low tide

____

____
this fugue is as all oceans
except with fewer stashed, nacre huts
a conchology in which i press my ear less
to the tide's zonophone, the dragging
of grand dresses across cabin floors,
the space-inspection of an earthrob,
and more to your ear, your mouth,
where i might be able to catch
some canalized echo in the abalone
of league silence, some return,
some seaboard falsity which i can at least
convince myself is a place i have been before
and dug in my toes and made castles
dashed over by swell-levels recorded
in booklets, journals, in moons which have moved
seventy-six centimeters out
since we dusted sand from our kneecaps
and could have lived as long
as children together.

Hey Kylan,

As usual, this flows perfectly and your imagery is great. I especially enjoyed:

"a conchology in which i press my ear less
to the tide's zonophone, the dragging
of grand dresses across cabin floors,"

My only small quibble is the amount of commas versus the amount of full-stops. There's only one full stop in the piece and I think it should at least be divided in two, not just because you'd end up breathless if you read this aloud.

I'd maybe try a full stop after "been before" and start the next line with "I dug in my toes."

A pleasure, as always.

Jas

this fugue is as all oceans
except with fewer stashed, nacre huts*
a conchology in which i press my ear less
to the tide's zonophone*, the dragging
of grand dresses across cabin floors,
the space-inspection of an earthrob*,
and more to your ear, your mouth,
where i might be able to catch
some canalized echo in the abalone
of league silence*, some return,
some seaboard falsity which i can at least
convince myself is a place i have been before
and dug in my toes and made castles
dashed over by swell-levels recorded
in booklets, journals, in moons which have moved
seventy-six centimeters out
since we dusted sand from our kneecaps
and could have lived as long
as children together.

I'm not much of one for the zero-capitalization style, but you were consistent at least.

*This spot needs some kind of punctuation to separate it from "a conchology"

*"zonophone" is not a word. Your lack of capitalization prevents us from discerning if this is a proper noun, or just a word you made up. In any case there's hardly enough context to conjure something meaningful from it and so at that point I was cringing.

*Here I'm ready to believe that you've inserted another non-word, but I think you simply lack a space between "ear" and "throb"

*"league silence"? Perhaps you could PM me what this means.

I would disagree with the above reviewer. The poem is fine as one sentence. Also, the flow was not perfect. Particularly here:

the dragging
of grand dresses across cabin floors

I get what you're trying to achieve with this description, but due to the imagery of it, reading it feels like I'm suddenly tossed into a different poem then spat back out.

Everything else about your poem I really liked. The rich word choice textured all the images with nostalgia, longing, and delicacy. The rhythm was overall nicely done and the poem has a nice pace. The metaphors were powerful and effective. Nothing else strikes me as noteworthy here, but in general this was an excellent poem.

Oh hey, it's a beachy ocean poem. I like it.

The flow and the rhythm of the piece is fantastic. Nonetheless, I think the poem gets lost in itself. There is so much verbal obfuscation going on that I'm left wondering what exactly this poem is about.

except with fewer stashed, nacre huts
a conchology in which i press my ear less

some canalized echo in the abalone

You make a lot of references to snails, but the references don't always make sense. For example, conchology is the study of mollusc shells (yes, I did have to look that up). Now that may relate in a manner to the poem as a whole, but the way you used the word doesn't make sense.

Also, while zonophone is indeed a word, it seems you used it improperly. Zonophone was the name of a now defunct record company. I think you meant either phonograph or gramophone.

the dragging
of grand dresses across cabin floors,

Like inkwell, I found this very out of place. Nearly all the other metaphors involve molluscs in some way, and then there's this.

All in all, I'm divided. This piece is either brilliant or its trash. On the one hand, the imagery employed is skillful, and - as I said - the flow and rhythm is fantastic. But then I get below that, and you're using words that don't make sense in their context and using metaphors that don't fit. More than that, the piece comes across as overly pretentious - highlighted by the lack of capitalization and through words & phrases that appear to be used simply because they sounded good. For example, "seventy-six centimeters out" seems like a completely unnecessary line. I can go from the line before to the line after it without missing a beat. So I believe it must be referencing something, but I can't imagine what.