Reflection

[Hawkman]

Dark water,
how you catch my eye.
Your placid surface
mirrors sky and would pretend
to quench my thirst, so I approach,
for I have listened to your siren call.
What depth is here?
When sunlight strikes, you dazzle
and the life beneath your blazing facets
masked from sight.
No hint of sharp and tangled wreckage
in your shallows, or the poison you contain;
all are concealed,
only to be revealed in shade.
Were I to reflect as you do,
like blackened glass,
hurling visions of a world reversed,
I’d feel maimed.
I turn away,
for there are cleaner pools
on which to fix my gaze.

[Nitu]

Good poem...


Dark water,
how you catch my eye.
Your placid surface
mirrors sky and would pretend
to quench my thirst, so I approach,
for I have listened to your siren call.
What depth is here?
When sunlight strikes, you dazzle
and the life beneath your blazing facets
masked from sight.
No hint of sharp and tangled wreckage
in your shallows, or the poison you contain;
all are concealed,
only to be revealed in shade.
Were I to reflect as you do,
like blackened glass,
hurling visions of a world reversed,
I’d feel maimed.
I turn away,
for there are cleaner pools
on which to fix my gaze.

[Jeos]

Yes, I liked...description well mingled with emotion with a fair "I" intervention.

[Haunted]

It's late and all so pardon the pun — it flows, all the way down to the "blackened glass". The word "wreckage" is quite potent. It evokes for me a car pulled out of the water and inside, a DB with GSW. Of course there's more to it than just that, a well placed figure of speech. I wonder why "cleaner pools" and not just "clean". A disguised commentary of the current state of affairs? Either way it was a soliloquy that well deserves a human audience.

[Hawkman]

Nitu: Thanks for reading and I'm glad you liked it :) Not sure why you felt it necessary to quote the poem in your reply though, after all, yours was the first response and it's right above! maybe if the responses had moved onto a second page... :D

Jeos: Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it.

Haunted: Well your imagination took you a little further than mine did, but I know how you like a good body-count - lol. Clean/cleaner, hmm. Well, "clean pools" wouldn't flow as well because it would put two equal stresses next to each other in the middle of the line, but, yes, the implication is that there are no pristine ones. Even clear water may not be wholesome. However, it's definitely nicer to look upon than a pond full of junk!

Thanks again for all your comments.

Live and be well - H

[Haunted]

Hawk, don't mind me, my comment on "cleaner" vs. "clean" is a philosophical one if not rhetorical. I should have made myself clear. Your usage is correct in my mind, it needs the "er", for the extra syllable sound to balance the line. Meaning-wise, it's also correct. But I have to say I'm extremely disappointed that body count turns up zero. Where's the satisfaction in that? :D

[AuntShecky]

Word play is one of the devices found in verse both old and new, and this this one wrings a double meaning out of the title word-- both literally, as the mirroring effect of light upon water, and figuratively, with the word as a synonym for a reverie-like the title of one of Thelonious Sphere Monk's compositions,"Reflections."

I find only a couple of confusing glitches. The body of water is described as having a "placid surface," but soon afterward the speaker mentions its "siren call." Since the water is "placid," it's not gurgling or rushing (as with a tide) or making any audible sound at all. So what's with "the siren's call?" In any event, the line, "What depth is there" is a witty rewrite of the old cliché "Still waters run deep."

Additionally, there might be an auxillary verb missing in the phrase following the line "the life beneath your blazing facets.":

(is) masked from sight.

The closing couplet seems effective.

[hillwalker]

Almost a case of observing life 'through a glass darkly'. There's a brooding melancholy about the image you create of the narrator contemplating 'a world reversed'.

A couple of things I tripped upon -

I'm not sure 'I'd feel maimed' is the most effective reaction

- and

When sunlight strikes, you dazzle
and the life beneath your blazing facets
masked from sight

seems to read like an incompleted thought. Otherwise, it's creepy and calculated in equal measure.

H

[Hawkman]

Poor Haunted: it seems I "...leave you yet unsatisfied." Sorry about that :D Of course, the satisfaction might be found in putting the body in the pond... LOL! Once it's in there best let it lie, eh? Gives the scuba divers something to look at. :D

Auntie: thanks for reading. As for the siren call, I wasn't actually using this as an illustration of physical sound, merely as a description ofthe allure of apparent beauty and tranquility. I don't think that in doing this I'm setting a precident, so it works for me.

Your second point is valid but I do feel that ommissions like this, and it applies to articles as well, are acceptable in poetry. However, it might be better as:

"When sunlight strikes, you dazzle;
the life beneath your blazing facets
masked from sight."

I really don't want to put the is in as it disrupts the rhythm of the line. I'll think on it.

hill: thanks for your thoughts on this line too. See above. :D

As for your last objection I was a little unsure of how this line sat in context. Maybe I'm trying to do too much with it, but it does actually express what I wanted to say. A thing/place of beauty marred feels maiming to the spirit, at least to mine when I come accross such a place poluted in this way. It's an attempt to convey empathy with the genius loci. Given my exposition, does it work? Subjectively I think so, but others may not.

Thanks again to all who've read and commented.

Live and be well - H

[SkyCetacean]

I really enjoyed the evocative imagery of the poem. The dark of the waters, the muddy secrets beneath... It lends the poem a darker sort of atmosphere that I thought was really nice.

[hillwalker]

Hi Hawk,

'maimed' to me implies a physical injury - perhaps 'defiled' is closer to what you were trying to convey?

H

[hallaig]

The pool has a 'placid surface' 'mirrors sky' and 'when sunlight strikes' there's 'no hint of...wreckage...or poison'. Only in 'shade' is all this nastiness revealed? How's that, then? I'm no a scientist but this disnae make any sense to me. I get the idea but it would be better if the dark image is immediately revealed when, having been lulled there, you first look at it. Also, if the dark reflection must, of necessity, include your own reflection (which is a good dark bit of the whole idea) how would looking in a cleaner pool help? On the good side I like some of the language- 'blackened glass', 'vision of a world reversed'. I think this is ambitious but for me the pool is muddied.

PS

When sunlight strikes, you dazzle
and the life beneath your blazing facets
masked from sight.

Must be 'is' masked from sight surely.

[Jeos]

I really enjoyed the evocative imagery of the poem. The dark of the waters, the muddy secrets beneath... It lends the poem a darker sort of atmosphere that I thought was really nice.


Fine constructive comment !

[DocHeart]

Dark water,
how you catch my eye.
Your placid surface
mirrors sky and would pretend
to quench my thirst, so I approach,
for I have listened to your siren call.
What depth is here?
When sunlight strikes, you dazzle
and the life beneath your blazing facets
masked from sight.
No hint of sharp and tangled wreckage
in your shallows, or the poison you contain;
all are concealed,
only to be revealed in shade.
Were I to reflect as you do,
like blackened glass,
hurling visions of a world reversed,
I’d feel maimed.
I turn away,
for there are cleaner pools
on which to fix my gaze.

How water attracts us and inspires us, and in what horror we turn away from it when we suspect it conceals danger. This reminded me of both the film Dark Water, and that famous postcard picture of the wrecked ship on that beach in Zante.

As ever, your poetry overflows with quality.

Thanks for sharing, Hawk.

Regards

[Hawkman]

SC: thanks for reading and I'm glad you enjoyed the imagery and the atmosphere, no matter how dark and muddy ;)

hill: thanks for the thought. yes defiled, is and would be, a good word, only it has too many syllables :D

hallaig: To see beneath the surface of water on a bright day one either needs a polarising filter or to shade the area to counteract the reflected glare, particularly in pools with dark and muddy depths. I saw no need to mention the narrator's own reflection, he is included in the world reversed. As for the is issue, please see my response to Auntie and hill, above. Nevertheless, thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts. Sorry you don't quite feel that it works for you.

Doc: Hi and thanks to you too. Can't say that the image you mention springs readily to mind, but there have been a few shipwrecks on the Cornish coast in the last 5 - 10 years which probably equate. There are a few nice beaches as well as lots of rocks, if you know where to look, and there is the popular fallacy that the Cornish like to lure ships to their doom in order to plunder their cargoes :D However, my Dark Water was intended to depict more a land-locked pool than coast or open ocean. A rural beauty spot maimed, or defiled, with junk.

Many thanks for reading and enjoying.

Live long and prosper - H

[firefangled]

I am a fly fisherman and I have always been mesmoized by pools of water. There are so many different kinds. Once, in a very deep quarry I thought I saw a body on the bottom near shore.

Your poem is very successful in its description and enjoyable to read. I have to say the linw "for I have listened to your siren call," although I get it, seems to rub the surrounding references about the pool the wrong way. I can see where you would persist with your choice; you do speak of dazzle and facets soon after and both conjure support for an auditory allusion from a visual surces. However, perhaps something harmonize the two:

"...so I approach,
your glisten draws me like a siren's call."

[Hawkman]

Hi ff and thanks for reading and commenting. I'm glad you enjoyed it too. Thanks also for your thoughts on the line, but to my mind, as explained in an earlier reply, it works as is. Nice to see you around.

Live and be well - H