Inlet
Posted: 16 March 2006
Word Count: 397
Summary: Now updated with the well recommended cuts from DJC.
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We turn our faces to each other again
and note where the universe falls around
our lines and pores; half-remember
late night tales told in the kitchens,
where we sat, where I drank the last of the wine;
note how time curves the light
around each other's centre,
how it returns...
and reflect,
when waves cycle and tides compress,
how our blood pumps in a single heart,
counting 'one, one, one...'
Silence, save the wind and waves.
You reach to the far coast and draw a cross
in the sand as far as your arm will stretch,
and feel a kick and bring your hand back to your belly.
I reach under your rainproof coat and fleece
and feel you shrink and shiver as my cold hand
clasps yours, grows warmth,
holds you close as you protest and exclaim
that it's nothing,
just another phantom,
the same as years ago.
-+-+-
Version 1
Down the craggy road to the sea
wend we, my love,
my love, when we
were children
we lay on our sides
in the sand and saw
the sky, sea and land
and grassy cliffs
stretch off to vanishing point
- like the pie charts
we learnt at school
with no circumference -
we saw the endless universe
converge upon the distance.
We turn our faces to each other again
and note where the universe falls around
our lines and pores; half-remember
late night tales told in the kitchens,
where we sat, where I drank the last of the wine;
note how time curves the light
around each other's centre,
how it returns...
and reflect,
when waves cycle and tides compress,
how our blood pumps in a single heart,
counting 'one, one, one...'
Will I turn to sky, and you to sea?
Will we storm the wrecks of history
and hold the sunken ships and satellites,
and trace the poles of stars and comet tails?
Silence, save the wind and waves.
You reach to the far coast and draw a cross
in the sand as far as your arm will stretch,
and feel a kick and bring your hand back to your belly.
I reach under your rainproof coat and fleece
and feel you shrink and shiver as my cold hand
clasps yours, grows warmth,
holds you close as you protest and exclaim
that it's nothing,
just another phantom,
the same as years ago.
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Comments by other Members
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 DJC at 07:12 on 18 March 2006
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Paul - there are some fantastic images here, and the poem is both coherent and meaningful. You're able to work with words so they flow well together, and there's a sense of rhythm, of forward momentum here which carries you through from beginning to end without disruption.
If I'm honest, I think you could get rid of the whole first stanza, as for me the narrative begins in stanza 2. Also, the shape of stanza 2 onwards is different from stanza 1, which I think makes for a more attractive looking poem on the page.
note how time curves the light
around each other's centre,
how it returns...
and reflect,
when waves cycle and tides compress,
how our blood pumps in a single heart,
counting 'one, one, one...'
I love these images - they're so fluid and intense.
Will I turn to sky, and you to sea?
Will we storm the wrecks of history
and hold the sunken ships and satellites,
and trace the poles of stars and comet tails?
If I was being brutal, I'd get rid of this stanza as well, as I'd like the narrative to continue without questioning.
A few thoughts in an otherwise impressive poem. Do have a go with some of the seminar exercises - they're tough (particularly the movement one) but they are very helpful.
Darren
<Added>
Just a little addition - have you read anything by Glyn Maxwell? If you haven't, go out and buy 'The Nerve' immediately, as his poems remind me of yours and I don't ever think it's a bad thing to be looking at what one's contemporaries are producing.
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paul53 [for I am he] at 08:01 on 18 March 2006
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I think Darren has made the main points.
This piece has diamonds in lumps of rock, and needs a good [and severe] redraft to release the jewels and minimise the rock.
The urge to write a poem is sometimes like seeing a mountain and getting a sudden urge to climb it. The fact a poem has been uploaded declares you responded to that urge and made the climb. Anything to do with the response and subsequent effort scaling it is merely lead-up, and can be deleted after the first draft.
The main meat is always the view from the top, and the thoughts it inspires. Questioning things can add mood and reflection to a piece, but it is a fine line between that and the unwanted appearance of the author between the lines. The reader wants answers; and if not answers, pointers; and if not pointers, shared thoughts. Asking questions in poetry can come across as one-sided, or falesly deep. We all ask: "Why am I here?" and: "What is it all about?" and even: "Will I/we this or that?" etc. - but we run the risk of the reader saying: "Yes, yes, I think such questions too, but what are your answers, your pointers, your thoughts on the subject?"
Poetry should further investigation into such questions, leaving the context of the content to ask them afresh.
<Added>
sp. falsely
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DJC at 08:43 on 18 March 2006
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So, thought I'd post the poem with the omissions to see what you thought:
We turn our faces to each other again
and note where the universe falls around
our lines and pores; half-remember
late night tales told in the kitchens,
where we sat, where I drank the last of the wine;
note how time curves the light
around each other's centre,
how it returns...
and reflect,
when waves cycle and tides compress,
how our blood pumps in a single heart,
counting 'one, one, one...'
Silence, save the wind and waves.
You reach to the far coast and draw a cross
in the sand as far as your arm will stretch,
and feel a kick and bring your hand back to your belly.
I reach under your rainproof coat and fleece
and feel you shrink and shiver as my cold hand
clasps yours, grows warmth,
holds you close as you protest and exclaim
that it's nothing,
just another phantom,
the same as years ago. |
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D.
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Paul Isthmus at 15:01 on 18 March 2006
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Hi Darren and Paul,
Thanks a lot for the advice. I think you're right. It's funny, the first stanza I spoke out loud spontaneously in the morning the other day, and wrote down what I could remember... the rest was added in the evening. Interesting process in the light o what you said Paul.
Darren, I think you're right about making those cuts. The only thing I wonder is if it doesn't start too abruptly? But I think the title sets the scene anyway.
Thanks for the Glyn Maxwell tip Darren, just had a quick browse on the Internet and found a poem of his, stargazing... felt an immediate affinity straight away, so The Nerve is on my shopping list.
I'd quite like to swop our favourite contemporary poets and see who everyone is reading. The last poet I had a proper look at was C.K. Williams, The Vigil, which is jolly good.
Will re-post the poem with the edited version foremost. Big old cuts! Ah well. All part of the process, as whassername from morcheeba says.
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 Nell at 15:19 on 18 March 2006
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Hi Paul,
I did enjoy this, the very real sense of invisible forces all around, the mystery of her denial. Funnily enough the new version with those distractions pared away could almost be a poem written in response to the movement exercise.
Nell.
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 joanie at 16:16 on 18 March 2006
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Hi Paul. Confession time; I read the original and made a mental note to return to it. I have just done that and I find a real treasure! I enjoyed the new version so much. I think the opening lines of version 1 put me off. Sorry I'm rambling a bit, but it was only when I went back and checked both versions that I realised much is the same. The advice to take those parts right out was excellent, I think, and no - I don't think it starts too abruptly at all! I love the opening.
Very poignant and very enjoyable. I find that my mind is working over the wonderful images and forming the story.
joanie
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joanie at 16:17 on 18 March 2006
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Hi Paul. Confession time; I read the original and made a mental note to return to it. I have just done that and I find a real treasure! I enjoyed the new version so much. I think the opening lines of version 1 put me off. Sorry I'm rambling a bit, but it was only when I went back and checked both versions that I realised much is the same. The advice to take those parts right out was excellent, I think, and no - I don't think it starts too abruptly at all! I love the opening.
Very poignant and very enjoyable. I find that my mind is working over the wonderful images and forming the story.
joanie
<Added>
Sorry! I pressed twice because I thought my comment hadn't appeared then I realised it was only on PS.
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Mac AM at 18:51 on 18 March 2006
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Hello Paul,
I think the second version is much stronger now. The language you use is clearer for the cutting.
The only small query I have, is whether you should remove 'and' between coat and fleece, replacing it perhaps with ', your' to show it is only the raincoat that is waterproof.
Mac
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