CARDS

Her cards on the table
she had the slightest hands,
magic in her eyes, colors of
moonstone and jade,

her signs of tomorrow,
prediction by the tail,
she unearthed hope,
captivating dreams
of things that might be,

to be given, fortunes
like stars on strings,
birthstones and
universal connections,

like coins in a wishing well
asking for something
intangible and true.

Reviews

[Aneurin]

I like all of the imagery and wording. feels very intentional and skillful. "she had the slightest hands, magic in her eyes, the colors of moonstone and jade" is a good case study of what works well about the poem. it feels very dreamlike and flowing, sort of fugue-y. I think something to experiment with would be using punctuation less, and focusing on enjambment/end-stopping, and line breaks in general as ways of regulating the flow, which would add to that effect quite well, I think. for instance in that first stanza is all one sentence, and runs together, which feels good to read, kind of like the long run-on sentences that change topics randomly in some parts of "the waste land". you can add to this by not having the commas to seperate clauses (and breaking grammatical rules, which is always fun) by only using line breaks. in fact, if I was doing this, I might change the line break to:

"magic in her eyes
the colors of moonstone and jade"

but then again, all of these pieces of advice are matters of personal preference, just a way for you to better express what YOU want to express, not what I think would read best, so if you try this and don't like it, there's probably a good reason, and I certainly wouldn't argue with you.

anyway, I don't rate stuff, but I definitely like a lot of the fundamental aspects this poem. you should lean into those.

[Rene Velez]

Thank you for the review. I appreciate the advice. I honestly do. Everyone needs help doing what they love.