Pacifics

Member since 2004 · Posted 12 Mar 2005 · Edited 12 Mar 2005 · 4 comments

When we get out of here, I'll take you to an old fishers' pier on a day too hot to do anything else but watch the waves come in across the bay and break, and break, and break. For this last mizzling rain of the year on a field where wild poppies grow makes me think we've not spent enough time on piers, with salt-wind stirring your hair, the sun baking, and the lullabye crush of waves breaking. And maybe we never will; the words lodged in my throat have too-familiar an ache. Now it's all I have left to give: that we'll go to the wide amnesiac sea, that we'll make it there when we get out of here.

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4 comments

[10] poodietat 13-Mar-05/10:18 AM Reply

"amnesiac sea" = good shit. 10

[7] James Rykelangeli 19-Mar-05/12:56 AM Reply

psychologically very bland: we can discern nothing because we know nothing about the speaker's relation to the admired. as it is, the poem comes across as a melodrama: speaker in a tepid relationship, has newfound passion finds hard to express, takes lover to beach to soften up him or her, ocean symbolizes something like the freedom of expression the speaker desires, and this freedom entails a degree of amnesia to forget any troubles from the relationship's past that might hinder the present communication of passion. i realize this is a gross deconstruction of sentiments that are often very tender and profound, but the blandness of your poem warrants such a criticism. consider rewriting the following trite imagery:
"the waves come in across the bay
and break, and break, and break."
"sun baking"
"waves breaking"
"Now it's all I have left to give"
"we'll make
it here when we get out of here."
i found "mizzling rain" awkward. it is, after all, akin to "drizzling rain," when just "drizzle" would suffice. here, however, "mizzle" is too unwieldily to have alone. so, i'd rewrite that as you see fit.
the poem does have two instances of superb word choice:
"lullabye crush" and "amnesiac sea."
new imagery and psychological depth would make this a strong poem.

[n/a] zodiac › James Rykelangeli 20-Mar-05/1:27 AM Reply

Heh-heh, you're nutty. And if you're more than a precocious 17, I'll eat my own shmaugh.

As for the poem, what can I say? It's about going to the ocean - a big fantasy of mine since I started living in the Middle Eastern desert. It might interest you to know the original version of this went,

When we get out of here, I'll fuck
You in an empty movie theatre.

Is that any better?

[9] ALChemy 25-Jan-06/12:06 PM Reply

I've been trying to check out your old stuff a little bit at a time just to get more of a feel for your writing.
This I think is the closest thing to a 70s pop song you've ever written but I think you were probably feeling like one at the time. It was still a great read. The half rhyme scheme was ace.