floating face down
on the lake
in the sky
staying in layers
of warm
skin on a bubble of time
drifting
over the farm
gates forever
open
drowned trees
reaching
trout are the birds now
flicker and flit
the same groups
wheeling
the house sags
some unseen current
tugs at the walls
the tennis court
is empty
net bellies gently
trails
in underwater green
riverside
upside down
alpine lake
like a veil
.
Author notes
This is over the 15 lines called for, I know. I had written it with fewer line breaks and it was 15 lines, but the poem demanded to be opened up like this - and who am I to argue with a poem?
A contest entry
- when poetry happens by Dienush.
1250 points, ended July 13, 17 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Comments
1 - 7 of 7
-
Who are you to argue with a poem?
That had me smiling. As I said, I'm rather lenient with my rules and I can make the difference between someone who tried, but as you say art is art, and someone who just didn't care.
I really like this poem. I find it very interesting to see where people take the contest prompt, as it was rather broad. The "warm skin on a bubble of time" is quite a memorable image, I love it. I also like it very much how you use concrete description of this place to mean more apparently. I can feel a lot of emotion behind the details about this place and I really like that. The second to last stanza (the one with the house and the tennis court) is a great example of that, and by far my favorite part of this poem. I think the way you separated the last line says a lot and I like that too. Thank you for your entry.
~Diana
-
The Snowy Mountains Scheme! One of the great engineering feats of the 20th century. You bring a sense of pathos to the drowned world. BRAVO!
-
-
Links to Atlantis, Mu, and all drowned civilizations, including the soon-to-be-drowned, jovi's home. Thanks for your read and comment.
-
-
fabulous poem. there is an eerie otherworld feel to it. i love it.
-
-
Thank you for reading, I'm glad you liked this poem.
-
-
The evolution and decay that leads to the crystal clarity of an Alpine lake.
I always loved this one called "Lake" by Czeslaw Milosz
Maidenly lake, fathomless lake,
Stay as you were once, overgrown with rushes,
Idling with a reflected cloud, for my sake
Whom your shore no longer touches.
Your girl was always real to me.
Her bones lie in a city by the sea.
Everything occurs too normally.
A unique love simply wears away.
Girl, hey, girl, we repose in an abyss.
The base of a skull, a rib, a pelvis,
Is it you? me? We are more than this.
No clock counts hours and years for us.
How could a creature, ephemeral, eternal,
Measure for me necessity and fate?
You are locked with me in a letter-crystal.
No matter that you're not a living maid.
-
-
Thank You
That is a beautiful poem, one that I hadn't read.
My lake sprang to mind when I read the contest rules. I lived in the mountains for the skiing and during summer, sailed on the new lakes, just made for a hydro-electric and irrigation scheme. Some of the houses and villages had been moved before the dams filled, and others had been abandoned.
I would sail a Hobie Cat out into the lake and drift, looking down into the drowned world, separated from it by a skin. Something about leaving the net up on the tennis court, as the water came, got to me.
So I see poetry as a high alpine lake, infinitely refreshing and timeless, where we can see into the other world but not yet fully participate.
Thank you for reading and commenting.
-
Adding your comment:
1 - 7 of 7
