One Fine Day: Perhaps

Story poem

One fine day, perhaps

The sea lies millpond calm and still, obedient to the Goddess' will.
She has decreed it must be so and thus the ocean far below.
Represses its own urgent needs and to the Goddess' will accedes.
Its gleaming surface satin smooth . It has no choice to tell the truth
The mistress of both sea and sky.Sees no good reason to say why.
She chose serenity tonight; she rules the sea and has the right
to give instructions to sea which must obey immediately.
Sometimes she lets the breakers roar as they approach the rocky shore.
The daily tides which ebb and flow, she will allow to come and go.
Although there is no urgency she knows of their necessity
The high tide will sweep clean the beach and leave behind its furthest reach.
A tide line marked by oddities which have been carried on the seas
From here and there and everywhere. Jetsam which can be foul or fair.
Beachcombers will explore to see what treasures they can take for free.
Though they prefer the aftermath of some fierce storm that shows the wrath
of the ocean in angry mood. Because they have long understood.
The treasures which they hope to find, an angry sea will leave behind.
A tranquil night produces less of valuables that will impress.
The early birds who comb the beach above the high tides which can reach much further
when theres been a storm and far exceed their usual norm.
Tomorrow morning they will find the sea has not left much behind.
But they will still search carefully because they think that there might be
some treasure they have missed before. When they have searched the sandy shore
Beach combers are a hopeful breed, they know one day they will succeed.
Grow rich beyond their wildest dreams their heads are full of madcap schemes
of what they'll do as wealthy men but keep on searching until then.
It has been known before today that some beachcombers came away
with golden doubloons by the score which they discovered on the shore.
I do not claim this can't be true. I think such finds are rare and few.
I have researched the evidence and find that most is sheer nonsense.
But local legends long endure although no one can say for sure.
That any treasure ship was wrecked along this coast but I suspect.
That it makes little difference ,dreamers aren't known for common sense.

8-Jan-09

Http:// blog.myspace.com/poeticpiers

Reviews

[Pink Poison]

I like the rhyme scheme of this, although it took a while to dawn on me. It's atypical but works well with the poem. I also like your depiction of the sea as a certain kind of slave to a Goddess, as much as the beachcombers are slaves to their greed. Very nice read.

[Syke]

I didn't really expect my review to be this long, sorry about that. All of the stuff I put is just to help you get the most out of the writing, flow, grammar, etc. not an implication that you're a bad writer, as I've already said, I LOVE your poetry and I've never given you a rating not in the 90s. I wouldn't spend all this time rating it if it wasn't a really good poem!

To start with, I'd recommend you reorganize the poem into it's original 8 syllable line format as the rhyme scheme is kind of lost in the current format where each line rhymes with itself. I assume you made the lines 16 syllables long to keep it from being too long, but you really lose the rhyme scheme because of that. You might also want to break it into stanzas of 2-4 lines if you keep the 16 syllable lines or 4+ line each if you split them into 8 syllable lines. It would read best I think if split into 8 syllable lines and the stanzas thematically (roughly) organized into something like this: (this one will work with 8 or 16 syllable stanzas and the line # is based off how you currently have it organized) 1st stanza covering the first 5 lines, the second stanza covering the next 5 lines, the third stanza would be the next 3 lines, the fourth stanza the next 4 lines, the fifth stanza the next 3 lines, the sixth stanza the next 3 lines, the seventh stanza the next 3 lines, and the 8th stanza the next 7 lines. There are definitely other ways to split it up, but that roughly groups up the lines in the poem by subject.

"to give instructions to sea which must obey immediately." This line just seems a little awkward, it definitely fits into 16 syllables, but it can also be stretch into 17 because of pronunciations of immediately, I'm really not sure how to show that in text though, but I thought I should point that out ; "The early birds who comb the beach above the high tides which can reach much further (line break) when theres been a storm and far exceed their usual norm." gives you a 19 syllable line followed by a 13 syllable line, I assume you meant it to be "The early birds who comb the beach above the high tides which can reach (break) much further when there's been a storm and far exceed their usual norm." which gives you 2 16 syllable lines.

I was going to type out a huge long analysis of the grammar of the poem, but by the 5th line I realized, that it would probably be best if you just brought it into a Word type program and edit it for grammar and other things. In a poem like this, the grammar and organization of the lines and all that good stuff is very important to the message you (the author) wants to make, and I didn't think I should mess with that.

[Captain Ugly]

Ah yes my friend, I do agree.
There's treasure hiding in the sea,
But better still, the stories told
Than bobbles, trinkets and pure gold.
And this, among the best of them,
The Goddess blessed this shiny gem.

Just Me.
Captain Ugly

[Tomás Ó C..]

Lovely language and flow in this poem...