[N. Matheson]

Originally Posted by Glenn Wright

Hi, N.—

Your meter is flawless, and I like the alliteration. You do a nice job of presenting an extended comparison of the woman’s beauty to an arsenal of deadly weapons. I especially like the image of her kiss being an arrow fired from the bow of her mouth.

I had a few questions:

1. I don’t understand in line 6 how the soldier turns to “alms” (a charitable gift).

2. The word “drawn” in line 8 is ambiguous. I’m pretty sure that you mean it in the sense of “pulling back a bowstring,” and the image of a kiss turning her lips into a taut bowstring is clever, but it could also mean “painted or sketched on,” suggesting the insincerity of her kiss. Did you intend this?

3. In line 13 you personify “pain” as a peer of “paradise.” In the next line you change the image and make pain the exorbitant interest that the woman charges for the loan of pleasure. This requires a bit too much nimbleness on the reader’s part. Could you, perhaps, choose one of these images (I suggest the second one) and develop it over the last four lines?

Here’s an example:

Claiming usurious interest for her loan
Of fleeting pleasures, which she demands in pain
With ev’ry idle bliss paid back to her
Three times, with jagged woes and barbed regrets.

This eliminates the repetition of the word “pain” in adjacent lines, gets rid of the mixed metaphor, and clarifies the awkward expression “in thrice.”

Nice work!
Glenn

I really do love this last suggestion, but the meter is jilted and I cannot make it work no matter what I try.