Seeds of Holy Things

[Aish]

Stars do not destroy themselves
in one burst of fiery gold flame,
twinkling
to be buried in the hands of God.

Instead
fire fingers creep to the edges like
jars humming with electric karma lottery
for an obsessive compulsive.

The dark face of night is a wild drink
of soft precious amber and ripe rose;
sublime magnetism created the
Temple of the first kiss of love
with secret incandescent dreaming,

majik

and the tribe
of silver meadows of the moon.

[abu nuwas]

Aish-- A rather silly point has arrived. I love this poem, and could leave it at that. However, we don't do that. Then I saw it sinking into oblivion, and thought I must stop that, so that someone who can offer useful advice may have an opportunity to do so.

I must needs say why I like it! Well, the language is rich and beautiful, yet includes the very stuff of our age; it contrasts an appeal to spirituality, with words we associate with the everyday, the modern, the external world. Despite growing up with cartoons of Aussies always on the hunt for liquid amber, and its proximity to 'rose', I choose to think of it more as a cocktail of the world's beginnings, and ours, and 'the dark face of night' is so similar to the 'face of God'. I did not much care for 'twinkling', perhaps because that is what stars are always supposed to do, but the last lines were quite magical.

[Aish]

Why, thank you, Abu! Any suggestions as to the replacement of twinkling?

[abu nuwas]

Why, thank you, Abu! Any suggestions as to the replacement of twinkling?

It is all hopelessly subjective. For a little, I thought 'tohu (wa) bohu' as referring back to the Creation, as in Genesis. But then, my old-fashioned traditional self kicked in, and I began to want to smoothe it down, changing the line preceding to 'gold and fiery', and 'twinkle' to 'sparks'.

Of course, stars DO twinkle-- in fact, I am not sure that anything else does, bar for the eyes of a kindly old Irishman, or , supposedly, the eyes of father-to-be. Hey! Liverpool have just scored!!!

[Todd]

Hi Aish,

Lovely, evocative work. Here are some comments for you:

Your title is great. When you consider it in light of your first line it presents stars as seeds. Seeds are tranformative which fits with your majik and mystery.

Here are some comments for the lines:

Stars do not destroy themselves--great opening line. I like how many directions this allows you (conservation of energy, the subtle implication that someone/something does destroy stars, the random idea of suicidal stars)
in one burst of fiery gold flame,[b]--adding the idea that it is a gradual destruction
twinkling--a little overused with stars unless you're going for an allusion to the childhood song which in that case would make it fine. You could substitute a lot of other words that give a transient or changeable sense (i.e., oscillating, fading, etc).
to be buried in the hands of God.[/b]--beautiful line. Wonderful image.

Instead--I have a bias against one word lines but as a tranistional word this sort of works. It feels like taking a breath and then moving into more of a rush.
fire fingers creep to the edges like--I love the five fingers giving the sense of the points of a drawn star, with the majik implying a pentegram shape, making a sort of thaumaturgic connection, and going back to the hand of God--the image does a lot of work for you
jars humming with electric karma lottery--the jars conjure up images of tesla coils and a wild sort of science. Would karmic be more correct here? The type of karmic lottery implies an interesting mechanism for justice or reward. I'm sure I'm just floating through the overtones of interpretation but I like how your word choices push me.
for an obsessive compulsive.--This is one of your more interesting lines as it suggests a personal touch. I like the ritualistic sense of OCD. I also like that the camera pans in on this line

The dark face of night is a wild drink--beautiful, beautiful line. The construction makes me think of the dark night of the soul but it's more like a Bacchus celebration. I really like the personification used
of soft precious amber and ripe rose;--nice combination. I especially like the use of ripe as a modifier
sublime magnetism created the--This is so cool in that you introduce more universal forces here's a sublime magnetism that led to a connection implied in the next line. I'm not fond of breaking on "the" it could just be a bias but I would be tempted to break on created. I would hesitate to pull Temple up as I wouldn't want you to have two many "of the" prepositional phrase lines (not that those are bad just considering your line break variety) in the strophe
Temple of the first kiss of love--lovely
with secret incandescent dreaming,--again lovely. There's a nice hazy sense to these lines. I love incandescent. It's like there's some connection of consciousness linking the dreamer going on here.

majik--the white space works for you in both directions. I like the enforced pause.

and the tribe
of silver meadows of the moon.--I don't really understand these lines but they are evocative. Silver meadows on the moon makes me think of the moon as a romantic device. The tribe makes me think of a lost tribe or something representing a lost ideal. It's not that I think that is exactly where you are going it's just the way I'm free-associating.

Thank you for the read. Your word choices elevated the piece and really made me think.

Best,

Todd

[Philatone]

hello aish! it's been some time
hope what I have to offer is of use

Stars do not destroy themselves ...pretty strong opening
in one burst of fiery gold flame, ..."fiery" and "burst" already conjured up the "flame" for me. understand if you keep both for cadence's sake, but I feel as though ending on "gold" would be a bit more refreshing than "flame" when talking about a star
twinkling
to be buried in the hands of God...I really pulled a strong image from this

Instead
fire fingers creep to the edges like
jars humming with electric karma lottery
for an obsessive compulsive....I don't want to deny the strength of the images. words like "fire fingers" and "electric" carry a beautiful weight to them. that being said, I wanted something a little more tangible for an image--I blame personal preference entirely

The dark face of night is a wild drink
of soft precious amber and ripe rose;...really great drink image. I debated stopping at "amber", or at least finding a separation to draw it out even more
sublime magnetism created the...at first, I though about cutting the "sublime". It does create a tie-in with that "temple" in the following line.
Temple of the first kiss of love
with secret incandescent dreaming,

majik

and the tribe
of silver meadows of the moon. ...beautiful!

understand if the trimmings aren't to your fancy. was an enjoyable read, Aish!

[Erthona]

I'll just weigh in on the "twinkling" subject. It seems to me it could be removed, and in fact probably should be, and need no replacement, as "twinkling" does not seem to apply to what has just occurred, e.g., stars destroying themselves and bursting into fiery gold flames..

Dale

[tectak]

Stars do not destroy themselves
in one burst of fiery gold flame,
twinkling
to be buried in the hands of God.Though this is a fine and promise-filled stanza it is not scientifically correct. This should not matter to the poet, anything goes I am continually expected to believe.....but, the next stanza goes sci-fi,if not pseudo-scientific and this seems to me to confuse the message. Whatever that is. See, it is happening already The thing is....well, super-nova.

Instead
fire fingers creep to the edges like
jars humming with electric karma lottery
for an obsessive compulsive.Of course,a comma after"karma"would seem to improve sense the line/stanza but then with that improvement comes the realisation that understanding is still absent. I believe the PC response is.....it must just be me. I do not understand this stanza because electric karma in a jar is a lottery for an obsessive compulsive is outside my intellectual grasp....but that's just me.

The dark face of night is a wild drink
of soft precious amber and ripe rose;
sublime magnetism created the
Temple of the first kiss of love
with secret incandescent dreaming,Again, and with restraint, there are words of beauty here; but as Ernie Wise said " Listen sunshine, I am playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order". Or Eric Morecambe.


majik

and the tribe
of silver meadows of the moon. Yep. I guess its just me. Somebody help me....I am missing so much.

There is romanticism and there is romance. One can bring on a grave bout of the other. If you wish to impart a wistful sense of being, or a deeply philosophical and unique thought, you are locking yourself into romanticism...not necessarily in any way connected with romance. The language you choose to use has less to do with the message in this piece but has more to do with your wish to be romantic. It would be better to swing one way or the other. I like the bold opener and in spite of its erroneous PHYSICAL content, there was promise that this was just another way of romancing the reader. You will know the expression "Take no notice, it is all just romancing".....well that's where I was taken with this. I took little notice of what you were saying as I was convinced at the outset that veracity was not of significance......this is a pity. A rewrite would not work for me; this is not my cup if tea. There are others here who will espouse the usefulness of words for their own sake and will crit this on their own terms. I try very hard to crit based upon the round and I get crit back, in fair measure, on that platform. You must decide what progress the one school of thought can offer you over the other.Oh yes. Scintillate.
Best,
Tectak
Ps I held off on this one to see which way things went. It was as expected.