Vanitas - edit3

[Knot]

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Hi Duke.

the point is that the Beamer's vainly pleased with its perfection, not realizing that decay and age have already given it, as it were, a squint. This seemed the likeliest interpretation, but I couldn't shake that doubt that it had been caused, not be decay, but by accident. A further thought is would it make more sense if it were a tail-light? Surely the driver would notice if a head-light wasn't working by the lack of light on the road ahead? (Perhaps change 'is lit' to 'comes on' - or whatever the American version of that phrase might be) - suggesting that night is coming. Just a thought

If that's not getting across, it needs to be better expressed, but how?

I'm not sure this is better but perhaps make a trilogy out of dismissively and concerned, as in

dismissively, far too superior

to be concerned with brown old roadside wrecks.

unmindful, that of its cool quartz headlights

only one is lit.

?

Or just stick to your guns.

so the whole concept would have to go. Which is, of course, an option. Not on my account, I hope. I like this elegy, but, as with those old cars, I think it could benefit from a bit more polishing

Still going to come back at you about aligned (thanks for the explanation, by the way. These are 1930s era cars then?) - given your nose to running board description, why do you need aligned at all (other than the music, obviously)?

Beside the highway mile marker

resting ground, round in ways

that seem no longer streamlined

yet they are. Nine Airflow-era cars

are stationed, Fender to fender

running-board to running-board

long V-8 noses aimed toward a road

they'll ride no more.

S2, Like the change to chestnut with its autumnal associations, not so keen on the 'it' of S2/L2. It's a bit nondescript. How could such _____ be rust? What element / would be so kind? I think it should be 'what element' or you might change the punctuation here.

On the other hand, and just to contradict myself completely, if you cut the first line of this verse I think it might be an improvement.

how could it just be rust? no elements

would be so kind They show no glint

of chrome but as traffic passes all their glass

Is there an alternative to 'glint' that captures some of the original appeal of chrome?

Still troubled by 'sun-sparkles' - to me 'as traffic passes' suggests that the 'radiance' of the glass is caused by it being caught in the beams of their headlights (so leading to the Cyclopean beamer in the next verse), the sun seems out of place.

And that last line, the 'monument', do you need that? And how 'from'?

S3, I don't think the repetition of 'brown' pulls its weight.

a sapphire Beamer gleaming

liquid luxury races by dismissively

far too superior to be concerned

with such corrosion

But of its cool quartz headlights

only one is lit.

Best, Knot

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