The Voyeur and the Harpy

[Todd]

Hi Leanne,

I'm not sure how I missed this. Here are some comments for you (I haven't read any of the comments below so if I'm repetitive forgive me. I will also be focusing solely on the edit):

Edit 13/9/11

you ask to see all of me--Wonderful first line. It fits so well with the title. We have a "harpy", which could also imply a shrewish woman and on a level someone viewing her from a distance as something to conquer. On the surface though, it's a great line because the voyeur wants to see and doesn't want to see at the same time. What they ask for would disappoint their imagination. There feels like some scorn in the comment (which by naming the other the "harpy" comes across). By using a break directly under this line you impose that moment of possible titillation. It increases the voyeur's tension. Love that

perhaps you imagine yourself as the breeze--I would be very tempted to break the line after imagine. I like the sense of the line as you have it, but that break would add something in my opinion. The breeze is a really nice, nice image. I like that it's both invisible and it touches at the same time. Very nice insight into the mind of the voyeur
whose fingers will stir colour from the lake--Now, we consider that she is likely bathing in the lake and possibly been caught unaware. Fingers completes the personification. Stir colour from the lake is one of my favorite phrases in the poem. When taken with the next line, it's like the observer sees themselves as an artist. They alone have this appreciation of beauty, again the harpy seems to hold this view in scorn. Theirs is a fantasy. What is beneath the water in reality (the talon, the claw, the scorn) isn't really what they want to see.
and paint it into clouds

silent in the silt rest twisted skeletons--Great break. This feels more like the mythical harpy. The viewing could be a trap to lure the voyeur in. These skeletons could be those who have come before--that they're twisting lends the harpies view toward their internal perversion. They look but do not live. They embrace the fantasy above the water and avoid what is beneath the water. The irony is they may join those that came before and be avoided beneath the silt. I like the assonance in this line.
of shopping trolleys, half a Datsun,--ahh, modern day. Beneath is former things of use and joy that are forgotten.
someone’s dream of bliss in a wrought-iron bedhead--And that's the point. This is someone else's dream of bliss. There is no real. This bliss is also a sexual cage of sorts (nice use of wrought-iron to that effect).
and I, who will need more than the six seeds you offer--ahh, now we have the speaker comparing herself to Persephone and the dark life beneath: the Hades of this person, the shopping trolleys, and the Datsun. The wrekage such a relationship represents
to slough this season’s skin--Season is a good reference to the entire myth. Love the s words to imply the snake. It also works so well with the image of the harpy and the idea that a relationship with this sort of person cannot lead to rebirth. They don't offer enough.

breezes do not reach the pipes that excrete--interesting line. He the voyeur is the breeze. I get a satyr feel from the pipes, and also the thought of the lungs where true life breath comes from
into algal blooms, red as the storm that rends--Now we have perhaps the daughter of demeter giving these natural images
mother from child--This is a clear connection to the myth. It also could speak of estrangement in a relationship.

you ask, but do not wish to discover--just like "you look, but do not wish to see
that here is no fire to purify,--It's the dead ashes sort of connection
only eternal decay
and another’s idea--It does all exist in the mind for the one, doesn't it
of how to shape a life--That's sort of what the voyeur does isn't it: shape a life into a convenient box. The speaker refuses to be diminished in this way. They are more than the fantasy, or how they appear. There are things beneath the water that are of higher importance.

I enjoyed how you drew on the allusion to deal with something that still goes on all the time. Quite an empowering message emphasized by excellent sonics and imagery.

Best,

Todd