Spriglief's profile

It has a Victorian feel to it though its vocabulary, but I don’t see anything about long distance love in it. Sure the sun comes up, the flowers respond, but there is nothing of the long dark night in your metaphors. Words like “years” and “months” does not compensate for the human part, which does have a memory of separation. I rebel against making this into a natural cycle because the barrenness is not addressed.

Some of your adjectives try to hard, example, “delta dawn” and “meager month” You could delete some of them and not lose a thing. You don’t need to color the word “month” to let your readers know your character has only been married a short time. The noun month does that for you. I know this flash fiction, but I think it relies on its shock value to much to carry your plot.

In short, poetry is condensed emotion and thought and effective poetry has its effect before the rational mind engages the printed matter. You were verbose, but essentially said the same thing. So we are on the same page. Several times you mentioned “changing the poet’s vision.” Personally I don’t think a critic can do this. Any poet worth the ink in their printer should not feel threatened by a reviewer’s comments. Critics are the bottom feeders of the literary world and all the ink they as ...

I don’t think it is too preachy at all and love the way you capitalized “Them,” as the do act like God’s on Olympus. Maybe you should have said something about gated communities. It is a relatively recent phenomenon here, though in the 3rd world they have always been there. Personally, I see them as the van guard of the third world invasion when soon middle class America will have to scrap for a meal. This is preachy, not your write.

I wish they could all be as good as your closing line. It’s funny and ego definitely has something to do with it.