When it was just us, our love on the ocean,
I remember how things would move in slow motion.
My days were sunny because of your smile,
Your star-bronzed skin made my life worthwhile.
We would hunt for shells, fish, swim and dive,
you were my favorite waste of time.
But as the weeks sailed by, I felt you draw distant,
The love we once had was disappearing, nonexistent.
The last night I saw you is still burned in my brain,
the memory is still wrapped around me, like a ball and chain.
The very last night that you set sail,
Your skin was dark, and the sand was pale.
The scene before me was lit by the moon,
our little boat waited for you on the shore of the lagoon.
You mounted the vessel and with no glance back,
you set our little boat on its one-person track.
The sand-laced wind bit at my skin,
but I was numb, waiting for reality to set in.
Through teary eyes I watched our little boat fade into the sea,
wishing to go back to when it was just it, you and me.
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125,007 Literary Works • 672,815 Reviews
Hi there. Welcome to YWS!
You have a good sense of internal rhyme, but it's not working out in this poem, simply because the rigid scheme of rhyming in couplets is restricting you from deeper expression. I'm a fan of rhyming poetry--don't get me wrong--especially when it's been done well. But rather than conveying meaning, the tone in this piece comes off as plastic and petulant.
(As a side note, don't let anyone dissuade you from writing structured poetry. If you want to do it, do it, but if I'm going to be plain here--the rhyming scheme in this particular piece isn't working for me.)
This is mostly because the rhyming is forced: you create further ideas to suit the scheme itself and not to string the images together as a cohesive unit. Which really sucks, because you have some really strong images here, and I think you could do wonders with this poem if you tried.
Let's break this piece down, then, and see what needs work.
~ Avoid--I should repeat this once more, in caps--AVOID, on all costs, putting 'me' and 'be' together unless it is absolutely necessary. These come under most-overused rhymes, often in the same box as 'overused phrases'. When it comes to the latter, your beginning is based almost-entirely on cliché. '...there was no other place I'd want to be' is a phrase I would like to mince into the tiniest of particles and shove in a box that says 'DO NOT TOUCH' in large, red lettering. Avoid the cliché. Like the plague.
On the other hand, I will commend you for what is a solid starting point: you know what you want to say, and you're starting with the sea (an idea which is continued throughout the poem), which is good. Just please find a better way to say it. Your first two lines are like a job interview--first impressions count, because unless you impress me, I will not want to read on. Reel the reader in. I assumed this poem was about a lovey-dovey companionship, and it wasn't until the volta (the turn) in line six that I realised it was a poem about love lost at sea instead. (Not really 'lost' in the sense as a love that abandoned the narrator, I guess ... but meh.) Where it stands, right now, the volta is inefficient because the first few lines feel drab and underdone instead of being particularly moving. You need to inspire us with that beginning to let the turn really get to us. As it reads right now, it's just bland and ... uninspiring.
I can say this for several other parts in the poem. 'heart like a harpoon', 'numb, waiting for reality...' are a few examples. I can't connect to the narrator. I can't empathise with her. I don't understand her situation fully, why she was on the island, or why she was so attached to this person. I think it's nice, the fact that you've lingered over the shallowness of their relationship--seeing as the focus is on 'appearances' itself--but the ending irks me, because I think the worst part of wading out of a shallow pool is getting hit by a cold blast of wind. The narrator, on one hand, refers to themselves as 'naive'--but they forget this naivety nearing the end, when they're wishing back their relationship. The ideas contradict themselves. Don't let that happen.
I like this part, aside from the repetition of 'sun', because of the theme of appearances that slides in here. It's very literal, and I'm not sure how I feel about that, because I think it could be so much more strongly conveyed if you delivered it subtly instead of blatantly, in chunks. I think it's really neat, anyway, and I like how you've kept the mention of 'appearances' consistent throughout the poem.
My apologies if this review comes off as harsh; I think this piece could use some work, and you can definitely play with this idea and see what comes of it. As it stands, right now I am not as affected by it as I should be, and this is because I do not truly understand the loss the narrator is mooning over. What were the circumstances of their meeting? their leaving? It's a poem, not a short story, but there are so many ways you can explore this single concept and add depth to the meaning it already possesses.
Keep writing! Keep it up!
PM me if you have any questions. I hope this helped.
~Pomp
Thank you very very much for the review. As a new writer I feel like I don't get a lot of constructive criticism, and I'm glad you provided me with plenty. I totally agree with the whole "repetitive sun" thing, I didn't even see that when I wrote and edited it.
I do have a few questions on your other ideas, though.
When you said that the begging was "uninspiring," I was wondering if you had any ideas on how to improve that? I see your point, but I'm kind of stuck on what to go about saying to really get the readers attention.
To adress all the questions you have about the poem, I intended it to be vague, I wanted people to maybe come up with their own answers to all the questions. I tried to do this by not specifying any genders or details so people could create their own, but I guess I didn't do a very good job. Do you have any suggestions for that?
Lastly, you said that I didn't "string the images together as a cohesive unit." I understand what you mean by this, but again, I'm not sure how I could fix this. Any advice you have to offer would be great, I now see that I really need help to improve this.
Again, thank you so much for this review. I thought the poem was pretty good at first, but I did want the opinions of others, and after reading yours I see that I really need help with it. I'm writing it for a friend, so I want to make it perfect, and I'd love some help.
Thank you!
Kendall
You're welcome! c: I'm glad this proved useful to you.
By 'bland and uninspiring', I meant that the phrases were the kind that have been so overused in literature that they do not really cause people to think in new or different ways. There's no right way to go about 'inspiring' people--just be creative, try to incorporate more poetic devices (symbolism and imagery, etc.), and write, re-write, repeat. If you're stuck, I'd advise giving the piece some space for a while and coming back to it with a fresh mind.
It's perfectly fine to be vague in poetry, but in a poem that seeks to tell a story, there is a certain amount of detail that ought to penetrate the piece. (By details, I don't mean gender or specific places, but the kind of emotions gripping the narrator hints as to the situation they were in.)
On stringing images together! I basically mean that the imagery ought to have a somewhat-consistent theme instead of being all over the place. I mentioned 'stabbed my heart like a harpoon' as an example in the review: the link between the lover's footprints and the harpoon, as a weapon, just isn't there.
It's lovely that you're writing this for your friend--I'm sure that they'll love it no matter what. ^^ Hit me up on chat/PM me if you want to talk more about this piece or about poetry in general.
Good luck~
Hi there!
Wow.It is a beautiful poem completely expressing the colours of love and the shades of despair.
The memories of happy times when all seemed glorious to the end when all that left was a broken heart is shown in a splendid manner.
The words do create a picture in the mind.
The boat and the sea comes alive through your words.
Great effort.
Keep writing.
All the best.
Well for one, I applaud you, I could never do anything with rhyming. I am more a free verse poet myself. But this is a sad poem as you said it would be, but lots of things are sad. It makes me want to reach out and hold the protagonist. We all have nostalgia and want to go back to the old days. I feel like you don't really need to change it, but I could see you adding another verse or even a poem that is the sequel to this about a new life and about looking forward to the future. Sorry that it's not that helpful.
Thank you very much! Usually I am a free verse poet as well, but I'm trying to expand my horizons as best as I can. I'm actually writing this as a collaboration with my friend who's a painter, so I"ll write the poem and she's going to paint a picture based on it. I was actually planning on writing a "sequel" to it for another painting of hers, so I'm glad another writer thinks that its a good idea as well. Thanks again for the feedback!
hello! (sorry if my review is bland or not helpful. Im new to YWS so tell me if there is anything I can improve on!)
First off, i really admire the flow of the poem. It really did tug out sadness out of my heart and i enjoyed it. The only thing I don't quite understand is the first line,
"On the sea, when it just was you and me,"
what do you mean by on the sea? are you on a boat or? Maybe you are looking over the sea? Perhaps I'm just stupid and its just me but the line confused me.
Besides that, I couldn't really find anything.
Keep contributing to the writers world!
Hey! I'm pretty new to YWS also, so we can figure things out together
And to address the question: Yes, they are on a boat. Sorry If that was unclear!
hello! (sorry if my review is bland or not helpful. Im new to YWS so tell me if there is anything I can improve on!)
First off, i really admire the flow of the poem. It really did tug out sadness out of my heart and i enjoyed it. The only thing I don't quite understand is the first line,
"On the sea, when it just was you and me,"
what do you mean by on the sea? are you on a boat or? Maybe you are looking over the sea? Perhaps I'm just stupid and its just me but the line confused me.
Besides that, I couldn't really find anything.
Keep contributing to the writers world!
I came here to review but oh my gawd. This needs to review (in my opinion). It reminded me of my story Reverie. Aw this is so sad and beautiful and ugh. Why are you tugging at my heart strings...
Rachel
Thank you so much! I worked really hard on this poem and I'm so happy you liked it