Thread: Shoreline

Waves of salt tears
are washing billions
of miniscule
crystal shards,
while bizarre
porcelain cups
and bowls
cast up from
deep and dark
merfolk realms
are presented
as gifts
to the rippled shore
by warm
and delicate
water fingers.

At times,
a blind and battered
jelly-creature
is stranded in a wet
sandy crater
still hungering
for his briny food
while white sea angels
with long wings
are tossed about by
unrelenting
salt-laced airs.

They fight
valiantly against
the bitter wind,
and cry as if
for some
lost loved one,
despairing of
finding them
in the expanse
of the wide and
raging sea.

The imagery you used in this one is perfect. In particular, I believe the first stanza was strongest: "bizarre porcelain cups and bowls cast up from deep and dark merfolk realms are presented as gifts to the rippled shore by warm and delicate water fingers." Loved this line! You really are one with the sea. Beautiful poem!

When I first read this poem I could not stand it, but I couldn't figure out why. I stared at it for a while, rearranged your line breaks, and now I quite like the poem.

Waves of salt tears are washing billions of miniscule crystal shards,
while bizarre porcelain cups and bowls cast
up from deep and dark merfolk realms
are presented as gifts to the rippled shore
by warm and delicate water fingers.

At times, a blind and battered jelly-creature
is stranded in a wet sandy crater
still hungering for his briny food
while white sea angels with long wings
are tossed about by unrelenting salt-laced airs.

They fight valiantly against the bitter wind, and cry
as if for some lost loved one, despairing of finding them
in the expanse of wide and raging sea.

By grouping it like this, I'm able to focus on the meaning instead of individual chopped up words and phrases. Perhaps it's just my personal taste (or shortcoming), but I find it much easier to read with longer lines.

That said, I think you could also shorten some of your phrases (though enjambment allows you to keep long lines none the less). As is, you have three sentences. I'd love to see all the same gorgeous imagery in six or so shorter sentences that let me slow down and taste each bit of the poem, instead of just rushing through it. I'd also argue for removing as many small words (are, and, of, etc). Not just taking them out completely, obviously, but rearranging phrases so that each word contributes as much as possible to the poem.

Hope that makes any sense. It's a good poem!

Beautiful, all of it. I particularly like "jelly-creature". How nice that it isn't "jellyfish". The non-specific noun "creature" works in unison with that apt hyphen to underscore the diminishing significance of this jelly-thing and its reduced availability to the reader/viewer-- it has been "battered" and divested of its identity to such an extent that differentiation (from other jelly-things) is not possible or important. "briny" works well, too. The "small" vowel [i] in "briny" is kind of symbolic of the smallness/meagerness the word conveys here. I'm intrigued by those "porcelain cups" and "bowls" and their being "cast up from / deep and dark / merfolk realms". "merfolk" imbues the poem with something magical/mythical. The entire seascape, in fact, is populated by such beings ("sea angels"). There's this center of Nothing/Nothingness (the battered and starved jelly-thing, the crater, the crystal shards) which is marked by the products of what once was-- the briny food, the loved ones, etc... This is obviously a poem of lament, and the "salt-laced" (nice!) winds, the sea angels, and the cups and bowls that are being cradled by the sea and "gifted" to the shore (a shrine of sorts?) have a definite ritualistic (reinforced by temporal markers such as "at times"), funereal, commemoratory feel. Thanks for sharing. I like it very much.

I feel like I've just been to the shore. Loved the image of the seashells as porcelain cups and bowls. I think I like the suggestion of j.w. to lengthen the lines a bit, it may well be a personal preference, but it seems to improve the flow for me.

thanks you all, I'm glad you liked the imagery - I wanted to bring a fresh perspective to a scene we've all experienced - I intentionally avoided describing the common elements in the usual way

I do appreciate the feedback on the structure and I will work on altering it - I realize folks tend to pause somewhat at the end of lines, so very short lines might interfere in reading - I write and then read these, only pausing where punctuation dictates: half-stop for comma, full stop for period, otherwise the piece is read straight through, and the long form with very short lines flows along for my ear well - but if that doesn't work for most readers, I need to rethink it

And Lace, what can I say, I feel like I've been psychoanalyzed : ) in a good way - you get my piece more than I do! and I feel like you are dead-on
poetry delves depths that are often subconcious - I feel you are right about this one - thanks so much for pointing out such depths - and you are right too, "jellyfish" just would not have been the right word there - I wanted some unusual poetic way to say "translucent amorphous blob entity" that fit into the flow of that line, but "jelly-creature" was all I ended up with

---todd

This is another winner. Being late to the party, I can only echo what's been said about the imagery and the fine job you did employing originality. Fine job, indeed. I must respectfully agree with the others regarding line length, the choppiness just doesn't fit for this particular piece, longer lines would allow the reader to more deeply savor your fine imagery. Excellent job, Todd, as always.

thanks Lisa, I will definitely work on the structure and layout when I get a chance - it was written for the Poem a Day project on my blog, so that it needed a little tweaking is not surprising

thanks again for your kind words and helpful feedback everyone
---todd