The River

PG13 for mildly suggestive language, maybe.



It talks to me. Its mouth never ending. Do you know why it will not cease its endless babble?

It moves past me. Its curves seducing me, tantalizing me, provoking me to touch it, hold it, caress it in my solid fingers.

It calls to me. Flowing over stones, pebbles, algae in its hair. Sexy. Seductive. Wanting. Greedy.

I need it.
It needs me.

Curving, not alive, not dead. It’s supposed to be frozen in time, its laughter ceasing in winter’s icy breath of death with rebirth. But it continues. It keeps talking. Endlessly.

Make it stop.
I remember it … I call to it …
Call to me.

I spin, whirl, alive, dead, frozen, moving. Remember. Forget. Speak. Silence. Rocks.
Kiss me, touch me, let me slips through your fingers.

Hold me, thrill me, drink in my passion, my constant motion. Step inside, feel me slip past your thighs, your knees, lapping at your hips as you go deeper.

I speak, my lips rushing over you. Cold.

Rush. Russsssshhhhhhh. Lapping. Lapping.

... Lapping.

Make it stop kissing me. Icy lips fleeing my body, never leaving my body. Hands, cold fingers, icy grip in the world of rocks and algae.

Have I gone insane? Talk. Talk. Talk.
Whisper.
Kiss me, hold me. Don’t stop.

You lay down. I run over your lids, your nose, entering your mouth.

I kiss you.
That ever-lasting kiss of frozen end. Freeze with me. Live with me.
Die with me.

I lie. I sleep. I never wake up, the river’s embrace encasing me in ice.

Whoa 8s. That was certainly...deep. Okay as far as language is concerned you did an awesome job. Nice use of italics. It was a little more than a bit suggestive though. lol. maybe pg13. But that's as far as it gets.

I...have no more to say. I did really enjoy. It flowed wonderfully. Great job on this.

Keep it up!
~Rieda

Hey Kel, nice to see you again. I was just skimming the site's front page and this caught my attention - not only did it catch it, but it also held it admirably. This is a very unique piece, and in my opinion that's precisely where its strength lies. It also has a very dark, slightly ... how to put this? ... 'Rammstein' feel to it. (Thinking of you, Till ^_~)

In any event, just watch that you don't get redudnant. In other words, don't drag it out longer than it has to be - the beauty of much art lies in its purity, its refined form and honed down meaning. After you repeat certain words enough, they begin to lose their impact; something to keep an eye on.

Kel wrote:Rush. Russsssshhhhhhh. Lap. Lap. Lap.

Though your diction throughout was brilliant, Kel, this line just didn't work for me. It felt awkward, unnaturally punctuated: short stacatto words directly following a long, drawn-out one. It disrupts the flow of the piece.

Kel wrote:You lay down. I run over your lids, your nose, entering your mouth.

I kiss you.
That ever-lasting kiss of frozen end. Freeze with me. Live with me.
Die with me.

I lie. I sleep. I never wake up, encased in the river’s embrace. [s]encasing me in ice[/s].

Your ending is brilliantly done, but I wonder if you haven't added too much on there, in the last paragraph? I would reword the last line in order to make it feel more like an ending, more poetic. A suggestion, above, but its a light one.

Loved it, Kel. ^_^

First of all, thank you!

I changed the rating to PG13, just in case. I'm still not sure about rating systems other than games. This would be a T. heh.

As far as the lapping, what would you suggest? It's been .. oh ... six or seven years since I wrote this one so the feeling of it is pretty much gone from me. The idea behind it (what I can recall) was more or less just that. The soft rushing of the river, the sharp lapping of the icy water at the skin. Did you notice how cold water, if it's cold enough, can almost feel soft?

And for the end, I was going for the simple repetition of "encase". I wanted to evoke a feeling of that sort of repetition, almost pushing gently the idea behind it. Encasing me in the river's embrace, encasing me in ice... The embrace is the ice. It's hard to explain. While the lapping part would sound better changed, I don't think I could bring myself to change the end. It just seems to fit for me. But the lapping, I'd love suggestions on that!

Perhaps something to the effect of:

'Rush. Russssssshhhhh. Lapping. Lapping.

... Lapping.'


Split it up a bit more, yes? In the very least it lengthens out the words, slows down the pace - and it's the length, afterall, that throws the beat off. If you can rewrite them as present participles, or somehow link those three one-word sentences together, I should think it would work out nicely.

I like that version better. It's amazing what a simple suffix can do!

I like this. You seem to write some unusual pieces. I think the imagery of the river is very deep and it reminded me of the time I went canoe-rafting and fell out. It's nice to just drift in the water and to feel it run across you and I think you've captured that feeling beautifully, as well as the darker side that's there.

'Freeze with me. Live with me.
Die with me.' - I love these short sentences and how they blend together. Very effective.

Kel wrote:I like that version better. It's amazing what a simple suffix can do!

Indeed it is. ^_~

Thanks for, ah, letting me tear apart your 'lapping' - and adding in some suffixes, as it were.

[I was just thinking about this last night, and I do think that you have a chance for publication with something like this. Of course it's taking a chance do to its somewhat off-the-wall style, but I would certainly say it's worth the shot.]

Thank you, DD! That's the nicest thing anyone can ever say about someone else's piece.

I really do like the lapping better. It flows more.

Wow, I really enjoyed this- darkly beautiful and completely original and unique. Slightly disturbing, but in a good way; it's powerful. Your use of italics was also very effective, I like that you showed us both sides of the story.

One small suggestion:

"Sexy. Seductive. Wanting. Greedy."

Perhaps replace "wanting" with "lustful" or "lusting"? Those are a little more specific, and would fit better with the idea that the river is seducing the narrator.

Otherwise, lovely.It made me think of Ophelia from Shakespeare's "Hamlet".

This poem=gorgeous.



...I was tempted to just leave it at that...


A few things at the end caught my eye:

I kiss you.
That ever-lasting kiss of frozen end. Freeze with me. Live with me.
Die with me.

I lie. I sleep. I never wake up, the river’s embrace encasing me in ice.

After all the pretty language you used before, "I never wake up" sounds too common, almost like a cliche. I also think it's inferred from the "die with me" previous.

I think it's more prose than poem, in format, anyway. Just a side note, just my opinion.