10-01-2021, 02:29 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-01-2021, 08:26 PM by RiverNotch.)
It doesn't read to me as if the Americans are one side or the other -- in this case, everyone's Greek, everyone's Trojan, everyone's savage.
Lines two to four really break in rhythm, but in a wonderful way, reflecting the chaos of war, and I like the subtle alliteration between "paradoxically" and "execution", especially with how one leads to the other through the long-vowel arc of "tele-guided missile / riding": it's very evocative. A little bothered by the apostrophe at the end -- would prefer it either removed or replaced with an "a" -- but that doesn't really matter. Maybe making the sides track more, as per busker's suggestion, would be the substantive edit of choice, but overall, what a bombshell xD.
Still fanatically reading it xD maybe shorten "personal" to "close"? "personal" breaks the rhythm much like "paradoxically" but in a less purposeful way. The second stanza nearly echoes the first in terms of rhythm, which again is great -- first two lines are chaotic, second two lines are consistently trochaic, which may be what motivates this suggestion.
And maybe change "boulder" to "stone"?
Lines two to four really break in rhythm, but in a wonderful way, reflecting the chaos of war, and I like the subtle alliteration between "paradoxically" and "execution", especially with how one leads to the other through the long-vowel arc of "tele-guided missile / riding": it's very evocative. A little bothered by the apostrophe at the end -- would prefer it either removed or replaced with an "a" -- but that doesn't really matter. Maybe making the sides track more, as per busker's suggestion, would be the substantive edit of choice, but overall, what a bombshell xD.
Still fanatically reading it xD maybe shorten "personal" to "close"? "personal" breaks the rhythm much like "paradoxically" but in a less purposeful way. The second stanza nearly echoes the first in terms of rhythm, which again is great -- first two lines are chaotic, second two lines are consistently trochaic, which may be what motivates this suggestion.
And maybe change "boulder" to "stone"?