Saturday Morning

[hallaig]

Saturday Morning


Across the water on the Greensands,
two early morning drunks are fighting,
rolling over cut grass like lovers.
Here, balanced sturdily on a railing,
is a seagull, eyes cold as a Viking’s.
It is desperate for a crust
that’s nestled snug
in the dirt below this bench.
What brings us to these depths,
misfits from two noble species,
our holy grails pale things
made from flesh or pizza dough?
We will not be deterred,
not by this fine rain, nor instincts
of when the world was fresh
and the sun a diamond cut in space.
We watch each other,
it is a waiting game, decline,
and the river makes its usual
slow
horrified
way to sea.

[cacian]

hallaig never heard of Greensands. Will look it up.
Nice piece!

[hallaig]

hallaig never heard of Greensands. Will look it up.
Nice piece!

Good luck with that! Greensands a park area across the river Nith

[Jeos]

Curious mix of rich description interspersed with some philosophy and some poetic lines as -
"of when the world was fresh
and the sun a diamond cut in space.
We watch each other,
it is a waiting game, decline,
and the river makes its usual
slow
horrified
way to sea."

Just my 2 cents.

[DocHeart]

This is brilliant. Second poem I read here tonight in which water plays a major part, and this one made me smell the beach and hear the seagulls. I need to reread several times to truly get the parallel between the drunks and the seagull, but for now I'm just admiring some lines -- "the sun a diamond cut in space" being my current favourite.

Thanks so much for sharing, hallaig.

Regards

[AuntShecky]

This isn't bad at all! I have some questions and/or suggestions, if that's all right with you.

The title seems somewhat desultory for such a revelatory moment. I wonder if you couldn't come up with a more expressive title zeroing in (in a subtle way) on the theme of the poem.

Line 3 is the best line of the piece. It sets up dramatic tension while keeping within the scope of the overall meaning.

Also, would you consider changing some of the verbs and substituting stronger action words? There's nothing inherently wrong with forms of the verb "to be," but in a condensed genre such as a lyrical poem you really want to make each word count. Hence, stronger verbs would improve both the whole piece as well as these lines:

Here is a sea gull. . .

It is desperate. . .

The sea gull with his "eyes cold as a Viking's" is an evocative image, but the possessive noun (with its apostrophe "s") gives the line a "feminine" or a "weak" ending. (This isn't a sexist notion, but a literary one!) You might want to endow a strong image (Viking) with a strong, "masculine" ending, a stressed syllable -- "like a Viking with cold eyes."

Speaking of images, I'm not sure about "two noble species;" the two drunks, who exactly are "us"-- the speaker and whom (or what?) A boy and his dog? A man and his horse? The speaker and the aforementioned sea gull? I got the impressiion that the speaker is watching the two drunks and isn't one of the participants. But if he is one of the fighters, then this switch from third person to first person POV is very confusing. Ambiguity is effective-- almost required!-- in a contemporary poem; but sometimes clarity helps clueless readers such as yours fooly.

Speaking of clueless, I'll tell you flat out that I just don't "get" this part:

"our holy grails pale
made from flesh and pizza dough"

Oh, and the second best part of your line has a slight punctuation error. Instead of a comma-- since the job of a comma is to separate-- I'd write the affected lines this way:

We watch each other--
it is a waiting game--decline
If "each other" is the noun and "decline" is the verb, they shouldn't be separated by a comma.

And finally, your verse will look better on the (virtual) page if the closing three lines (two of which consist of a single word) were consolidated into one.

Despite all this ^^^, I still think this work is worth-while. I hope to see more
of your efforts.

[Bar22do]

Another one by you!

The three lines:

"slow
horrified
way to sea"

sum up it all and bring to my mind Dino Buzzati's novel "The Tartar Steppe" (for the noble species of men) and Bach's "Jonathan Livingstone Seagull" (for the noble species of birds, but actually both).

It's a poem to read again and anew, giving much matter for reflection... thank you.

P.S. if I may, do re-think the title.

[Buh4Bee]

Good reads! Did that darn seagull get the crust? I suppose, this is not the point of the poem, but none-the-less...?

[hillwalker]

I assume the two noble species are the observer and the gull.
Another well-observed gem of yours.

The only suggestion I'd make to tighten the imagery and smooth the flow is lose 'sturdily' in line 4. I can see that line 5 would benefit from an extra syllable at the end to make it more resonant but I do like the 'cold as a Viking's' phrase as it stands.

As for the holy grail - well, I assume you're alluding to the item's mythic significance rather than its physical attributes. So Man might choose to worship something transubstantiated from flesh, but to the gull pizza dough is manna from heaven.

H

The ending is particularly evocative.

[Hawkman]

I come late to this, so apologies for that. There is a lot to like in the poem, good observational detail, and it reads well, being well paced and rhythmic. However, I too would take issue with "...eyes cold as a Viking's" for the reasons Auntie posted, but I would suggest "...eyes Viking cold" as a substitute.

I too have a problem with the reference to the Holy Grail. In context it is unclear whether the "us" refers to the narrator and the gull or the drunks and the gull. If the narrator, then what is his/her Holy Grail? No hint is given to his motivations. For the drunks it would appear that fighting is their "Holy Grail," which, given the usual associations of "holy grail" with a spiritual quest would seem to make it inappropriate here. Likewise for the gull, although the quest for food and to reproduce would seemingly be its all consuming passions.

"We will not be deterred,
not by this fine rain, nor instincts
of when the world was fresh"

Again, the "we" would seem to indicate that the narrator feels some sort of empathy with the gull, although it could apply to the drunks as well. However, "instincts of when the world..." doesn't make grammatical sense. A memory of when the world..." would - but "instincts from" would be better here in context.

I'm not keen on the use of decline here, tacked on and marooned by commas at the end of the line. It would be better to say, "Decline is a waiting game" but frankly I think you could omit the word with no ill effects. Lastly, I take issue with the pathetic fallacy - the river running horrified to the sea. What is there to horrify the river? "Indifferent" would be my take.

Generally though I think you get your point across, and I would have to agree that,

"when the world was fresh
and the sun a diamond cut in space."

is stunning.

Live and be well - H

[hallaig]

Interesting as ever to read folks' comments, thanks very much. I hope it's clear that the gull and the narrator are the misfits, and their holy grails are 'pale flesh' and 'pizza dough'. Don't know whether the gull got the crust, I know that the narrator didn't get the girl.

[Jerrybaldy]

Great opening lines... and all that followed.

The desired flesh of the girl for N and and the pizza for the gull.. brilliant. If I was cynical I would recommend the pizza as a safer bet for N.:)