Draft 3. The Venusian

[dukealien]

Magpie, dukealien,

Tried to address your feedback as well as I could with this edit. I found one part of S2 sort of redundant while trying to restructure the stanza. I'm hoping that the change pays off in some way and that it reads better.

Concentrating on S.2, here from your third draft,

Because my sky is a barren womb,
my only moon begotten was an image
that this shroud burned for, now burning for
the vanity of images.

and to avoid just rewriting... this transitions back and forth between then and now.  Part of the confusion might be alleviated by a one-way transit.  That is, you could start out with now (my barren, shrouding sky burns) though you might consider "veil" because Venus doesn't admit she's dead (which "shroud" implies).

Then bring in the fictional moon and, finally, the vanity of images.  Or, you could start with vanity as the organizing idea of the stanza and work forward.

If possible, some variety in the "burn for" phrasing could help.  Heat, radiation, maybe something about trapped within the confining veil, tears of molten lead and tin - silvery.  (Well, that last is far from your material.)  And could the word "stillborn" apply to the imaginary moon?

Not many of those ideas may be practical, or say what you want.  Use imagination; it doesn't have to flow perfectly smooth, Venus is emotional here, so a halting rhythm is OK.  But she's working through her tragedy.

Hope that helps!