You'll have to excuse the awkward formatting. I had it all set out in the shape of vertical wave, but I can't get it to stay like that on here. When it changes from bold to italics or italics to bold, that's a new thought/line.
~
The wave is here In five seconds I’m up to my knees in water
I can see it only a few hundred metres away from me
I run Because of the water it’s more of a splash than a run
A black shadow slowly looms over me
Still I run Towards the library and my last chance
That building is the only shelter for me
That boy in the window is my only friend
I step onto something sharp in the road
I fall down into the water
My face hits the road Bubbles float out of my mouth
I kick my legs and thrust my body up
I stand
The water is up to my chest The library The wave
I can’t tell which is closer
A building crashes to the ground not too far from me
The water pulls me underground
More bubbles escape my lips
I struggle against the force of the water to swim up
But the wave is towering over me
D o w n d o w n d o w n
Down it comes
And it takes me
As if I’m a slave following orders
It pushes against my chest
My face hits the road Bubbles float out of my mouth
The wave takes me away and I can’t get up for air
~
Through
the library window I watch
The window is so huge
But not tall enough to show the top of the mighty wave
In this world it’s just me and her
We’re all that’s left Me and the girl in the waves
And soon we’ll be dead
Just me that’s left
She falls under The water is her grave
Then she returns to the surface I remember a movie I saw once
With a monkey on a building
Ruling the world
The wave is on top of the buildings now
The wave is ruling the world now
I’ll be earth The only one here
And then I’ll still be its slave The wave’s slave
And she’ll be the corpse Down it comes D o w n d o w n d o w n
And down she goes
Eaten up like a fish beside a shark Her life bubbles away on the
surface
The wave is coming for me now
But the library is too strong for it
And when the wave hits the window turns black and blue
The colour of death and water
The wave calls to me but I won’t answer Not yet
Then it leaves
The water recedes to build its empire elsewhere
The wave has left me a gift Wages for the slave
Her body rests on the doorstep
The library doorstep
Now it’s just me and her left
And we’re both dead
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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Hello, jazzydracula!
), then okay--but first see if there's anything that snuck in there that's confusing.
Nice idea, by the way. I really would have enjoyed the formatting--YWS can really mess sometimes with that.
Anyway. I think that you're a very beautiful, inspired poet. This is working for you AND against you. Because of your many ideas, this really is a tsunami. The point, however, is not to fully overwhelm the reader to the point where it's nonsensical in someways. Instead, you should focus on:
1. Precision of language. This is important because word choice is everything in a poem.
2. Showing, not telling. I feel as if lots of poets get caught up in expressing all their ideas at once. The poem becomes a bit of a narrative piece, where the writer talks and talks, never really incorporating many EXAMPLES, but instead TELLING us what happens.
3. Your voice as a narrator. You already have the perfect tone and cadence for this: raw and youthful. However, if you use slightly more sophisticated language, your voice and the flow of the poem can be maintained.
4. Count 'em! If you find that a 10-line poem is really 100-lines (yeah, that was a pretty big exaggeration
I'm not going to talk about specific places, but just think about those ideas.
What the heck was this? When I read this poem, its great since you've actually described what was the mess inside an actual tidal wave. That's good. But you don't have to mess up the poem so badly. It makes me worry that I might be in a real tidal wave. And I'm just at home in mid-winter writing this review. Anyhow, I say it's a good poem, but I barely get it. And some parts are just strange and confusing. Like:
How could you say that a tidal wave would come that slow? When a tidal wave (tsunami) strikes, it would of reach a entire region in just seconds, and the height of water rising in the area varies, but no one would expect it would reach boy's knees in just five seconds. That's actually a bit long.
And those lines (which is not going to be mention) are like " you're watching this video, then suddenly someone have rewind your video"
I'm so sorry that I've said all of this to you, though. I'm younger than you so maybe I shouldn't have. But I like to review this poem, it's interesting and worth it. Also I'm grinding for points to start my own stories so I well, don't know anymore.
Take the "be more scientific on your poem" seriously, though.
I'm really fond of this, conceptually and in terms of your execution. However, because I'm nitpicky, well... be prepared for some nitpicking.
"I can see it only a few hundred metres away from me"
The use of "metres" feels a bit too... well, clinical for the topic of this poem. A metre would be something you use to measure a building, or a shipping crate. As odd as it sounds, something a bit more fuzzy would probably fit the tone of this poem a bit better.
"A black shadow slowly looms over me"
"Slowly looms" is rather redundant, and the unnecessary adverb rather impedes the flow of this sentence. Just "looms" would be fine. Additionally, in a similar vein, it isn't really necessary to specify that the shadow is black.
"I step onto something sharp in the road"
To keep with the tone of the poem, it would be best to introduce with "something sharp" with the way in which it affects the narrator. Begin with a description of how it feels to her (him? them? ect.?) and build from there.
"Bubbles float out of my mouth"
Since the poem up until this point has been all about the brutality of the ocean, the words "bubbles" and "float" feel rather out of place here. To get a better sense of urgency and retain the imagery of drowning, words like "forced", "pushed", or "driven out" might be better to describe the motion of the air.
"The water pulls me underground"
Just "the water pulls me under" would be better for the tone of the poem, and it would eliminate the confusing bit. (Just for clarification, I was wondering how the water had pulled her underground. Is she being dragged down to a flooded subway station? A mineshaft? The use of "underground" raises a lot of questions for the reader in a way that I don't think you intended to.)
"More bubbles escape my lips"
Again, words like "bubbles" and "lips" tend to not be associated with the subject matter of this poem. Even though you may mean them in a different way, the connotations are more along the lines of "romantic bubble bath" than the brutality of nature.
"As if I’m a slave following orders"
It's not really necessary to specify "a slave following orders". Unless otherwise noted, people will assume that, as a slave, your narrator is going to be following orders.
"Through the library window I watch The window is so huge"
To begin with, when/how did your narrator get into the library? I know this is a poem, but it's best to keep track of things like that unless there's a good reason not to, and I don't really see one here. Also, what happened to the boy in the window?
"The wave’s slave"
The rhyme here feels a bit cheesy when juxtaposed with the rest of the poem, and since it doesn't add anything in particular to the narrative, symbolically or otherwise, you'd probably do well to just remove it.
In any case, this is a really lovely poem, and I'm confident that with a few revisions, it could really shine.
Thanks for looking through! I'll fix those things.
The person in the library is the boy in the window.
I really liked the idea. However I think it is a bit confusing. It is a good idea but you need to elaborate more. Above all I think it would make a good start to a short story or even a novel. I would love it if the second person has to travel through the sea to protect himself and other people he didn't know were alive meet up with him. A twist could be that they get stranded and a man say he 'owns' the island and tries to get them away and that's all they want to do.
I really enjoyed it though. Mu ideas may be a bit long but please elaborate more as it is a great idea.