Kamadeva

[tectak]

Kamadeva

To escape from passion's prison
I called up the skies above,
I invoked the hindu Kama-
Kamadeva, god of love. Kamadeva is an excellent metaphor for the embodiment of love and passion in verse. Considering that, the opening stanza is on firm ground. Though you are writing verse A,B,C,B I am always a little suspicious as to the motives. Why not:

To make escape from passion's prison I called up the skies above,
I invoked the hindu Kama:Kamadeva, god of love.

He came to me, a proud son, By using couplets as above you will see the massive change in rhythm between S1 and S2. See below
A parrot's back he's riding,
A string of coral blooms from sea,
His charming lips, are binding.No comma after "are" but there is no easy way to translate "binding" lips. I know you like Eminescu who, by the way, is to my knowledge not well translated, but that is no reason to emulate said bad translation "ing" words are the viruses of rhym(ing) verse. They tend to spread. Could this stanza be re-written without losing the strength of the concept? Yes...I think it could.

So he came to me, a proud son, on a parrot's back rode he;
adorned in strings of brightest coral, lips tight sealed, came silently

.....or somesuch. It's your poem.



A quiver is behind his wings,
He has no bolts, but flowers,
The river Ganga gave him those
To strip away my hours. Again, the rhythm shifts. If you do not care about this then do not use it erratically, sometimes yes and sometimes no. It is irritating and difficult to follow in your footsteps. See what happens here when you use the couplet trick.

A quiver is behind his wings,He has no bolts, but flowers.
The river Ganga gave him those to strip away my hours.

This is rhythmically strong.....deliberate....but NOT the same as the stanzas previous.

A bloom he put to string his bow,
And shot my chest with rapture,
From then I pass the nights alone
In dreams I can't recapture.

He came to me with deadly arrows
To scold my grand delusion
The son from heavens up above
The god of blank illusion.

Inspired by my favourite poet M. Eminescu =)

I have to say "yes!" to this as it rolls along quite well. I like long lines because it makes greater scope for correction. Eminescu when translated loses a lot, not unnaturally, but I wonder if you are writing this in Roumanian and then translating as it suffers from some idiosycrasies explainable as translation quirks. For no reason other than you did ask, I have copied out YOUR poem in couplets. See what you think.

To make escape from passion's prison, I called up the skies above.
I invoked the hindu Kama:Kamadeva, god of love.
So he came to me, a proud son, on a parrot's back rode he;
adorned in strings of brightest coral, lips tight sealed, came silently.

A quiver is behind his wings,He has no bolts, but flowers.
The river Ganga gave him those,to strip away my hours.
A bloom he put to string his bow and shot my chest with rapture, (to avoid a cry of cliche you are avoiding heart or breast! Try ".....he shot me through with rapture)
From then I pass the nights alone, in dreams I can't recapture.

He came to me with deadly arrows to scold my grand delusion.
The son from heavens up above,the god of blank illusion.

Again, I think this is a very nice piece which is worth tinkering about with...that is all it needs. I admit that I had not recognised the cupidity of Kamadeva but now that I do it is better received.
If you can see the rhythm slips then they are easily corrected. If you cannot then there is no point in correcting!
Best,
tectak