Standing on the Moors

[jdeirmend]

Heslopian,

I had mixed feelings about this. I think there's some real potential here.

First of all: not sure if you were aspiring to a consistent meter, but it's not there.

Content wise, the first three lines set a very compelling scene for the poem. Then the third:

"among them rocks of coarse magnificence."

This is an odd adjective/adverb pair, especially when describing rocks. I don't see how coarse modifies magnificence in any significant way.

Rocks, come to think of it, could be swapped for something more descriptive. Stones, pebbles, boulders, something besides mere rocks. Give me an idea of the size of these things.

Then lines 4, 5, and 6.

"Bodies were sealed in this naked ground,
a dance of ancient and sweet elegance
performed as one man with too many limbs."

This entire sequence seems confusing. I get the idea that a perhaps ancient people were buried at the scene of the poem, but it is not clear whether your speaker means to describe a) the act of burial as a dance or b) that the people's bodies were caught up in dancing before they were buried. "As a one man" is also syntactically difficult.

From the rest of the poem, I get the sense that you were trying to describe some sort of a mythic past that's been lost. I like that. But, I think the execution is flawed. How can moors, for instance, be blind?

The dance motif comes back with "vibes" at the end. I think you might alter lines 3, 4 and 5 to try and convey the following in a more unambiguous fashion:

1) That an ancient people were present in the moors
2) That they danced in some wild and wonderful way
3) That they were buried in the ground of the moors

Hope that's helpful.