Bellerophon 0.1

[dukealien]

Bellerophon


We are a sort of vanished generation,
even if there's no trauma yet to grab
at our collective consciousness -- the half
of us that can still act,  might consider "that still can act," smoothing and grouping the alliterations

they fail to see the visions  "they" would work better here if l4 had ended with a period... or semicolon?
crippling our poets and our painters:
a world at war, a world aflame,
a world returned to tyrants' hands,  comma here seems a little wrong... em dash, pushing ahead after a pause?

and other such abstractions. Or perhaps
they see, yet feel they're free
as long as future's future -- for we lack  return to "we" from "they" the half
a proper cause, a righteous dogma

to hold us absolutely, the modern  this line seems rough but is important - "moderns" instead of "the modern?"
butchered by our mothers and our fathers
into a Chimera we'll mock to fight,
a Pegasus we'll soon lose.

I like this so much it's very difficult to critique... but to work.

The two most impactful and unexpected words are "crippling" and "butchered."  I have some difficulty interpreting the first, which is not to say it's bad, I'm just missing part of it.  Skipping back and forth between "we" and "they" (the active half) could be taken to imply that the author considers himself part of the somnolent half.  And that the poets and painters of our generation are also of the inactive.  Could be interpreted another way, though.

An irrlevant thought:  though there was only one Chimera, Pegasus was also a lower-case chimera.

Bellerophon lost it all when he tried to visit Olympus, the definition of hubris.  Sometimes I think we lack the better part of that sin, when pride is justified rather than overweening.

Very much enjoyed.  Hope the suggestions help.