Beach Chair

Beach Chair

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Break me the sunset in a cup;
a splendid notion.
Thoughts aside as I reside
in my beach chair by the ocean.

Archaic is the paper news;
I peruse at a placid pace.
Today's world headlines - cluster fucked -
are written on my face.

The tide crawls in and licks my toes;
the gulls have all but gone.
The moon, full, glows o'er my head.
Not yet dawn, not yet dawn.

Hi inkwell.

Break me the sunset in a cup;

This is actually the only line I don’t really like. Somehow, I feel like exchanging ‘break’ with ‘give’ would make this sound different but in a good way. Maybe? I’m not sure.

Today's world headlines - cluster fucked -
are written on my face.

For some reason, I love this, mostly because of the use of ‘cluster fucked’ but I still love it. A lot!


All together, I think this is a really awesome poem, mostly for its tone. For some reason, it sounds like your narrator is this old, sophisticated and handsome retired politician basking in a lounge chair and reading some outdated news somewhere on a beach in Puerto Rico. It’s intelligent, but not doused in heavy vocabulary which makes this seem even more beautiful.

Great job, Ink!

~lilymoore

Hey inkwell!

This sounds awful, but it seemed like several random thoughts were strung together, given a similar theme, and put into a poem. That is, at first you say sunset, then you talk about reading a paper? Um. Sunset by the water is pretty dark. You can't read very well. So it seems strange to see that together. Also, they seem to be random thoughts and seem oddly dissociated from the setting, which is weird and makes me wonder why you even bothered. It's only until the third stanza that it seems to use the theme to its fullest sense, using an action with the philosophical tinge to actually say something. So more third stanza, please. It's pretty.

I don't know if you've read my PM yet Snoink, but one thing I just want to say that I did not mention was that part of what I DO want to do, is simply be suggestive and get the reader to fill in some of the blanks on his own.

I did read your PM! I just didn't know how to respond. XD

Anyway, I forgot to mention one thing (sorry)! It's a rhythm thing...

Break me the sunset in a cup;
a splendid notion.
Thoughts aside as I reside
in my beach chair by the ocean.

The second line doesn't really flow very well! Maybe you can add something else, for the sake of the rhythm? Even if you wrote, "always a splendid notion" it would fit better!

I could have, and I thought about that. I intentionally wanted to make it sort of abrupt, as though the narrator paused or hesitated. I think I can get away with it in the second line since there isn't an established rhythm by then, not to say there really is one by the last line. I wasn't trying to make it a perfect "song" though, but thanks for the suggestion.

Hey. There are good things and bad things in this poem. The first line, 'Break me the sunset in a cup;' doesn't seem to work. I read the poem a few time through, but I still don't think it works that well. What I do like, are the lines, 'Today's world headlines - cluster fucked - /are written on my face.' I found this comical, and that it worked well. (I'm not sure I like it as much as I do) But I also agree with Snoink, about the last line. How can they be reading the paper bust before dawn. And why?

All in all, I think the poem could use a fair bit of work. But the idea of the poem could be good. I just think that you were restricted by the rhyming stanzas.

Don't read other people's posts before your criticism, kingolions, it gives you tunnel-vision!

(More depth in my PM)