Low Tide

The ebb and flow between humour and acerbicness is very fitting. I especially like

'I can’t be sure
Where you learnt that needling me
With crap as I am buffeted
Into a scowl was good practice,'

Very enjoyable.

A very fine poem again... the first six lines really grabbed this reader immediately.

Some lovely - well - voice, I suppose:

'Do I look like a geography teacher to you?'

However, I would lose the next line, I don't think you need it.

I smiled wryly from beginning to end. Great stuff.

Ewan

I think you're right. It's gone. Although I wanted to bit about a windbreaker, still that might have been overdoing it! Thanks both of you.

I like the way the weather is a subtle infleunce throughout; love the way this ends; not sure though that 'entirely' is entirely necessary. Margot

A polished bitter-sweet poem and an apt title. Very enjoyable.
I notice that you wanted to write HELLO and HELP in bold letters. I believe you can achieve that effect by using the HTML tags shown below ("strong" at the beginning of the word and "/strong" at the end) but with <> instead of speech marks. Hope this helps.
Also some people assert that it is old fashion to start each line wuth capital letters. What do you think?

I think that the capitals thing is entirely a matter of preference; I think it helps the flow of enjambement and tend to write this way, but occasionally, I revert to capitalisation. The poem tells me what it wants. That sounds pretentious, but I have no better way of putting it!

This is a powerful piece and so sad!

The opening line:

'The wind flanked us
Like a wall'

is so evocative of outdoors and beach-ness,

and I think the short-line, chop-chip structure reflects perfectly the shortness of the attitude and conversation towards each other - that tetchiness!

Thanks for comments. You could well be right about the 'entirely' at the end, Margot, but it reads better to me with it at the moment. I will return to have a look at it as I can see your point...entirely.

Thanks Luigi...have bolded the words I wanted, though now think it looks a bit funny, but I can't be bothered to take it out again at the moment! At least I know how to do it.

Capitals - I have no idea. I am a total amateur. I don't know what the general consensus is on such things?

I was told on my OU CW course last year that the capitals at the start of the line was considered by some people to be old hat. It made no difference to the marking of any work, however. Unless, of course, one was inconsistent in its use.

Ah well, I dunno. I've got very used to writing this way. Why is it old hat? Does it really make a difference? I'm not sure if I mind being old hat either. And I am consistently old hat...

Old hat or new hat, I like it. A lot. A fluid mixture of humour and sadness that is well crafted, as ever.