Hi RCL--
What a great idea for a poem! The phoenix's violent death and rebirth is a perfect metaphor for one brought back to life after a heart-attack. What it brought into my mind was the first line of Yeat's Leda and the Swan "A sudden blow: the great wings beating still".
That being said, I had trouble scanning this, on the first, and repeated, readings. The first line, in particular, felt like just three feet on my first reading (like a limerick!). From there, it carries on without much regard for setting up a rhythm at all.
If it's to be a metrical poem, I think you'll have to decide on a rhythm and build around it. But I hope you do, since the idea is very cool.
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