The other side of the pond

[DieterM]

Sitting at the edge
With our feet dangling in the cool pond,
And they look childlike and blue

You tell me how you were meant
To learn how to swim
In this pond with your father,
Once upon a half-life ago,
The way your brother had,
And how you failed

The green, green hills
Roll away from us,
And a church bell tolls
In the distance,
Two strikes, three strikes, four...

And I listen
To their metallic after-hum in the summer air,
To hidden frogs croaking on waterlilies,
To your secret regrets and anger,
And I imagine I'm a boat
Bringing you safely
To the other side of the pond

[Hawkman]

Ok Dieter. this is really nice. Just a couple of things:

The first stanza isn't quite right as a sentence and could be tightened up. The use of 'and' in L3 is unnecessary. 'with' at the start of L2 could be omitted. It depends on whether you want the first stanza to be a complete sentence in itself or enjamb with the second stanza. Either would work. to maintain the enjambment:

"Sitting at the edge,
with our feet dangling in the cool pond
looking childlike and blue,"

If you want to make it a discrete sentence (although I like the enjambment):

"We sit at the edge,
our feet dangling in the cool pond
looking childlike and blue."

Although in both instances, you might want to replace pond with water, because of the subsequent repetitions of 'pond.'

I think you need a full stop at the end of S2.

In S3 I'd drop 'of the pond'. as we know you're talking about the pond from the earlier mention of it, but it also opens up other possible interpretations.

The mention of the tolling bell is nicely handled, and of course resonates with Grey's Elegy. ;)

It's a very nice read.

Live and be well - H

[cafolini]

LOL
In an emergency, aha doesn't work. Good stuff.

[blank|verse]

If it’s not too twee to say so, Dieter, you have a poetic soul. And while perhaps the more critical side of me picks up on your language or use of form here and there, what comes through strongly in your poetry is your sensitivity and expression, which are enjoyable to read.

I presume English isn’t your first language (although you’re obviously fluent enough to write poetry in English, which is some achievement in itself) but this leads to telling little linguistic idiosyncrasies such as we find in the first stanza:

Sitting at the edge
With our feet dangling in the cool pond,
And they look childlike and blue

Technically the syntax is ‘wrong’, but in context this works very effectively because the use of co-ordinating conjunctions like ‘and’, ‘but’, and ‘or’ are themselves childlike. Children tend to speak in this way, because they don’t understand cause and effect, so tend to say ‘this happened and then this happened and then this happened’. So your use of ‘And’ here works very well as it enacts the description of your feet looking ‘childlike’. If anything, I would only suggest a small alteration:

Sitting at the edge
our feet dangling in the cool pond.
And they look childlike and blue.

Also, the lack of finite verb in the first two lines also reflects the ‘dangling’ as we don’t know when this event took place, we’re not given tense, itself a linguistic type of ‘dangling’. (In fact, as you might know, subject-less subordinate clauses can be called ‘dangling participles’, which this isn’t quite, but it’s close enough!) If the opening stanza was written intentionally in this way, then it’s very well achieved. Even if not, you should keep it.

Other points: to an English reader, the expression ‘the other side of the pond’ suggests America; ‘the pond’ being a colloquialism for the Atlantic, although I don’t think that’s relevant here.

However, I can hear Tom Jones singing when I read ‘the green, green hills’; and I’m not sure of ‘metallic after-hum’ – it’s a good phrase in itself, but it sounds too sinister in the context of this poem. You might also like to reconsider the line about listening to the addressee’s ‘secret regrets and anger’, as this is ‘telling’ too much; the poem might be better without the line, or with something more subtle. Your poetry is generally more suggestive, but this line is weaker because it lacks that subtle touch. Overall though, it’s nicely written.

[AuntShecky]

This is going to sound superfluous, in light of the wisdom of two of the previous replies, but I appreciated the simplicity of this. The simplicity is deceptive, though! Very clever.

I was going to ask you about the syntax of the opening line (as B_V does), since the participle isn't really attached to a noun. Sitting. . .(a noun should come here) before a adverbial phrase " with our feet dangling. . ."On the other hand, the opening line does its own "dangling," and almost works!

{edit-8/26/13--I must've originally misread the line. "Feet" can indeed look "childlike" (if bare-footed and small) and "blue"
(if chilled!)

[DieterM]

Thanks everyone for stopping by and helping out with your thoughts. Yes, b/v, english is not my first language, and sometimes my lines can seem a bit twisted. Is it something I do on purpose, or is it an accident? Not Freudian enough to decide, lol... I'll give it a new go as son as I'm back home and able to use a real keyboard...

[hannah_arendt]

Thanks everyone for stopping by and helping out with your thoughts. Yes, b/v, english is not my first language, and sometimes my lines can seem a bit twisted. Is it something I do on purpose, or is it an accident? Not Freudian enough to decide, lol... I'll give it a new go as son as I'm back home and able to use a real keyboard...

I liked this poem a lot.

In spite of working with English and learning it a lot I have still problems, I probably never cope with. I think that your English is absolutely fluent. Congratulations :)

[Haunted]

D, despite that S1 is problematic, it's a really lovely poem. Love how the hills roll away from you, and the hidden frogs and so forth. all the way to the ending. It's moving and really sweet without being sugary which takes skills and you did!

[AuntShecky]

Quick bump of this so other LitNutters can get a look (or a second look.)

[Jerrybaldy]

Is it okay to say I enjoyed reading it? Because I did and that's what matters most of all.

[DieterM]

Thanks again, for commenting, for liking, and for quick-bumping :-))