Edit 1

Daytime city streets;
Angels hide in plain sight.
The sun shines,
springs back,
and smog roils overhead.
A long accepted reminder
of the world he used to love.

As this sepulchral remnant
of celestial beauty
sheds his wings
and walks among the wicked,
his thoughts are turned heavenward.

Heaven's host brought low
by complacency and greed.
The frantic search for freedom
has soaked their wings in ink.
Their world corroded beneath them
as droplets of ink dissolved the sky.
Their bodies broke and spirits died
and then the seraphim did cry.

Their time has gone,
they pace, forlorn,
and through city streets they walk.
One sad memory oozes;
forsaken to the next.
Bands of miscreants with shredded wings
take turns nodding,
take turns shaking.

Gabriel's sore throat will tell you,
Life was not always so hard for them .
Their days have grown long and cold,
Their feathers plucked and children told:
This world so strange
Inspires change
But our minds are old,
Our souls too cold for this place.
You, my son, my daughter...
Must face our fears and fly.
Let tears fall in the dust,
From a seraphim sky.



Original:

Daytime city streets;
Angels hide in plane sight.
The sun shines and
springs back from seraph wings.
Chins tucked into their coats as
they fight against a bitter wind.
Gales of change and fleeting times,
Their time has past.
They pace forlorn,
and through city streets they walk.
Too afraid to fly.
So afraid to die.


Gabriel's sore throat will tell you,
Life was not always so hard for them .
Their days have grown long and cold,
Their feathers plucked and children told:
This world so strange
Inspires change
But our minds are old,
Our souls too cold for this place.
You, my son, my daughter...
Must face our fears and fly.
Let tears fall in the dust,
From a seraphim sky.

(01-04-2014, 11:00 AM)Mungo man Wrote:  Day time city streets;
Angles hide in plane sight. Plain?
The sun shines and
springs back from seraph's wings. "Seraphs' "? Are there more than one?
Chins tucked into their coats as
they fight against a bitter wind. Good. The wind of all things dark, I presume
Gales of change and fleeting times,
Their time has past.
They pace forlorn,
and through city streets they walk.
Too afraid to fly.
So afraid to die.


Gabriel's sore throat will tell you,
Life was not always so hard for them .
Their days have grown long and cold,
Their feathers plucked and children told:
This world so strange
Inspires change
But our minds are old,
Our souls too cold for this place.
You, my son, my daughter...
Must face our fears and fly.
Let tears fall in the dust,
From a seraphim sky.

Actually really like this. If I'm not mistaken, it details the demise of the world's state, deteriorated so that even these Seraphs cannot help the cause any more. Well done

(01-04-2014, 11:00 AM)Mungo man Wrote:  Day time city streets;
Angles hide in plain sight. Do you mean "angels", or are you referring to the angles of buildings?
The sun shines and
springs back from seraphim wings. I like the action in this line. It makes the sun seem like a capricious fairy.
Chins tucked into their who? coats as
they fight against a bitter wind.
Gales of change and fleeting times,
Their time has past.
They pace forlorn,
and through city streets they walk.
Too afraid to fly.
So afraid to die.


Gabriel's sore throat will tell you,
Life was not always so hard for them .
Their days have grown long and cold,
Their feathers plucked and children told:
This world so strange
Inspires change
But our minds are old,
Our souls too cold for this place. I like the internal rhyme here.
You, my son, my daughter...
Must face our fears and fly.
Let tears fall in the dust, Is this comma needed? These otherwise excellent closing lines would be much stronger without them, I think.
From a seraphim sky.

A bit more clarity's needed, I think, in regards to who the poem's about, and maybe some more urban imagery might justify your opening line and allusions elsewhere to cityscapes, but I liked this one. It was potent and lyrical, in its way. Thank you for the read

Some very nice imagery here (e.g. S2, L1-4). I like your use of Gabriel, one of the Seraphim ('fire' angels) [fire of love/devotion], to contrast with the cold that's being described. However, it's not immediately clear who is addressing whom in S2.

The theme is compelling. I feel it could be made more dynamic by means of stronger verbs, literary devices (e.g. alliteration), and so forth.

In any case, these are simply one person's suggestions. Keep or sweep.

Donna

(01-04-2014, 11:00 AM)Mungo man Wrote:  Day time city streets; 'Daytime' - one word.
Angles hide in plain sight. 'Angles' or 'Angels'?
The sun shines and
springs back from seraphim wings.
Chins tucked into their coats as Perhaps clarify the antecedent of 'their'.
they fight against a bitter wind. Example of alliteration and strengthening line: 'They battle against a bitter wind'. Just a thought.
Gales of change and fleeting times,
Their time has past. Maybe consider 'has gone', to get a pleasing 'aw' sound to resonate with 'forlorn' and 'walk'. In any case, it would be either 'is past' or 'has passed'.
They pace, forlorn, Suggest comma after 'pace'.
and through city streets they walk.
Too afraid to fly. I wonder whether dropping 'too' and 'so' would strengthen these last two lines?
So afraid to die.


Gabriel's sore throat will tell you,
Life was not always so hard for them .
Their days have grown long and cold,
Their feathers plucked and children told: Not sure about the use of a colon here. Is it to indicate that the following lines are what the children were told by the angels?
This world so strange
Inspires change
But our minds are old,
Our souls too cold for this place. Whose souls are being referred to here? If the angels', this would be at odds with their being symbolic of fire'
You, my son, my daughter...
Must face our fears and fly.
Let tears fall in the dust,
From a seraphim sky.

MM,

Although you do not make the connection per se, there is the implication that Gabriel is a seraphim, which he is not. The seraphim are fire angels and spend most of their time it seems hanging about the throne of God while singing :Holy, holy, holy".
To me it seems you have just used the word in an ad hoc sort of way to mean angle. This is fine by me, it's even fine if you wish to use the word seraphim, but I think maybe you need to give a backstory, or at the least a passing mention of why/how they fell from their exalted position, as well as how has their fire dimmed so much (A major trait of the seraphim). When modernism took over the Western world, and for all intents and purposes declared God dead, there was this sort of archetypal void created about how to deal with his helpers, both angelic and mortal, so I see no problem with a little myth-making to help fill that void, but I do think you need have more consistency with what has gone before, or at least give an explanation about why what we thought or were told of these beings was in some respect a lie, or that somehow we were misinformed. It is like all of a sudden saying, well "Satan was actually a good angle and you should listen to him now". No, you would need to build some kind of a bridge from what everyone generally thinks of him, to transform him into the new good Satan. Such as the real bad angles had gotten a hold of the angelic PR department and did a hatchet job on this guy, when really he was on our side all along.
So a little backstory if you please, otherwise your story lacks a certain credibility...well, as least for me, but then again I am old, but old or not, I really do believe that what a person writes must be believable at a basic level for it to work, .


Dale

Mungo Man, before commenting on your poem, I wanted to check the accuracy of the reference to Gabriel. According to my source - (Malcolm Godwin's 'Angels: An Endangered Species', the Seraphim (the highest order of God's angelic servants) included - and were ruled over by - four major Princes. These were - according to Enoch - Metatron (or Satan), Kemuel, Nathaniel, and Gabriel. Naturally, depending upon which legend, and on who's doing the interpreting, there's an element of confusion in the ranks.
The archangel Michael was also considered to be one of the seraphim.

Donna

Ha! Malcolm Godwin's "Angles an endangered Species" is hardly authoritative, at best a pretty picture coffee table book.

According to the first book of Enoch Gabriel is over the Cherubim, outside of the literature from intertestamental period and the Kabbalah, he is basically God's messenger boy as this is all the Christian Bible relates. In the Kabbalah tree of life, he is identified with the 9th of the ten emanations of God: the sephirot of Yesod. Sephirot simply means emanation. As seraphim and sephirah are very similar it is possible the two have been confused, e.g Gabriel is a sephirah not a seraphim. There is not any consistency as to the number of archangels, just in Enoch there is both four and seven archangels, Satan was never Metatron, Enoch became Metatron when "Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him." (Gen 5:24) In 3 Enoch his transformation is more specifically told. It was not until the 13th century ce that Michael was granted the title of prince of the Seraphim by Saint Bonaventure the "Seraphic Doctor. Regardless, Malcolm Godwin appears to pick and chooses his source material (Which he probably doesn't even research) without much regard to real scholarship. Look up the title of his other books and you will see he is hardly a scholar, but rather a popularizer, "Lucid Dreaming", "Archetypes And Chakras", and the "Holy Grail".

This will probably and should be removed to somewhere else or altogether as it has nothing to do with the poem, so hopefully some mod will save me from myself! But I just felt compelled, and had way to much time on my hands.

Dale

Well, I'll be darned. What a scoundrel, masquerading as an expert.

Mungo man, maybe best not to mention an angel's name at all.

MM, since we're already somewhat off-topic, I wonder whether you've ever seen Wim Wenders' lovely film 'Wings of Desire' ('der Himmel ueber Berlin'), made in 1987? If not, it's well worth picking up the DVD. A follow-up film by Wenders, involving the same angels, is called 'Faraway, So Close'. Also compelling.

To an extent, your poem reminded me of those films.

Donna

That's one thing I can concur with Donna about, plus I would recommend any film with Peter Falk in it.

Dale

Let's try to discuss the poem in the critical forums folks.

/mod

(01-04-2014, 11:00 AM)Mungo man Wrote:  Day time city streets; okay great, but this isn't a novel, you can describe your setting while providing something interesting
Angles hide in plain sight. angels
The sun shines and
springs back from seraphim wings.
Chins tucked into their coats as
they fight against a bitter wind.
Gales of change and fleeting times,
Their time has past.
They pace forlorn,
and through city streets they walk.
Too afraid to fly.
So afraid to die.unnecessary


Gabriel's sore throat will tell you,
Life was not always so hard for them .
Their days have grown long and cold,
Their feathers plucked and children told:
This world so strange
Inspires change
But our minds are old, who cares?
Our souls too cold for this place.
You, my son, my daughter...
Must face our fears and fly.
Let tears fall in the dust,
From a seraphim sky.

There is quite a bit you can take out from this piece. I don't know if this is a stellar piece of work. I'm also not sure if those spelling errors were intentional or not, and since it's not clear, you probably shouldn't have them.

I think you have a great vocabulary that you aren't putting to use in this poem. This one looks a bit tired and tried.

Best,
Sandra

I took a long time to think about, and it took a few tries but I worked out (what I hope to be) a thoughtful edit.
Thank all of you so much for all the help! It has been a joy working through this poem.