another ballad

[milo]

Thanks busker.
The moon's significant as the source of the 'lunacy' and 'through leafless boughs' is an invocation of Black Anis, the fiend that pounces on travellers from the branches of trees when the moon is full. She's an aspect of the moon goddess to which the willow is sacred, and I think she's originally the black panther, which is known for that habit. The rose is found as part of the madness and is required for the blood. I suspect what you call cliches are simply well-recognised components of myth which I have difficulty seeing my way in this peice without. But I'm still open to comment once the imagery is understood. And BTW it's very far from a love song - it's partly about vengeance and partly about losing the speaker's soul. But maybe this is all too abstract for modern culture.

The moon as a source of lunacy is well understood, though it’s not meaningful when the source of the madness is rejection. The myth is pointless.
Everything else you mentioned is reaching, not sufficiently borne out by the poem, nor particularly interesting.

The source of the madness isn't the rejection - it's looking at the moon through the branches, which is sacrilege. Sorry, I think I made the whole premise too complicated.

My favorite poems ever are ones I had to work at a bit so I don't think overcomplicating by itself is a cardinal sin in poetry - as long s you leave a key so the astute reader can figure it out, that should be enough.

Now . . . because I couldn't resist responding to this I am forced by honor to go back and read it and leave substantial feedback.

Dammit - foiled again.

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Hello

It seems this poem is based on the old folk song - even starting with the same first line.  It is interesting that the title states the N is a lunatic but I never really get that.  What I get from the actual narration:

He's lost.
He's wandering through a landscape.
He talks to the moon.
He picks a rose.
He says goodbye.
That's melancholy, perhaps obsessive, perhaps supernatural.
But nothing particularly establishes lunacy.
If you removed the word Lunatic from the title, I wouldn't necessarily infer madness from the poem.

Is the word lunatic based on the latin word for moon?  Yes.  That is the only connection I make.

There are some strugglee throughout to meet the form like forced rhyme (shoon is a cool word but other than rhyming with moon it adds nothing).  For meter it actually randomly includes a line of Anapaestic tetrameter which calls to itself as being odd and out of place in what is an overly iambic exercise.

Just been thrown off another forum (for 'professional' poets) within 30 seconds of posting this ballad, so I'll try here instead;

Song of the Lunatic Pilgrim

All round my hat I wear the green willow
and on my feet the sandal shoon,
for lost am I, who through leafless boughs
looked on old Mother Moon.
I followed the track of the swan on the lake

  Here we have your strangely anapaestic line.  In addition, there is the inversion which - I guess if you are trying to sound old archaic that is one way to do it but the rest of the language doesn't support it so it comes across more as a parody than true.  Also, why not just fix the meter of "for lost am I who through the leafless boughs"?

and, in the wind that blew
among the whispering rushes there
this rose I picked for you.
This rose has thorns both sharp and fine
to prick your finger deep and sore,
but though your blood be hot as fire

so, here is where we can tell you just don't have enough words so you start padding:

wind that blew?  Please compare this to wind that doesn't blow(???)
thorns both sharp and fine?  - if you are using 2 adjectives you are either padding or you chose the wrong noun (you are padding here)
deep AND sore - ugh, 
blood as hot as fire - it's cliche and forced 

you'll never see me more.
For round my hat I wear the green willow
and on my feet the sandal shoon,
and lost am I, who through leafless boughs
looked on old Mother Moon.

As a whole it doesn't really do anything new or interesting but the craft is the real issue - it leans heavily on forced phrasing, cliche, over modification and poor meter.

Thanks for posting, good luck with it, hopefully some of this helps