Ghosts of the Sea - Writers Forum

Sen Yama · 07-08-2008, 11:11 PM

I've been messing with this for a long time, and I want to know what you guys thing of it. Rip it to shreads if you like. I'm not particularly touchy with poetry and lyrics.

Ghosts of the sea,
Where do they take me?
To the land of the dead,
Where the sea is stained red.

Ghost ships that sail the Earth,
To them we give wide berth.
The ghost crew then looks to me,
We head again to land from sea.

The trees they are tall and green,
Faces of men snarled and mean,
Singing voices dark and deep,
Into my bones the words do seep.

Telling of the sea's retreat,
And of many a great feat.
Deep bass voices on the dock,
Seem to ring around the clock.

One man I notice though,
Scarred by the whipper's blow.
His muscles are strong to see,
Slowly, he walks to me.

He smells of gristle and of brine,
He's a man I want make mine.
I know not where the darkest be,
But darkness he shows to me.

As a man of the sea,
He must often leave from me.
But unlike poor wives on land,
He will always reach my sand.

T.W. North · 07-09-2008, 12:11 AM

I like the concept and for the most part, how you've approached it. For some reason I can see this as a song in Thrice's Alchemy Index. Anyway, rhyming couplets has always been a bit tacky to me and its the case here as well and thats what really draws this down.

Raniegh · 07-09-2008, 11:38 AM

I really like this. You painted a picture in my mind from the first couple of sentences. I like this.

moderan · 07-10-2008, 08:00 AM

It's a little sing-songy...the Flying Dutchman tale, more or less, and not saying anything new on the subject. The rhyming couplets throw me too. I tried singing this and it didn't quite work.
That said, some of the imagery is quite good, especially the line about gristle and brine. Imo you could expand this, describe the ship(s) and the sailors and tell the story of the ghost ship(s) rather than isolate on the narrator's impressions. Or you could zoom in and do the Widow's Walk sort of narrative with the last character as the focus. Tell a story though...this is more of a vignette and not involving at present. It almost seems as if you are talking from the perspective as one of the ghost ships, which would be vastly interesting if elaborated upon.

Sen Yama · 07-10-2008, 08:25 AM

Thanks for the feedback guys. I don't write poetry/lyrics very often, so this was interesting for me.

skywalker21 · 07-10-2008, 09:07 AM

Very beautifully said milady. Ye make it sound like it tis from Lord of the Rings story line.
Nice work.=D>

SparkyLT · 07-10-2008, 03:28 PM

like it; it flows really well. and it's a very interesting concept...it'd be a cool book. but I think that about everything, pay me no mind

Sen Yama · 08-04-2008, 01:27 AM

Nah, Sparky, I'm SURE you could find some peice of writing on the internet that you hate if you looked hard enough!

Subtext · 08-05-2008, 12:55 PM

It's cool enough, though I could see from reading this that you don't write the type of stuff all the time. I particularly liked:

The trees they are tall and green,
Faces of men snarled and mean,

The way the "ll" from tall carried over to green matches fairly well with the "l" carried over from snarled to mean. It's almost like compound syllablication found in today's more-structured rap music.

Sen Yama · 08-05-2008, 01:03 PM

Quote:

It's almost like compound syllablication found in today's more-structured rap music.

I would have to say that it's completely coincidental. I heard this song in a dream of mine, and forgot most of it, but that couplet, and the one about the wipper's blow, remained intact.