The Science of the Sea

New poem...mehh... About myself, I guess. Tell me what you think because I really don't know what to think myself! If you criticize, please be constructive!

Living by the sea,
Above something so volatile,
Angry and calm, angry and calm.
Those honest waters
Can both accepts and reject.
And though I'll never step in,
I want to live by the sea.

But for now, I admit,
I'm still very young.
Too young to live by myself
And already I'm alone.
No one wants to be by me.

See, I'm like the ocean,
But my calm is not serene.
Subdued and still, I float
With a head far too light
To hold these fish swimming by.

As for my anger,
It's not how the sea makes it seem.
It's not a powerful force
But an unpredictable madness.
No visible wreckage, no outside damage,
Famished words are temporary.

I can't help these briny waters,
They've been churning inside for quite some time.
Yes, I know of the other's pollution,
And how it's level rises,
But something's also infected me.

Don't worry, there's no need to untie your boats,
My ocean is not that great.
While it will never reach the shore,
Just know it was on its way.
Someone, walk by my side,
Acknowledge my waves for what they are.
Notice how I need a moon,
And I'll learn the science of my sea.

Well done!!
I can totally believe that you are one with the ocean. I could not find any mistakes, so I assume that means that there are none! You should try writing poems about other huge landmarks, like the desert, on a day you are angry. Hope I help (I didn't say much but) and if you have any problems, pm me
Bye
S.C

I'll come here flat-out and say that I don't overly enjoy this poem. I read over it in its entirety before starting this, and I don't like it exactly, but I do have some thoughts. (I apologise for any typos or areas where I come off as less-than-less-than kind; I'm still very tired and trying to wake up, and "wonderfully nice" isn't exactly in my vocabulary after I attempt an all-nighter. I tried, though.)

The first three lines - there is potential here. It's ruined by the comma overload. People don't want to be pausing at every word to take a breath, like a comma tells them to, and it looks like you're trying to tell them to hyperventilate, which masks the imagery as not angry, calm and volatile, but as quick and daring and I-have-to-get-through-this. Eliminate a few commas - perhaps "Angry and calm, calm and angry" would be a better phrasing, and change the comma after "volatile" to something else. Eliminate the comma after "sea" in the first line, if you could bring yourself to it, because it creates an odd kind of pause between the idea that the speaker is living above the sea and that the sea is volatile.

The latter four lines of the first stanza are nice, with the idea of the sea being honest with its emotions, but the punctuation is - I must really say - quite horrid. I'm sorry. I wouldn't read it with a full stop between "reject" and "and"; I would read it with a comma, because that's just proper grammar, and it sounds right. If you put a full stop there, you're once again trying to create a boundary between those two ideas. While it might not look "right" to you as one sentence, it's grammatically incorrect the way it is now, and it looks awkward, which can be distracting to the reader.

The second stanza... Well, it could use improvement. I'll make it clear that I absolutely do not like sentences that start with conjunctions, and I only start mine with them when I'm being more casual than actually writing something important. If you were writing an English paper, you would get scored down for writing "But for now... And if too young..." because those are grammatical mistakes, not just a personal thing or a vendetta anyone has against you. I would have to change that, in all my good conscience (read: zero), to "For now, I admit,/I'm still very young,/But if I'm too young to live by myself,/Then why am I alone?" Myself is also one word, FYI, but that's up to you. The last sentence of that stanza is fine.

The third stanza - the imagery confuses me. Perhaps that was how you wanted it to be, but I'll say that I didn't find mistakes here to nitpick at, except for that. I also don't get how "calm" is not "serene", but I'll take it for poetic license. (I use it all the time, no need to fear; I don't hate it.)

The fourth stanza - Another conjunction sentence here. I think what you were trying to reach for was "As for my anger", but if not, feel free to tell me just how wrong I am. I also don't really like the wording of "powerful force" and "powerless madness" - I feel like you could have phrased that a million times better. "Weak insanity", for one, or "trembling intensity" or something to show me just how powerful "powerful IS, and just how weak "powerless" is. The last two lines of this stanza have a nice idea, but you need a full stop or a semicolon after "damage". Either would work well for the flow, and when connecting two ideas without conjunctions they're very nice pieces of punctuation to use.

The fifth stanza. I like it, but there is so much more you could do with it. First, the exclamation mark. If you're bent on keeping it, keep it, but it looks very much out of place in the otherwise dark(ish) poem. I, for one, think a full stop would do much more nicely and would bring the sentence to a gradual freeze instead of rushing it away into the next stanza excitedly. As for the first few lines of that stanza - again, you need a full stop, colon, or semicolon to separate the two separate sentences. Commas don't do that, hon. Also, no comma after "pollution", please. Streamlining sentences like this is good, especially in a piece like this, which sounds like it needs streamlining.

The sixth stanza. "Don't worry, there's no need for your boats,/This ocean" - please change that comma after "boats" to a full stop/colon/semicolon right away. Perhaps a colon would fit best. "Don't worry, there's no need for your boats:/This ocean is not as great." Emphasizes the relationship between them, you see? Otherwise the readers will be asking "why don't we need boats? Oh, wait, next sentence". The fourth line is confusing here - "But[, you] realise[,] it was on its way" or "But [the ocean will] realise it was on its way"? Also, those commas I added in the first instance were totally grammatical, but optional if you'd like. I just happen to write using a lot of commas, you see, and they're nice to me, but I'm guilty of so many comma splices it's not even funny. Pick and choose, dear.

"Someone, walk by my side" - here would be the case for your exclamation point. "Someone, walk by my side!/Acknowledge my waves for what they are." Or perhaps a semicolon would do just as well. I don't like the word "and" before acknowledge; it creates an uncomfortable assonance in the line.

The last two lines are confusing. Is it supposed to be "I'll learn", "we'll learn", "you'll learn"? - and perhaps you could separate these clauses better than with a comma, like the suggestion I gave you in my last paragraph, but that's totally up to you. I'm just letting you know of overall reader confusion here.

I like the poem. I don't love it, but it's got potential, I'll tell you that.