Icarus

[Todd]

Hi Mroning Tide,

A couple comments for you. Use what you like ignore the rest.

First a few general things:

S2 and S5 strike me as the strongest writing in the piece.

You may want to consider moving away from a literal telling and starting more in the middle to emphasis the very strong S2 opening. I realize that changes it up a lot, but I think it might be worth it.

I'll go through the lines now in the order you have them.

I fell from a great height --when I think about these first two lines I think you could make them stronger by condensing them some: "I fell from air into water" all on line one
from air into water
plummeting--I don't see what this adds that fell and the title doesn't already give you. I think you could cut this.
losing my breath in the rushing air--you could lose the repetition of air and simply end the line on rush
smashed into a neglectful cradling slow fall--you could maybe condense this a bit but it works as is. If you did want to condense you could cut smashed and possibly use another word choice for fall since you have fell earlier, but again it still read fine to me (just some options)

horror is not sudden
it happens slowly
how many fathoms will I have to wait
until the water will hold my body?--no suggested changes here. The entire strophe rocks. If you did start with this you could put S1 under it just altering the tense a bit using my earlier changes something like: I had fallen from air into water. Or maybe some different tense alteration...the only reason I bring this up again is because lines this good would be an evocative opening and powerful lead-in

horror happens slowly
the hope-lung gasps in reflex
for a while--I would like to see some different aspect of horror since you use slowly below. hope-lung felt a little awkward. It could just be me of course but after S2 I wanted a more powerful build up here.

you fell first
and I followed

horror happens slowly
a blossoming bruise
budding under skin--I like this a lot. I like the "b" sound choices and the image. It's a solid ending

Again this is just my take on the poem. I hope some of these comments will be helpful to you, if they are not please disregard.

Best,

Todd