A Poem

[Riverrun...]

So...I wrote something. This is rather embarrassing, but it's worth a try. The poem isn't meant to make exact sense, it's supposed to be more of a descriptive thing.

Ice it slips
into a drip of
wet. Foam-wash,
sea-slosh.

Salt cracks skin
like ice also,
falling from wave breaks
and whale-tips.

Toothchalk backbone of cliffs
spell words that make
the compass spin.
Fish whisper bearings into bottles.

Willing, tugging,
like oars, like
white noise.
The greensea sand.

Briny tuna flop,
they flounder.
Nets bob, barnacles
cling, desperately
small and strong.

Stronger than sails,
crushing rock 'neath feet
on harddeck,
sailors-scale.

All men will be overturned,
with the mutiny of waves,
the mist
and no lighthouse.

[Delta40]

I like its flavour. A word of advice - don't preface your work as it will not do your creativity justice.

[hillwalker]

A really evocative, descriptive piece that as Delta says needs no introductory explanation.

Your deft use of language is a pleasure to explore and the clever word-play brilliantly conveys the 'flotsam and jetsam' of the shoreline.

There are so many phrases rich in sounds and images :

.....backbone of cliffs
spell words that make
the compass spin.....

is a particular favourite..... as is that powerful closing verse.

It might benefit from a little pruning, but it has still left me with vivid memories.

Excellent stuff

H

[blank|verse]

Yes, this is nicely done, Riverrun - there are some wonderful images in this.

Your use of figurative language in phrases like:

Fish whisper bearings into bottles.
means that it becomes more than simply 'descriptive' and works very well.

I can feel you're going for quite a staccato, stress-heavy piece, trying to strip out unnecessary language, which is a good choice, but is a bit uneven though the whole poem.

It might be interesting to try and tighten it up so it's more rhythmic. For example, the opening stanza could be something like:

Ice slips
drip, drips.
Foam-wash,
sea-slosh.
Although I don't think you'd want to maintain that rhythm through the whole poem. Anyway, it's certainly leagues away from being 'embarrassing'. Good stuff.