Deck chair

[Jerrybaldy]

It's a deck chair
that's always been there
on a Cornish beach,
its stripes have faded in the suns
of my days,
crabs have danced sideways
in its shade,
it has been the finest seat
when the Atlantic sizzled
to lightning strikes,
when ladybirds swarmed in '76
and died in a black dotted
scarlet carpet.
It's been dripped in vanilla,
spilt by bitter,
splattered in vinegar,
seasoned with salt.
Castles have risen around it
and it has waited
with a high and low tidemark.
I will go there
when the sea shell whispers
with the flow of the blood in my ears.
Crack open a beer
and lower my rear,
with a paper wrapped
fish and chip supper.
The sun will sink
in a petite mort
and as happy as a sandboy
I will exhale
and deflate
in this chair
that awaits me there.

[Delta40]

I would change awaited to awaits so it corresponds with the present tense.

Its been dripped in vanilla
spilt by bitter
splattered in vinegar
seasoned with salt.
Castles have risen around it
and it has waited
with a high and low tidemark.

A lovely description of the deck chair Jerry.

[Jerrybaldy]

Change put in place thanks. Tell me without saying that you know what the chair represents.

[MystyrMystyry]

This was well done - with a holiday feel to it, and importantly, you clarified its locale early - Cornwall - if it had been Brighton of Blackpoo - well, you know...

Good images and feel - and the time period/loss is well executed - and you avoided direct reference to chilblains playing around your feet whilst the waves lap the shore and you lose yourself in Harold Robinson


All up it made me want to be there, which is very rare in beach pastorals - I always want to go inland to the forests

[Delta40]

Change put in place thanks. Tell me without saying that you know what the chair represents.


This is just a wild guess - death?

[everyadventure]

Ah, lovely poem, Jerry.


This is just a wild guess - death?
Oh don't be silly Delta, of COURSE it's about sex. Didn't the crabs give it away?

Tee hee :)

[MorpheusSandman]

The piece reminds me of those matched, time-lapse montages where an object stays perfectly situated in one area of the frame while everything around it rapidly changes. I especially love the first five lines, with the opening couplet suggesting a permanent predictably, and the next three undercutting that with different line lengths and rhythms, suggesting the transience of life around it. There's a delicate interplay here of time and of very tangible, textured images, that are nonetheless briskly established and then whisked away when the next one is introduced.

I think this piece falters when the focus shifts from the chair to the first-person speaker. At least, I think there should be two stanzas, with "I will go there" starting the second. I'd also nix the two lines after "I will go there", as it seems out of synch with the more everyday, matter-of-fact directness of this section. I'm also not sure about the ending... you try to connect the speaker and the chair together, but I think it feels arbitrary, a bad usage of the pathetic fallacy (the chair doesn't really wait). I'm not sure what alternative to offer... perhaps end on something that more metaphorically suggests the speaker's desire for that kind of stability?

[zoolane]

Hey jerry lovely poem, I can come put my deck chair next your for bit.

[Jerrybaldy]

Thanks to all and in response to MS in particular I need to explain as I am caught in a rare moment of being too subtle.

The deck chair in the sun on the beach is my chosen moment of departure (who would not want to slip away in such a way?) I wrote this with the deck chair always waiting for my demise,
as it would be, but rather than mark the passing of time with my own cliches of births and marriages and ageing I marked it through the passing of time to the deck chair awaiting my arrival. MS picked up on the time lapse quality of the deck chair still whilst life continued around it. I am glad so many picked up on the joy of the location and I hope that the explanation enhances the tale.
BW
JB

therefore 'Ding ding' Delta it's about death and to Misadventure I smiled wide that crabs made you think of sex :D to zoo, pull up next to me I will buy the cornets whilst we have time.

[deryk]

What a satisfying afterlife you've constructed for yourself.

[loribell]

loved it, now I'm ready for the beach!

[Jerrybaldy]

hello Deryk, I have no afterlife just the moment of death in a errmmm deck chair. Hi loribell, race ya :D

[AuntShecky]

when the atlantic sizzled
to lightning strikes,
when ladybirds swarmed in '76
and died in a black dotted
scarlet carpet.

What an accessible yet lyrical image!

The work itself has much merit, mostly due to its specific and tangible imagery. As a matter of fact, this might be one of your finest postings (so far.)

Couple of typos, punctuation errors:
The "it's" in the opening line uses the apostrophe correctly, but in this line:

it's stripes have faded in the suns
you don't need the apostrophe, because this its is a possessive pronoun.

Speaking of apostrophes, the word "its" IS a contraction for "It has been", so it DOES require an apostrophe :
Its been dripped in vanilla


If you have time, please feel free to click this link (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?p=964825#post964825) and "scroll down" to the section that says "Common apostrophe" pitfalls.

Capital "A" on "Atlantic"

In this passage, one of my two favorites in the piece, I wonder if you could insert a comma after "vanilla," and after "bitter"-- is that "butter" or "bitter" as in Angostura bitters? Items in a series should be separated by commas.
(Also, when your auntie read that line quickly, I thought at first it was "vanilla split.") Nice use of past participles in these lines:

Its been dripped in vanilla
spilt by bitter
splattered in vinegar
seasoned with salt.

The following lines show real, tangible beach imagery, despite the fact that the period after "ears" is AWOL.
Castles have risen around it
and it has waited
with a high and low tidemark.
I will go there
when the sea shell whispers
with the flow of the blood in my ears

Please keep in mind that, regardless of these tiny
punctuation quirks, I do believe this is a fine piece of work, and I thank you for posting it.

[Jerrybaldy]

Hello Aunty.
I have corrected all you have pointed out. Thank you.
Bitter is English beer. It is fast disappearing under lagers from the continent and imports from yourself such as Bud, but bitter and real ale is one of the few reasons I still want to live here (due to its non existence elsewhere). Thank you for your appreciation of the poem.
Jerry.