A Float at Sea

[kittypaws]

Floating on a plank amidst the open seas
Where emptiness scars all that be.
Weary eyes peering as dawn grows bigger then life
Birthing the crest of rising and falling doom.
Closing my eyes as life is too much.

Mid-day arrives in disguise
As gray mountains
Along the moving horizon;
They (the clouds) look so real upon the rolling seas;
My hunger bids me reality.

I gaze once more as the fiery ball sinks
Into an endless washing of cold, blue gray waves
that from time to time sports a glimmer of dolphin’s play.

A dry smile cracks my parch lips,
Perhaps hope has floated this way.

The moon rises like a huge luminous pie
Kissing the darkness
That moves in the silence
Of a deadly army with white bright beams
Making just for a moment the possibility
Of magical happenings.

A float in a sea of loneliness
With a life vest called hope.


Kittypaws

[hillwalker]

Ahoy there, Kitty. I’ll be as critical as ever because I know you never take my feedback too seriously. And I only do it because I care… :-)

I love the idea behind this one – an entire day adrift on the open sea, even when it’s stormy out there, can seem less stressful than a day spent living reality.

But there are a few things you might consider changing –

‘on a plank’ isn’t going to provide much for the narrator to hold onto and begs the question where did the plank come from in the first place (‘on driftwood’ is more in keeping with a castaway upon the open sea)

The second line of v. 1 is also a little difficult to picture – why ‘scars’? And what is ‘all that be’ supposed to mean (it’s a clumsy phrase at best)?

‘Birthing’ seems out of context because you don’t explain who is giving birth and to what – is it your eyes or the dawn? I’m guessing dawn is meant to be giving birth to the rising sun – but the line suggests something is giving birth to the waves.

Then telling us ‘life is too much’ undermines the metaphor you are trying to build. Why do we need it spelling out so directly?
I notice you often fall into the trap of laying everything down on the line as if you don’t trust your readers enough to figure things out for themselves.

‘They (the clouds)’ – awkwardness for awkwardness’s sake. Why not just write ‘The clouds’?

Again – ‘My hunger bids me reality.’ – I couldn’t understand this phrase. Is it supposed to mean ‘My hunger returns me to reality’?

‘from time to time’ is a bit of a worn-out cliché – spoiling the elegance of the imagery.

‘parch’ should be ‘parched’ I’m guessing.

And ‘a huge luminous pie’ is wrong on so many levels. It’s like you decided to stick a pin in a balloon you have spent hours inflating.
The image is playful at best – but this poem is not supposed to be a Doctor Seuss-type nursery rhyme. And it doesn’t make much sense as a metaphor anyway. Do pies rise? or even kiss? So the mixed metaphor leaves the reader confused rather than enlightened.
If you want to keep the image of the kiss (which I really think can work well) then the moon has to emerge through the mists like a loved one’s face… (or something along the same lines) – which is a little easier to picture.

As for ‘a deadly army with white bright beams’ – again you lost me. Why deadly and why an army?

Finally – I love the idea of hope being something to cling on to - but I can’t help feeling the image of it being something as mundane as ‘a life vest’ deflates the whole poem (apologies for the pun). It left me feeling like the entire poem had been created just so you could make that observation. Perhaps a little more brain storming might allow you to come up with a more elegant analogy.

I applaud your enthusiasm and admire your vivid imagination but sometimes you need to hold back and keep things a little more focussed so the reader can accompany you on the journey. Great ideas - and I was out there with you on the waves. You just need to steady the tiller from time to time to avoid sweeping your passengers overboard.

H