08-20-2015, 06:55 AM
(08-20-2015, 04:31 AM)Sharramon Wrote: Tires rolling down a strip of asphalt, Tyres and car are synonymous in this context, as are rolling and gently. You only need one of each and tighten the first two lines down to eight words.I can't decide whether this is free verse with limited rhyme, or blank verse with insufficient rhyme. Once you employed some rhyme in the last verse, it was disappointing that you hadn't used it throughout. Neither one nor the other. These are the mixed signals for your form and structure, and why I've only addressed some of your grammar.
The car gently parts the darkness
And I, insulated, stare blankly out Grammar sounds clumsy, and stare blankly out sounds like a split infinitive. Try stare out blankly.
Of tinted windows to the stark night.
The sky is empty, but some distance away
City lights flicker as they swallow up stars. Good imagery.
'Look upon these, ye mighty, and be dismayed I can't understand why you've opted for archaic language (is this line from Shelley's Ozymandias?) It's incongruous and passé mixed in a modern form.
Oh gods, we need no titans to bring us these flames.'
I mutter vacantly. The car clutters softly Do away with adverbs as much as possible. If you think you need them, then find a stronger verb. How do you mutter vacantly? That's a new one. Incoherently may be a better choice. Clutters for English English implies disorder e.g. a kid's cluttered room. Perhaps find a stronger verb which isn't so ambiguous.
Away on its trek upon some track of tar Some track is now indefinite, and contrasts with the first line which implied an ordered journey.
That mars a land where perhaps some lofty Why is the land marred? And why choose a lofty vagrant? Who is this? Once you use the word perhaps, then the lofty vagrant can represent anything under the sun. It's meaningless.
Vagrant once trod to gaze up, alone, at the stars.
Hope it's of some use in that respect.
Cheers
A poet who can't make the language sing doesn't start. Hence the shortage of real poems amongst the global planktonic field of duds. - Clive James.

