Thread: Home Port

Home Port

Orange bricks pave the street,
bleeding into black tarmac.
Just as the shore bleeds,
into the horizon
and the ocean waves.
The pockmarked sidewalk,
sinks into crests and valleys.
Navigated with the care of a sailor,
By bicycles and baby carriages.
Dusk arrives with street lamps,
As the lighthouse is kindled by storms.
A mother calls her children home,
Just as a harbormaster calls his ships in to port.

Soitgoes, welcome and a suburb debut poem!

Your similies connecting uban setting to that of the shore are on spot. And I love poem which give me cause to double read just for the pleasure of it all.

Great contrast and "bleeds" (a "sit up" word in context) brings me the image of the slow sunset.

Just as the shore bleeds,
into the horizon

The last lines are the most important to wrapping up, pointing up the poem and, here, you did an expert job. Something very touching about this:

A mother calls her children home,
Just as a harbormaster calls his ships in to port.

Now, at this point, I'm not an expert on punctuation but I see that you have some body heavy caps going on. I would say give this a go over.

Some great talent here and glad to have you on board! Laurie

Welcome, soitgoes, (great name, I love the Billy Joel song that shares it), wonderful debut indeed. The only caps that need to be removed are By, As, and just. The only other nit I had was "sinks into crests and valleys". I fully understand your intention, but it's kinda hard to sink into a crest. A different verb would work better or you could switch to sinks into valleys then crests or something like is mottled by crests and valleys. Not great suggestions, but you get the gist. It could be I'm being a horrible pedant, so wait to see what others say. Those little things aside, I very much enjoyed this. Nice imagery, and those last four lines are exceptional. I look forward to reading more of your work. Welcome, again.

Best,
Lisa

Orange bricks pave the street,
bleeding into black tarmac.
Just as the shore bleeds,
into the horizon
and the ocean waves.
The pockmarked sidewalk,
buckled with the wear of time,
falls into concrete valleys.
Navigated with the care of a sailor,
by bicycles and baby carriages.
Dusk arrives with street lamps,
As the lighthouse is kindled by storms.
A mother calls her children home,
just as a harbormaster calls his ships to port.

I like this edit very much. Great job! Lisa gave you some good suggestions. Keep 'em coming! Laurie

Extremely fine edit, soitgoes. Still one little nit. You need to lose the cap in As or change the preceding comma to a period. Well done.