The sun, a hot vessel sparking trees over water,
does not concern itself with partings.
This is more comforting than you'd imagine.
If we were standing on a long dock with a wet dog
wriggling along, I would watch the flaming ship and say:
that's the best part. Everyone is saved.
But there is no ocean here, only woods gossiping about
plastic exposives and fall. Salvation in the face
of a sunset is the strength to watch it all, to then
get back to business without the silence pulling you apart.
I don't have it. I invite the quiet into the cracks.
You might. I know so little of your thoughts
about a sunset, about what opens us at the close.
Three years and I can barely see the golden hinges.
Your mother tells you to wear the virgin around your neck
so the devil doesn't pull you off the train --
can you imagine
a string of virgins, bare beneath blue headscarves?
They flap perfect freckled hands at the dangers of long island,
stroke your collarbone with the rhythm of summer's last taps
against the window, the beats of the final storm.
Tonight we ride out the echoes. Tonight, between worry
and dreaming, the ship will hit the bottom.
Years later after the armchair editor in my head
has snipped through film roll number seventeen
I will see you setting up camp, our rambunctous goodbye,
the long drive home. The colors will be spectacular --
teenagers used to live in a world like an overexposed photo.
But for now I am left with the tugging image
of a quick kiss, then me riding shotgun to the laundromat
and watching you walk up the dark driveway, alone,
already two hours away.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,013 Literary Works • 672,842 Reviews
I'm still not sure how to change this around; I need to change the first line [I've had other crits on that as well, it's the first thing to be fixed] but the structure is a bit baffling, because I want all the pieces to fit together but I don't want to get too long winded about it. At least I know that this has salvagable parts, if it has to become two poems. I appreciate all the good critiques; thanks for taking the time to look at this, I needed it.
Your first line is really awful. It's sad, because the first line made me not want to read this the first time through, and there are some worth-while things in this. That being said, poetry should be soothing or emotionally touching to a reader, and this didn't accomplish that.
HOWEVER:
I LOVE this!
AND this! Ship metaphors and Ocean whatsits are grand! Religious connotations, even better. If I could, I'd just keep these four lines and savor them.
I see how each stanza connects to another, but not necessarily how they all connect as a whole. But I also kinda like it that way.
I found the third stanza particularly interesting, and particularly liked this bit of imagery:
Each stanza on it's own is fantastic but they didn't seem to fit together. I was left thinking what? None of that made sense as a whole.
I also found the lines and stanzas a bit long. This works for some poems and it could work for this if everything fitted together properly but it didn't so it just dragged on.
Apart from that I really loved your ideas and the images you created. I thought some of it was beautiful (:
~Ferris AKA Tara~
something euclidean -
I think S1, S2, and S4 make a fine poem. The rest, imho, seems to be from a different poem altogether and has little, if any, relevance to the topic you first present.
Best of luck,
Brad
-crit ticket-
I love you.