Whereas Sonnet for a Prodigal Son seems to come from a place of personal reflection, this piece casts its grievances outward and even rings of a kind of puritanism. It may also be a bit of self-castigation; but one often sees a paradox with Reformists, that the moral standards of their creed are so high that, in practice, it is more pious to be a failure than it is to honor any aspiration toward rectitude.

Narratively, I'd like to see the people's reaction to the squirrels' rampage. It would have the makings of a mini-epic, a kind of skiourosmyomachy; besides, I'd hardly find it droll if I learned my neighbors were chewing up my wires, and I know a few folks who would get their bb guns ready.

This poem conveys an atheistic type of cynicism and lands straight between the eyes. Technically, the original Son knew his father's commandments (who is a stand-in for 'the Lord'); this is the weakness in this speaker's argument. In that sense, the tone errs toward something which might have been thought of by the humanistic Erasmus of Rotterdam.

The rhyme and rhythm are not strict, but the weight of the poem leans very much on its message and not its metricity.

Like an autumn leaf, a stanza seems to have fallen from this poem, and leaves the conclusion a little dried up.

A few lines about off-brand candy. Hmm, that last line in the third stanza... Needs to rhyme with something. Either 'course' or maybe 'pyramids', though that's a toughie.

I like the contrast of the phonemes '-unch' and '-een' in this poem, and it concludes with an energetic type of alliteration.

A poem about inspiration and gratitude, and a little recursive in that it seems to reflect on its own creation. I think the image of a poet working in their house, while observing termites building their own house within that structure, is nested and anatomical. Then there is the abundance of the termites themselves, which are so prevalent that the speaker can't seem to avoid seeing them. With the declaration of guilt at the end, which might be ambiguously trustworthy, it all rings a little like something from Edgar Allen Poe.

Hmm. An alternate timeline? Abounding with humorous notes, though I am wondering what it is the speaker is looking at which gives them toward this fanciful speculation (since it deals with a discrete subject), and just who this amber-encrusted quack is, anyway.

Nice imagery here with colors running into the lake, then blending with a cup of tea. It describes the kind of "action" a mood can have on us; only, by the last line, the speaker does not seem too impressed!

The honeybee here is the Unknown Soldier, and the poem a little like a letter we might write to them, never to be read; it reflects our own sense of impending history.

The line with "daughters of Adria" is the most evocative, but seems a little out of place in a piece which seems to address itself to evolution. I tried to discover what might have been meant by it, but the nearest counterpart I could find was a city of the same name, which sits on a buried town from antiquity.

I would have been in... I thought today was the last day for submitting!

This sounds like a riddle you'd find in one of the old point-and-click style games I used to play as a kid (King's Quest, Monkey Island, etc.). As I poem, I like the immediacy of action it gives to a mundane consideration.

There's a bit of ambiguity here but the subject seems to be psychological. Shame? The shortened final line gives the poem a claustrophobic resolution.

This poem has a nice sound and the anecdote is mostly clear. There are a few blurry lines. For instance, what is the "rope" in the second stanza? Another might be needed to explain what the "shiftless class" is to a reader not familiar with the writer's biography.

I'm inclined to say that this reads like an extended metaphor for the cycles of human civilization, rather than an ode cosmology. The personification is all too scrutable, and we know very little about our physical origins. In the end, we are left to talk about ourselves.

I like the odd-numbered feeling that is created by the rhyme scheme. Following my interpretation of the poem, I wonder who or what 'entropy' is, whether the actual physical concept is being referred to or something more along the lines of postmodern futility. Or both.

I like the symmetry of the rhyme scheme in the first four lines, followed by three which form a "foot". It's hard for me to visualize what a "prismatic nook" is in this drawing.

I'm in.

"Although the Crystal Heart was a beacon for doom-laden prophecy, none of us could deny its penchant for strident coloration and condensed movement."

I know that look. He's trying to think of something to write...

This was a great round, and I was really impressed by both the respectfulness and the analytical rigor of the participants. It was very useful for me, anyway; though it seems, like Celestia, that I read my own prophecy when I came back from the future to offer support to Chris (I also happen to be a 'Chris'!").

>>Chris
>>Baal Bunny
>>Rubidium
>>Forcalor
In this story, Matilda has passed.

How do we know? (How are we supposed to know?)

A few allusions to death: how she "descends from parted clouds", and how Cranky shuts the door on his guests "like a coffin lid".

The big clue is supposed to be Fluttershy's encomium to MLM and how it gets us motivated, sometimes, to pretend; followed by Cranky hearing Matilda's voice "lilting, from inside."

The point is not to trick the reader but to have them engage with the subject without preconceptions. Being so subtle is risky, and in this case, was not executed skillfully enough.

Straightaway I would remove Fluttershy's last line, first because the touch of dark humor adds too many layers to what is happening, and second because one has to be careful with irony, generally (it's a double-edged sword in terms of reader rapport).

So:

Matilda has died, and Cranky wants to repeat his happiest moment. He invents a son to this end, which constitutes his inner monologue. His visits to Ponyville only tell him about himself: physically weak, afraid of aging, etc. He is in an absurd situation. His charade is exposed by an insufferable solicitor, who is herself roped in a scheme. Amiable Fluttershy points this out to him in an innocent way, and he winds up with quite a different message from that in "A Friend In Deed".

I have thought about having Matilda in the dialogue slipping in something along the lines of, "The Lord giveth", but with less scriptural overtone.

Thanks to everyone who read and commented, and to Groaning for once again providing artwork--you, sir, are a prince.

I would add that I like how Fluttershy’s famed arboreal fantasies are only alluded to here, rather than pegged down with a callback. This gives a satirical edge to a well-paced and well-characterized punchline.

This one is not quite out of the oven, as others have said.

Though in my case, the question is not so much "So what?" as it is "Then... what next?"

I like the last line. It’s no cheap pun.

The creators of said puppy show would no choice but to use ‘bitch’ as a general noun, if they are as obsessed as the creators of the pony show (and the fanfiction authors therewith) are with inserting horse terminology, even where it is not really needed, as a mark of virtuosity.

If you can have “Fillydelphia”, why not “Bitchigan”?

Admittedly, I puzzled a bit over the way the theme of ‘prophecy’ is elaborated in this story (first being related to magic and then likened to something like artificial intelligence), but I think what you basically mean is to distinguish between something in the future which can be avoided in contrast to something which can’t.

For my taste, you don’t have to prove that C could have done something to evade her confrontation with her sister—it’s the ambiguity which is important. This is a modern twist—unlike our Greek predecessors, we take it for granted that observing a thing changes the nature of the thing.

It seems like Star Swirl is aware of this. In the middle passage he startles, and refuses to comment on his student’s further questions on the matter; in the third passage he discounts the artifact’s capacity to prophesize. It is almost as if C has become the subject of his experiment, though of course he disappears before his “proof of genuine prophecy” is ever realized.

“Yeah! Winona doesn’t have wings, does she? So how can she catch me if I fly away, huh?”

“She… can’t?”

“Exactly!” Rainbow nods triumphantly, as if she’s proved some particularly brilliant point. “So, I’ve gotta get past her on hoof.” She flops her head back down. “I’ll let your dog keep thinking she’s got a chance for a little longer, then jump down and outsprint her to the fence when I’m good and ready. You go do your farm stuff, s’cool.”

This is really nice. Rainbow and AJ are well-voiced in this germ (and I suspect that AJ's "voice" is behind the tense confusion in the first two paragraphs--trying to keep it familiar, informal). Far from being inane, I think Rainbow demonstrates some wisdom here with regard to interacting with dependents. For that reason, I was expecting AJ to observe something about how much closer she feels to her because of how her "family" instinct has married with her personality.

Maybe AJ is used to Winona barking all the time. Here, it reads as being a bit of zany humor, which is slightly out of tone with the rest of the story.

Great use of the prompt.