Black butterflies greet my mind
As they bathe in callous inchor
They hatch from smouldering books
And blood which boils in winter.
I bid farewell to paper
And the sacred words tattooed
For only a fool would not
Lament at updraft streams of
black butterflies in winter
Posted Jul 3, 2020, 4:06 AM UTC
Hello OP!
I really love the imagery you use in this poem, the fact that you are able to include this much ambience in just two stanzas is impressive. I also love describing ash as black butterfly’s (that was my interpretation anyways).
As for feedback, I long for a bit more to ground myself in the poem. Right now it brings up a nice image of burning books and the like but nothing really makes a solid impression or encourages me to extrapolate any meaning. Ambiguity is a good tool, but I felt a bit lost in this poem. I might suggest if you don’t want to add anything to the poem perhaps tweaking the title instead to be more descriptive. Obviously I don’t know the intention here but for some reason an example title that comes to mind is “Burning Bibles in Winter to Keep Warm”.
Of course it all comes down to personal taste, you clearly have a talent and I’m looking forward to seeing more of your work in this sub! Great work!
It's like an abstract description of a melancholy painting.. good work
What's inchor tho... did you mean ichor?
How did the "painting" affect you? Is it just one mood throughout or does it change? What images stuck out, and why?
man, really?
I think it's a brilliant idea to ensure people commented and encouraged poets, but I feel like you're taking it a bit far here