Kevin's Watch

I don't know why I'm posting this except that maybe if I put it in a public forum I might feel a bit "better"...what ever that means...<sigh>


Full moon, high tide
And the seconds slide--
Eternity between one and the next.
I wander the starlit sand,
Crave the warmth of your hand
But this shadow that walks
At my side is not yours
And the only kiss
Is of ocean lips
Upon the dry dune-lined shore.

This cold spring night's breath
Is a constant lament--
Whispers words I dare not say--
But the ocean it knows
My endless sorrows
For it too curls in an empty embrace;
And the winking of lights
On the silver sea bright
Remain far too distant
For me to get close.

It's very pretty, and I like it very much. Sad, though. . .

~Lyr

Not bad at all SeaReach.

--A

Thanks guys!

Yeah Lyr, it is pretty...probably even embarrasingly pretty but at the time it was right (ah, the silly things we think and feel sometime--but I can only be creative when I'm emotionally charged ).

Seareach wrote:I don't know why I'm posting this except that maybe if I put it in a public forum I might feel a bit "better"...what ever that means...<sigh>


Full moon, high tide
And the seconds slide--
Eternity between one and the next.
I wander the starlit sand,
Crave the warmth of your hand
But this shadow that walks
At my side is not yours
And the only kiss
Is of ocean lips
Upon the dry dune-lined shore.

This cold spring night's breath
Is a constant lament--
Whispers words I dare not say--
But the ocean it knows
My endless sorrows
For it too curls in an empty embrace;
And the winking of lights
On the silver sea bright
Remain far too distant
For me to get close.

Awww hugs little Watch sister!

Thanks Creator.

i am constantly amazed at your sharing these emotionally intimate pieces with us, Seareach.


as for the "pretty" aspect of the piece, i think i'd refer to this one as belonging in the "decorative" movement, a needle-work tapestry of formalistic meter and free association, much like Wallace Stevenson or Amy Clampitt, though a bit more confessional than Stevenson ever got!

although it's been said of decorative or ornamental poetry that it lacks clarity or emotional impact, that is CERTAINLY not true of YOUR work! not even close! there's always a gut punch in your work, Sea.

please post more of your work. we like it.

Thanks Luci! And thanks for comments on style. I actually don't read poetry (haven't since I was in high school anyway) so I don't know who I'm writing like. At the moment, given the fact I can't get any of my short story writing finished because Son-of-Seareach doesn't allow me to have the blocks of time I need to write longer pieces, poetry is the only thing I feel I have time to do. I'm generally a more freestyle poet...don't know why I've got into writing stuff with more meter

As for emotionally intimate pieces: that's my style. Everything I write is like that. And they're "safe" in my mind (although that might not be exactly true for this poem). My poems start with the first line and an emotion. They transform from there as I write and then rewrite to death. "Another Glass of Wine" was originally a free flowing poem that was a lot shorter. I suppose you could say that original poem was the "truth". When I decided to give it more form and meter, I had to add a lot to it, and the intimacy of it (that is, my voice, my story, the "truth" of it) eventually got lost in the rewrite (I rewrote it 23 times). It's safe simply because it became a construct based around an original emotion. I suppose, if one cared to know who the real me is (and the truth behind the poem), they'd have to unravel the truth from the fiction. But I think it's accurate to say that only I could do that.

Anyway, thanks for the encouragement. I appreciate it.

i too read very little poetry and so, my opinions are not necessarily anything but that, just what i think about what i've read.

i have read a few poets because i was drawn, in one way or another, to their work. some i have stumbled on, others pointed out to me. i've had no formal education in poetics and don't pretend to such. i just like what i like is all!

i am particularly inspired by the women confessional poets, anne sexton and mary karr being my primary poetic muses.

here's a funny thing Ursula Leguin said in an essay on prospects for women in writing (1986):

Leguin wrote:No matter how successful, beloved, influential her work was, when a woman author dies, nine times out of ten she gets dropped from the lists, the courses, the anthologies, while the men get kept. If she had the nerve to have children, her chances of getting dropped are higher still. So we get Anthony Trollope coming out the ears while Elizabeth Gaskell is ignored, or endless studies of Nathaniel Hawthorne while Harried Beecher Stowe is taught as a footnote to history. Most women's writing--like most work by women in any field--is called unimportant, secondary, by masculinist teachers and critics of both sexes; and literary styles and genres are constantly redefined to keep women's writing in second place. So if you want your writing to be taken seriously, don't marry and have kids, and above all, don't die. But if you have to die, commit suicide. They approve of that.

she kills me!