Sunshine by Starlight, a TR poem

[Tragic Rabbit]

Sunshine by Starlight

In your dreams, you see her

Walking ?neath the boughs

Moonlight on her shoulders

Stars amid her clothes

She?s darkness in sunlight

Her beauty is grim

She?ll kiss you or kill you

Select it at whim

In landscapes of wishes

On hilltops of lies

She holds court as fearful

As demons devise

Yet fairies and angels

They flock to her side

For sunshine?s more magnet

Than dark in its pride

Does she live in shadows

Do bluebirds have wings

Yet knowing and fleeing

Are two different things

For she is the sunshine

With sha-dow-y eyes

She?s also the hunter

And you are the prize

In dreams, she is calling

You cannot refuse

You put off the moment

But one day must choose

You run but it?s useless

You hide but she?ll know

No shadow to cling to

Where sunshine can?t go

For sunshine by starlight

Is not kept at bay

When finally she finds you

You?ll vanish away

?Neath treetops by moonbeams

You?ll give up your soul

For sunshine eats shadows

And swallows men whole

By moonlight does sunshine

Break them with stones

She eats souls by starshine

Then picks at men?s bones

Your heart is a dainty

Your flesh is her feast

But even in dying

You won?t be released

When others will glimpse her

In dim moonlit dreams

That strange midnight music

Will be your own screams

Cold sunshine by starlight

Is not what she seems

Her brightness in shadow

How tempting it gleams

In landscapes of wishes

From high silver thrones

She laughs at your heartaches

And plays with your bones

*

[Tragic Rabbit]

I actually know a 'Sunshine' for whom this was sort of written, but it was more, as I just told her, of an archetypal female: mother, lover, slayer. The fearsome female of one's dreams.

How did the poem seem to readers? It's so hard to get poetry feedback...

TR

[Tragic Rabbit]

How did the poem seem to readers? It's so hard to get poetry feedback...

TR

Harder than I thought that day, obviously.

Fishing? Yeah, yeah...

Kissy-poo,

TR

[Graeme]

I'm atrocious at poetry feedback but I'll give it a go.

I liked the imagery of sunshine at night -- that bright person who seems so brilliant when those around them seem dark. The fact that the brightness can conceal a dark side is also painfully true.

Overall, I thought it was very good.

Graeme

PS: That's my quota of poetry feedback for this century used up. Anything after this point is a bonus.

[Tragic Rabbit]

I liked the imagery of sunshine at night -- that bright person who seems so brilliant when those around them seem dark. The fact that the brightness can conceal a dark side is also painfully true.

.

She's bipolar, I was attempting to hit on that, the combinations of impressions that creates (bipolar people can be 'fun', seem compelling company at times, at others can seem frightening or dangerous), as well as touching on the sort of deadly female archetype. Thanks for commenting, Graeme.

TR

[blue]

My connection must've eaten my reply to this (i.e. it timed out or reset) back when you first posted this. I have no idea what I said then. This, to tell you I wasn't ignoring you.

-----

It sounds like she's unequal parts ice and fire, depending on what happens. The sun, moon, and stars imagery was... I started to say "illuminating." (Groans, sorry.) It was effective and pretty. Then there's the huntswoman imagery, the feral nature, femme fatale.

Hmm, I like the poem as is. I suppose if you really wanted to rework it, you could play with the fiery, hot and cold nature of the sun and moon, and connect that with a hunting female at day and night, bathed in the midday sun or midnight moon. But that'd be at least one or more poems completely different from this one, and I don't think this one needs anything else in editing, really. I'm just thinking out loud. (See the first sentence of this paragraph again, for my opinion of this poem.)

Personally, I like women friends / relatives who are a little less biting.

Perhaps the rabbit has stronger stuff beneath that warm fuzzy exterior. (I'm sure of that.) A rabbit-at-arms, at need, perhaps.

(The preceding sentence of odd philosophy brought to you by my brain, wandering its own strange path.)