The Last Friday

Would you like to react to this message? Create an account in a few clicks or log in to continue.
The Last Friday

The Last Friday is a poetry editing group. Once a month, we post a poem and then offer feedback to the other poems on the Forum. We're a friendly but honest group. We value each other deeply and desire for every poet to be published or become famous.


3 posters

    SEA-WASH (first draft)

    avatar
    Dewell H. Byrd


    Posts : 385
    Join date : 2012-01-05
    Age : 93
    Location : Central Point, OR

    SEA-WASH  (first draft) Empty SEA-WASH (first draft)

    Post  Dewell H. Byrd Sun Aug 31, 2014 11:28 am

    A bit late, sorry... on the road... Oregon coast is cool.. 60 degrees.  I'm looking for help to make this poem a clear view of that "in between" time in midlife.  Appreciate all comments.  Dewell

    SEA-WASH

    Sea stacks part
    a butterfly breeze.
    Young gulls stitch
    a hollyhock sky.
    Plovers stalk the foam line
    For slack tide bounty.

    I wait knee deep
    in slow water.
    Waxing waves escheat
    My feet.
    Waning flow denudes
    my toes.

    My breath comes slow...
    Inhale, exhale,
    I wait for a sign,
    A sense of order...
    A purpose for my life.

    ---Dewell H. Byrd
    tsukany
    tsukany


    Posts : 924
    Join date : 2011-05-21

    SEA-WASH  (first draft) Empty Love this poem

    Post  tsukany Mon Sep 01, 2014 6:53 am

    Dewell

    I really like this poem.  The first line trips me.  Not being from the coast, "Sea Stack" is hard to process.  I read stack as a verb.

    The second stanza seems unnecessarily "poetic" with "escheat" and "denudes."  The tone of these words is not the same as the rest of the poem.

    The last stanza is worth the price of admission.  I love what it does to this reader.  I feel weight, loss, empty, drained.  Wonderful.

    Thanks for a beautiful journey.
    avatar
    Dewell H. Byrd


    Posts : 385
    Join date : 2012-01-05
    Age : 93
    Location : Central Point, OR

    SEA-WASH  (first draft) Empty SEA-WASH (Draft)

    Post  Dewell H. Byrd Mon Sep 01, 2014 11:15 am

    Thanks, Todd, for the suggestions and the encouragement.  Sea stacks?  Imagine huge stacks of stone jutting up from the floor of the ocean just off shore... Oregon coast has lots of them.  Sea birds love the lee side and huge waves crash against the windward side creating dangerous undertows.... surfers beware.  Also grey whales scrape barnacles off their bodies on sea stacks as they migrate Alaska to Sea of Cortez and back.  A sight to behold.  Dewell
    tsukany
    tsukany


    Posts : 924
    Join date : 2011-05-21

    SEA-WASH  (first draft) Empty Yup

    Post  tsukany Mon Sep 01, 2014 11:29 am

    Dewell . . . with no West Coast experience, I had to Google.  No problem, but I didn't know that during the first three reads of the poem.  I wonder if your title is the strongest it can be yet?
    avatar
    dennis20
    Guest


    SEA-WASH  (first draft) Empty down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky

    Post  dennis20 Tue Sep 02, 2014 7:10 pm

    Dewell,  this reminded me of the poem Sea Fever by John Masefield.  I had a hard time--kept trying to read stacks as a verb.  Looked up sea stacks after I read Todd's comments and it finally made sense.  What I like is the busy work in stanza one,  The calming effect from stanza two, and the search for meaning of life in stanza three.  I do like the internal rhyme in stanza two.  Great touch there. I think this is a great poem because the pictures are so real to anyone who has walked along a shore whether on the ocean or just a lake.  The hard part is the fact that only locals would know "stacks" so unless the reader has a way of learning what that is he will be a little confused.  I don't know what the answer to that problem in this instances is though.  Still, great poem.
    tsukany
    tsukany


    Posts : 924
    Join date : 2011-05-21

    SEA-WASH  (first draft) Empty Dennis and Dewell

    Post  tsukany Tue Sep 02, 2014 7:45 pm

    I know that we are too close to the poem to be objective readers.  That being said, I wonder if adding one of two things might help the first line:  1) a definite article "The sea stacks . . . " or 2) add the name of the specific sea stack you observed?  Since we both had to google "sea stack" if you gave us the one you saw, we'd be queued to research faster than trying to make "stacks" a verb.  What do you think?

    p.s.  I would like to wait to hear from Pat before I offer you a comment on my poem.  I need to get her take too.  (That objective readership issue.)  I say that to say that it might be the end of the month before she feels up to posting and "killing" our stuff ).
    avatar
    Pat


    Posts : 1162
    Join date : 2011-09-12

    SEA-WASH  (first draft) Empty Dewell's poem

    Post  Pat Thu Sep 04, 2014 1:48 pm

    From my point of view, I am over whelmed and smitten, no energy for google, and maybe this is a poem for those from the West Coast.  I bet you know a mag which will understand and love every line.   Do not worry about my critique.  No shape to give one.   : )   The doctor says I look fine, but I don't see it.   Managed to get an infection which we worked so hard to avoid.  Now, antibiotics.  I don't make much sense most of the time.  This too will pass, Lord willing. . . .   I don't get sick much, but when I do, it is a doosy:  2 steps forward, 3 steps back. 

    Enjoying just reading the poems.

    Sponsored content


    SEA-WASH  (first draft) Empty Re: SEA-WASH (first draft)

    Post  Sponsored content


      Current date/time is Thu Mar 28, 2024 2:46 pm