Wishing Well

Wishing Well

A ghostly white mist
marbles the well
that the ivy guards silently.
The water within is thirsty
for my silver. Armed to the hilt,
I trigger a coin from my pocket
and watch it dance through the air,
its nose glinting in the low winter sun.
A splash curls up from beneath
and nuzzles inside my eyes,
clouds them with her dappled face
like mist in a mirror.

She has planted my wish in this garden
and marbled this insatiable conscience.

Hey there!

Armed to the hilt,
I trigger a coin from my pocket

Here you've got a mixed metaphor that really confused me. Armed to the hilt refers to a knife, trigger refers to a gun, and then, how does any of this go to throwing a coin into a well? I think you need to think of one metaphor which is more consistent and reflects what you're doing. A gun, a knife, they seem to violent for the situation of the poem.

nuzzles inside my eyes

That's weird to me. Nuzzling is like cuddling, and if anything tried to cuddle inside my eyes, I'd feel incredebly uncomfortable/worried/probably would be blind. haha. You could probably change the diction there and be good.

I sort of like this, but I get confused at points and I also want more description. First off, you use adjectives here and there where I think showing would suffice much better, eg: "silently", "thirsty". These are things you could show, and if you did, it would make it much better.

I like the mix of well and garden, but you sprung it on me, and more than anything you sprung "she" on me and I'm left thinking, "What?" I think it's the well - but, gosh, I can't tell? Because she makes a form in the splash of the water, so it truly perplexes me by the end.

You used the word "marble" twice, additionally. Shake up your vocabulary!

Beyond that, there isn't much else. I think fixing those two things would really up the quality of the poem. It's more about planting the seed of a wish, than any other theme, and though I like deeper and more affect things, this is more about imagery and whatnot so I really cannot complain. ^^

Best of luck! If you have any questions feel free to find me.

A very interesting poem, I loved the imagery to it. That garden and the wishing well seems like such a beautiful and interesting place. And the character you've created for the poem is very mysterious. Sometimes it seemed like it a bit too mysterious, though, and it confused me in some parts.

A ghostly white mist
marbles the well
that the ivy silently guards.

This is my favorite part of the whole poem, I just love that description. I think that you should switch the order that 'guards' and 'silently' are in. I can never remember the grammar rule about adverbs(unless you're asking me about Latin), but it just communicates better to me. 'Marbles' is also a very interesting verb in this description, one I wouldn't have thought of.

Armed to the hilt,
I trigger a coin from my pocket

I also have to agree with Suzanne that the mix of metaphors doesn't really fit together. I wasn't exactly sure why he was armed to the extreme, and then I got confused with what he was really doing with the coin. I don't know, it all just blended together and it almost seemed as though he launched the coin directly from his pocket and not that he tossed the coin that had originated from his pocket.

and watch it dance through the air,
its nose glinting in the low winter sun.

I love these two lines, although I'm unsure about the use of 'nose' for a coin. I never really think of coins having 'noses,' unless one is talking about the figure on the coin and then I still think that the coin would be moving too fast to see its nose glint. I love the description, though.

A splash curls up from beneath
and nuzzles inside my eyes,

This is the part that really confused me. This is the part where you either change the subject of the poem completely, or you break away from a metaphor without really explaining what it was about. The whole set of actions is confusing. I usually don't think of the splash of an object hitting the water, as was suggested by tossing the coin in the last few lines, as curling up from beneath the object. And then nuzzles does sound completely wrong, as it sounds as though the water is now nuzzling the inside of his eyes.

She has planted my wish in this garden
and marbled this insatiable conscience.

I like the first part of this stanza, but the second still confuses me. I mean, I'm still kind of thinking of the well at this point and I have no idea what 'marbled this insatiable conscience' means at all. Of course, I might just be dense at this point, but the words just aren't connecting for me and I think this is the part where you should leave some sort of an explanation, even if you leave a little mystery behind.

I love how mysterious this whole poem is, but you also have to watch out that it doesn't turn into confusion for your reader. You can always count on a few dense people, but the majority should get it. I think that if the wishing well was a metaphor, then you need to work on your transition to real life. Overall, I did like the mystery of it and the imagery.

Good luck with your poetry!

- Tatra

A ghostly white mist

marbles the well

that the ivy guards silently.

I love the imagery there of ivy

The water within is thirsty

for my silver. Armed to the hilt,

I trigger a coin from my pocket

This really makes no sense. Hilt refers to a sword and triggers refers to a gun. Besides that, what exactly have these weapons to do with your poetry? This poem, hitherto, was about a wishing well, and now you talk of violence? Up till now your poem was about nice things, nice imagery, you have made us believe this poem to be of nice things, and then you contradict yourself. Basically, the person is throwing a coin into the water, aren't they? And you use the water within is thirsty, to suggest that you are throwing a coin in. Then you use violent weapons, which don't fit in. You need to fix this problem.

and watch it dance through the air,

its nose glinting in the low winter sun.

Really, lovely imagery, but coins and noses? What do they have to do with one another?

A splash curls up from beneath

and nuzzles inside my eyes,

nuzzles? Nuzzles is a bit too cute to use here. Like Suzanne said, it would be very annoying having something nuzzle your eyes.

clouds them with her dappled face

like mist in a mirror.

I really like these two lines xD

She has planted my wish in this garden

and marbled this insatiable conscience.

I like these, too

Overall: I did like this poem. I did have a few problems with some of the language but overall it was good. You had nice imagery and such Well done xD
xoxo

marbles the well

‘Marbles’ is a little awkward, probably because it’s not a real verb. I think you would be better off writing this as a comparison. “A ghostly white mist / lies like marble in the well” or something to that affect.

that the ivy guards silently

Here’s the deal with this line. Adverbs. Not good. Just the picture of ivy guarding the well was enough to give me an image of stillness and quiet. Then along came the adverb, trumpeting its presence and shattering the picture. Adverbs are probably the least subtle words in the English language. And subtle is what you need. Subtle and descriptive verbs that can stand alone. Yours can. Or, if you must, give ‘ivy’ and adjective, or change your verb. But I like it very well as it is, without ‘silently’.

The water within is thirsty
for my silver

I like this sentence.

Armed to the hilt,
I trigger a coin from my pocket
and watch it dance through the air,
its nose glinting in the low winter sun.

‘Armed to the hilt’ refers to knives or swords. Then you have ‘trigger’ which would be a gun. And what does that have to do with coins? I’d be looking for something more like him flipping the coin in, or something to that affect.
Also. “its nose glinting in the low winter sun.” Its nose?

A splash curls up from beneath
and nuzzles inside my eyes,

Firstly, wells are normally very deep. A splash as small as a single coin would make would not reach their eyes, I don’t think.
I don’t think ‘nuzzles’ would the right word to use here either. It makes you think of something soft and warm and caressing. The water would be sharp and cold, but brief, not lingering the way the word ‘nuzzle’ would make you think.
Also, using the pronoun ‘her’ for the splash is a little confusing, especially because it’s the first time you’ve referred to it that way, and then you use ‘she’ for the well in the last line.

and marbled this insatiable conscience

This is the second time you’ve used ‘marble’. Exercise that fabulous vocab of yours. =)
Otherwise, I don’t know what was meant by this, what that word was supposed to mean in the way you used it. “Marbled this insatiable conscience”? What does it mean?
However, I do like your use of the word ‘insatiable’ to describe their conscience. It perfectly describes, for me, the unappeasable nature of a guilty conscience, at times.

My overall impression was that this was pretty much devoid of any deeper meaning (and that’s just a statement, it says nothing either positive or negative about this poem) then what the words clearly say, and the descriptions were pretty, there were few metaphors, and that the final two lines sounded like a summary of the rest of the piece, but weren’t because they stated something new.
Take what you want from that. Nothing in that is meant positively or negatively, they’re just the impressions I got. I hope it is helpful, though, if you wanted certain impressions to be different.

If you ever want me to review this again, just say the word. =)