The Sunday Poem: Out of Water
Today she walks on solid ground, but once
The world was water, every touch a wave,
And all her friends were mermaids, shelled and sleek.
The house that kept her safe, the walls of kelp,
The bed of coral-stone, were just a current
Lashed around a dock, with fish asleep
In all the reef’s crannies. The sharks stood guard
And crabs trickled like mercury on glass.
Today she walks on solid ground, where none
Can fly, where there is no clear ceiling on,
Where she is told she ought to try to climb
Beyond the blue. She digs her toes in deep,
Kneels, clutches hands of dirt and pebbles, and
In her liquid voice, mourns the oceans passed
Beyond her eyes. And all is well with us
To know she sees with us again; it scares
Us deep to know someone who drinks where no-one dares.
6 Responses to “The Sunday Poem: Out of Water”
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Today she walks on solid ground, but once…Today she walks on solid ground, where none
Very nice way to bring us back for the second stanza. Well done.
The world was water, every touch a wave,
Cool.
And all her friends were mermaids, shelled and sleek.
The house that kept her safe, the walls of kelp,
The bed of coral-stone, were just a current
Lashed around a dock, with fish asleep
And now I’m getting a little bored. Poetic imagery is fine, but I feel as if you’re just killing time until the second and third verses.
In all the reef’s crannies. The sharks stood guard
And crabs trickled like mercury on glass.
Much better imagery, and sharks and crabs (to me at least) are a bit dark. Death-like images work very well here, in this poem about crossing over from one lifetime to the next. Unfortunately, as the images improve, the meter gets a little bumpy. Maybe “…in all the coral’s cracks…” and “…crabs fanned out…” Okay, maybe those aren’t so hot. But I’m loving the iambic grove you’ve laid down so far; don’t get sloppy on me now by breaking the rhythm. A steady iambic pulse is soothing, like the waves on the shore, something quite relevant to this poem.
Today she walks on solid ground, where none
Can fly, where there is no clear ceiling on,
Where she is told she ought to try to climb
Beyond the blue. She digs her toes in deep,
Lovely. Don’t change a thing. Really great.
Kneels, clutches hands of dirt and pebbles, and
Uh-oh. Getting harder to stay on my surfboard…
In her liquid voice, mourns the oceans passed
Wipe out. Gotta re-write that line. This one and the line above it are going to have most of your readers running aground on misplaced stress patterns.
Beyond her eyes. And all is well with us
Much better. Clearly you know how to do this pretty well, which is why the previous lines bother me. I’m not totally sure what’s going on with this line, but I get the salty-tears/oceans in her eyes reference, and I feel as if I’m with you even if I can’t put my finger on exactly where that is right now.
To know she sees with us again; it scares
Us deep to know someone who drinks where no-one dares.
Hmm. I wonder if this is how Olympic judges feel, when a gymnast or whatever pulls off some really cool move, but lands out of bounds. You’ve really impressed me with this last couplet (and thank you for the rhyme!), but you are two beats out of bounds with that last line. Call it hexameter, call it 12 syllables, whatever, but the rules say I gotta deduct points for that. I have no suggestions for what to cut; I really like the ending couplet, but you can’t just have 12 beats in the last line. Sorry.
You’re quite close to something hauntingly beautiful, here. I’d love to read a revised draft.
Heh, never expected a critique like that to show up!
In any case — the extra foot in the last line is intentional. I wrote this over ten years ago, and my memory of its writing has mostly faded. But the length of the last line is one of the things I do remember; it’s a trick to emphasize the line, used occasionally in sonnets as well as other forms. I’d have to look it up to recall the name of the technique.
As I said, it’s been ten years, but I can see myself back then doing something like the intentionally rough lines with the clutching hands of dirt and pebbles and mourning oceans passed, too. It would go with the sense of the poem — it no longer has the rhythm of ocean waves because they’re gone. It could also just have been sloppiness, I grant. 🙂 I suspect the “reef’s crannies” bit you point out was, for example.
The term is “Alexanderine,” I think.
I hope I didn’t bother you by expressing interest in another draft. I thought these were new poems you were offering up to the world, not old friends come forth from a previous time and place. Now that I’ve poked around your site a bit, I realize that I mistook your intent. I know it can be a bit unnerving to get criticism unexpectedly, but I hope it was clear that I liked much of what I read.
I stumbled onto your site via http://www.qatfish.com, where I was wading through posts on GDC 2006. It seemed a bit incongruous to see a post there about poetry, so I got curious and that’s how I found your site.
In the odd coincidence department, your name literally crossed my desk this very morning. I work for a big publishing company (books, not games) and you contributed a small blurb on the back of a David Freeman book we’re licensing. Considering that I didn’t know your name 24 hours ago, it’s pretty weird that I’ve stumbled upon you in two different and unrelated spheres.
Alexandrine is indeed the term for a line with six feet, but I was reaching for the term for an extra foot added for emphasis. According to Babette Deutsch, looks like it’s called a hypercatalectic line. 🙂 Time was, I would have known that instantly — I used to pretty much have her “Poetry Handbook” memorized!
And don’t worry about the critiques. As I said, I’m not really looking to publish these anywhere anymore. They’re just old friends come out to play in the sun. I figure, I probably get more readers here on this blog than the average award-winning poet, anyway, so why not? And every once in a while, some one of them seems to click with even the non-poetry-reading types here. 🙂
So I’d welcome comment on some of the older ones, too, if you feel like it! And hey, if you work in acquisitions, feel free to persuade an editor they’re awesome. Or not. 😉
I liked your parody of “Modern Major General” btw.
As far as David’s book — yeah, glad to hear that it has legs and you’re looking at licensing it in some fashion.
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