Arab Spring Flowers

[virtuoso]

Along Iran's, alluvial fan, spanned a virgin, untested seed,
But a scourging blight the tender, fecund suckers withered
A hearty tulip bloomed on Tunisia's arid plain
A docile wave the royal, Jasmine strain tarnished
Transplanted in Egypt; a more virile, dominant breed
Leaching the arid soil, the tyrannical oasis did drain
A hybrid sprouted in Libya's fallow, desolate desert
Fertilized by a torrential, nitrous rain, quickly multiplied
To Oman's, semi-arid steppes, uncultivated varieties
choked native grasses
Disparate pods, releasing incendiary spores, produced an
aggregate yield
In Syria's, suburban parks, a mutant variety skirted eminent domain
Underground cisterns gushed, watering the uncultured specimens
In desolate Sudan, a floral chalice signified a season of hope
But soon, pruning hands cropped tender, burgeoning petals

[Charles Darnay]

Base don this and your Ben Jonson poem, you have wonderful images and a great lexicon, but your adherence to a stale meter really takes away from the poems: particularly this one. The Ben Jonson one works if it is a self-referential satire, but for this poem, you create too many syntactically awkward lines in the name of a boring rhyme scheme.

[virtuoso]

Thanks for your kind comments, and your admonitions. I will take your advice to heart. I am glad you got something out of the poems. I will work on the rhyme schemes!

[Delta40]

You are a very lyrical poet but I have to say it is blighted by the end rhymes which overpower everything else that you write. IMHO at least. I'd like to see how you fare without the repetitiveness of the same rhyme.

[virtuoso]

Thanks Delta for your honest, but respectful, opinion. I have written other styles of poetry, and I will post some of those poems in the near future. Thanks for stopping by my page.

[virtuoso]

I have changed the end rhyme scheme. Does it satiate our delicate palates? Give me some feedback! A shot in the dark only produces a tepid spark!

[Charles Darnay]

It's certainly easier to read and allowed your (I'll steal Delta's accurate descriptor) lyricism to come through. However, you have gone too far in the opposite direction: I'm relentless I know. You may have just reduced this to a prose piece broken up into lines.

Meter is a tricky beast: having no good grasp of it myself when it comes to writing (why I write prose not poetry), I can't offer too much advice. However, if you work on developing your sense of meter (not just the end rhyme) - your work can be amazing.

[virtuoso]

Thanks Charles for your cutting critique. I agree, it is a work in progress. I will alter the content to develop a better, metric scheme.