by Victoria_Lucas
I'd just think about shortening: "I grasp at the atmosphere, panicked, blind, frantic," to keep the nice flow you had previous.
My guess "blind" is in there, as a buffer for the interal near rhyme of panicked,xxx, frantic. You use a trick common to Swinburne "expectant but expecting the same." Nice alliteration and knowledge of vowel sounds here. Good job. congrats. Deserves more comments, I hope you get them
For once I approve of the green Eee. Well deserved. I can add nothing new in the way of comment.
Tess
how about BLAH away. The eds were just looking to give an E to anything, this was it.
I'd like to think that if anonymous spent perhaps 5 minutes Wikipedia-ing the following quote about "Tantulus," he/she might have had a better appreciation of what a fine poem this is:
"Tantalus's punishment, now proverbial for temptation without satisfaction (the source of the English word "tantalizing", was to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches. Whenever he reached for the fruit, the branches raised his intended meal from his grasp."
I might have re-worked, however, the last stanza. The alliteration didn't work for me, and the lack of fufillment, presumably intended in the last stanze, didn't match the wonderful lyricisim of what preceded it. Please see that, however, as an opportunity missed in my view in this delightful poem.
I am a thundercloud plum / rushed all into bloom / but fruitless and glum / for I'm tantalised, too ;-)