Seasons and Spirits

[billy]

after seeing your reply to saba, i have to ask why the set number of syllables per verse yet anon constant number per line. also; was there a reason in using syllables instead of a consistent meter? (just curious)

the poem;


for me it feels like it's trying to hard. i think you restrict the poem by using the count you have in such a way that the poem struggles to move from one season to the next. some of the images work well, the greedy wine stained fingers, the bitter atmosphere of fall. A glen of cherry cordial lies. these are keepers. specially the lies which adds a layer of intrigue to the piece.

First edit (terribly tiny):

I can feel the heat of summer swinging is [can] needed? i know you're aiming at a set count syl-wise but a redundancy is a redundancy
to every humid breath you take.
Rapping on your radiant temples
are my greedy fingers, ten wine-stained snakes. feels a little awkward but i like image and the intent

The bitter atmosphere of fall
nips at your nose, the noble hill. should it be a semi colon instead of the first comma?
Enthralling smells of cider, freshly-pressed, is the first comma needed?
and boiling maple sap bleed from your skin.

Blossoming flames and heady beer
are passions we behold while in these chains. what chains? (the metaphorical chains or winter?)
The fearless rhythm of our winter love
blushes the silver blind beyond.

You're wearing that shift of flowers again: i like the image of spring you set up here
your vernal musk, the wax to your honey.
A glen of cherry cordial lies
unsullied in our dim cellar.

a rhyme scheme usually has a pattern which is made up of the end rhymes. you can have aabb or abab, or abc , or a multitude of other schemes. as far as know having a word that end a sentence and a word that begins one two lines down doesn't count as a rhyme scheme (it's the reason it seems subtle, it doesn't exist)

here's something i got from the net about rhymes to save me some time;

The poet who wishes to write a rhyming poem has several different sorts of rhyme from which to choose. Some are strong, some more subtle, and all can be employed as the poet sees fit. The following are some of the main types : 


End Rhymes
Rhyming of the final words of lines in a poem. The following, for example, is from Seamus Heaney’s “Digging” :

     Under my window, a clean rasping sound
     When the spade sinks into gravelly ground 


Internal Rhymes
Rhyming of two words within the same line of poetry. The following, for example, is from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” :

     Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
     Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, 


Slant Rhymes (sometimes called imperfect, partial, near, oblique, off etc.)
Rhyme in which two words share just a vowel sound (assonance – e.g. “heart” and “star”) or in which they share just a consonant sound (consonance – e.g. “milk” and “walk”). Slant rhyme is a technique perhaps more in tune with the uncertainties of the modern age than strong rhyme. The following example is also from Seamus Heaney’s “Digging” :

     Between my finger and my thumb
     The squat pen rests; snug as a gun 


Rich Rhymes
Rhyme using two different words that happen to sound the same (i.e. homonyms) – for example “raise” and “raze”. The following example – a triple rich rhyme – is from Thomas Hood’s” A First Attempt in Rhyme” :

     Partake the fire divine that burns,
     In Milton, Pope, and Scottish Burns,
     Who sang his native braes and burns. 


Eye Rhymes
Rhyme on words that look the same but which are actually pronounced differently – for example “bough” and “rough”. The opening four lines of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, for example, go :

     Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
     Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
     Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
     And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:

Here, “temperate” and “date” look as though they rhyme, but few readers would pronounce “temperate” so that they did. Beware that pronunciations can drift over time and that rhymes can end up as eye rhymes when they were originally full (and vice versa). 


Identical Rhymes
Simply using the same word twice. An example is in (some versions of) Emily Dickinson’s “Because I Could not Stop for Death” :

     We paused before a House that seemed
     A Swelling of the Ground—
     The Roof was scarcely visible—
     The Cornice—in the Ground— 


It’s clear there is often a certain amount of overlap between rhyme and other poetical devices such as assonance