Semi

[Torkelburger]

No more
than empty–
pulsating the center star

Hand in hand silence,
dreaming 

Frozen cotton
to the void–



Romance
and pessimism,

hand in hand;

pulsating
the center star

 No more whole

than empty–

pulsating in the center star



Hand in hand silence,

eyes shut,

dreaming 



Frozen cotton

taken into the void–







Romance

and pessimism,



hand in hand silence;



pulsating
in the center star 

Hi SC,

I read a really interesting article just a few days ago by author Lauren Camp about poetry.  One of the suggestions she made in the article was to shorten and tighten "ing" verbs.  "Ing"s are too "kind" and apologetic, less effective than lean verbs.  She said to make your writing more "muscular" by not "ing-ing" around.  She admits you can't get rid of them all, of course, but to look for a balance.

So you might want to look at "emptiness pulses the center star" instead of "pulsating in the center star"; or "hand in hand, silence dreams".  I believe that is the idea.  I don't know how you feel about that.

I make this "mistake" all the time, especially when writing in forms that require a specific syllable count.  But I've written so much poetry lately, I can only fix this going forward as it would take too long to correct all my past errors.