By the Rim of My Shadow 2

[Gena]

OK, so I read the comments, and took note. I appreciate them.
I tried to make it less cryptic, (maybe it still is),
I'm still trying to figure it out...
cheers,
here it is:

By the rim of my shadow,
a sparrow undressed,
its feathers like diamonds,
to each one of my dreams.

One was the night,
it held me prisoner,
so despicable and unkind,
I trembled in silence,
it was all here,
all mine.

Then I saw the earth,
howling like thunder,
walked drunk to the wicked daylight,
-come in- she said,
I cleared my way through the dead ones,
-now go away-
-just go away-

And there I found the Caesar,
his head rolling up-down,
like a tale of my nightmares,
his rattled bones,
his cold sweat.
it was all there,
it was all ours.

By the rim of my shadow,
a bitter taste arrives.
¡Mad sparrow,
awake me!
I feel the edge
the cold arrow-sound,
it burns,
and it's calling a name,
my name.

[RSaba]

Hey, good on ya for taking all that feedback and doing something with it. This is already so much better, and I can tell you took the feedback seriously in this rewrite.

I think the next step for you would be to take each sentence within the poem and just write it out to make sure it reads the way you want it to. Sometimes syntax can get lost in poetic structure. For instance, your 2nd stanza is written as all one sentence. Here it is just by itself: "One was the night, it held me prisoner, so despicable and unkind, I trembled in silence, it was all here, all mine."

Stretched out like that, the awkward bits become apparent. I would suggest turning it into something along these lines: "One was the night- it held me prisoner, despicable and kind, trembling in silence. It was all here, all mine."

Then you stick it back into the poem's format, and you have this:

"One was the night-
it held me prisoner,
despicable and kind,
trembling in silence.
It was all here, all mine."

That makes the stanza cleaner and smoother to read, while still using the same words.

Hope that helps! It's always a good thing to do when editing poetry.

Like I said, I'm impressed that you took all the feedback and used it, instead of running from it like many do. Welcome to PPP!

[ChristopherSea]

Hello Gena and welcome. It is a good idea and highly recommended that when work-shopping a poem, you post the revisions above the original for comparison and contrast. Rim of a shadow is an intriguing boundary. I like the imagery herein, but it is unclear how they relate. The sparrow jail-keeper/drunk wicked dead earth/Caesar's bones/bitter taste calling, etc. The original may clear up this progression, I don't know.../Chris