Oceanic
By Michael J. Buchshtav
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I'm sinking into darkness
Reaching my hands out
Trying to grasp something
As the ocean drags me down
The waters of my reckoning
Had filled my eyes
And all is black
The moonlit sea is darkening
Before my eyes
And so it ends
I'm losing my awareness
Hearing my ears pump
When suddenly a voice
Reaches from the deep down
"The ocean washes all away"
He said then
An oceanic roar
"the ocean washes all away"
Then silence,
Nothing more.
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Comments
Hi again Michael. Poetry
Hi again Michael. Poetry this time eh? It's not without merit. I admire the constancy of the image that you have used; water, ocean, darkness and depth. It often pays to limit the imagery and the themes within a poem and thereby increase the feeling generated by the words, well done.
I do feel that there is scope for improvement.
The use of capitals for the start of each line, with the exception of the eighteenth is a distraction. It plays havoc with the metre that you intend, forcing the readers to artificially accent the poem inappropriately. This is exacerbated because you have chosen (correctly) to discount punctuation apart from the inverted commas although (very oddly) you have chosen to use comma splices in the final stanza.
In the first stanza I recommend looking again at the closing line. Either strengthen the personification of the ocean to make it much more figurative or change the image by saying that you are 'falling through the ocean' perhaps. At the moment the compromise between the ocean having its own will and acting upon you and the idea that you feel like you're falling through water pulls in oppositte directions.
The second stanza is fine although I would delete 'Had' from the beginning of the second line.
The third stanza is too literal in as much as you choose to describe a concious state (albeit a regressively concious state). Re-shape the stanza, perhaps looking towards the use of much more figurative language. Maybe this as an alternative?
"The darkness presses
squeezing the ear-boom
as the sound of a conch plays
"the sea washes all away"
it reaches"
This alteration achieves a few things. It takes the poetry into alegory - the conch shell symbolic of a call for help or muster. The personification of the darkness works well in tandem with the image of the ocean and is also an echo of the second strong stanza. Finally the emphasis on pressure (presses/squeezes/ear boom) all serve to heighten the impending and inexorable urgency that the narrator is experiencing and increase the image of drowning.
Just my thoughts, I hope that you are ok with this observation. Remember that these are my subjective opinions on your already good poem.
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