitely my style, and I love it - a simple image extended into a metaphor of sorts, and that's the whole poem. Nice and focused, and with a tone that hearkens back to earlier styles of poetry. Right up my alley.

Now, for critique: the first thing that stands out to me is the chaotic rhyme scheme. We have two lines that don't rhyme, followed by two lines that do; then, two more likes that don't rhyme, followed by two more that don't rhyme; finally, the last four lines follow an AABB rhyme scheme. I'm not a stickler about this (I can tell from reading her criticisms that it really bothers Lana, for example), but in my opinion there can be a certain freedom to let an unexpected rhyme surprise the reader in the midst of a poem. But after so many lines not rhyming with only one sporadic rhyme in there, switching to such a predictable, structured rhyme scheme at the very end is jarring. I really like those last rhymes, by the way - or, I should say, I liked when the poem switched to a rhyme scheme, because I feel it fits the style and tone of the poem better.

As for a few other things, there were a couple lines that rubbed me the wrong way for one reason or another. This is all totally subjective, but maybe just mull these lines over and re-think them:

Your beauty, it pushes away my blue,

Too easy maybe? I can't help but think that this might have been forced into this wording to rhyme with the previous line.

As your purple hue swivels on water.

Is there a better way to get across that the lily is purple? This also seems a little too easy. I might also suggest that if you want the audience to picture the lily as purple, you should get this across earlier, in the first couple lines. I think of lilies as white - that's just my imagination's default.

Oh reality, go then, devour!

So it is reality that is going to devour? Fair enough, but exclaiming, "Oh, reality" seems too clunky to me. I see what you're getting at, but it's phrased awkwardly at the moment.

I hate to say this, because I like what you have, but you could take an aggressive pen to this one and really work it over. In my book, this would work better with more structure - maybe a consistent rhythm, and definitely a consistent rhyme. That might mean completely rewording or removing certain lines, but this one is worth the work. Keep reading, keep writing.