The only who can reach me is the storm
While wild hair will mask my eyes from sight
On briny edge, a coiling cloak sans form
Whips ‘round like a lash, with salty bite
Deep silence is the language of my soul
And silence reigns while winds upbraid the shore
The aching ocean heaves and screams and rolls
Yet stillness shapes the center of its roar
A vigil for the ancient night I keep
For it stays fixéd company for me
When darkness is the only balm I seek
For darkness, my unyielding enemy
The solitude that heals may also kill
When one is forced too often to be still.
Author notes
"Sans" (line 3) is the french word for "without."
I know it's not in perfect iambic pentameter, but poems can get lulling and boring if they're perfectly metered.
It's an odd thing, but when I'm lonely I almost prefer to be alone. The company of others who aren't the ones I miss abrades my heart far more than silent solitude.
Comments? Questions? Concerns? Jokes?
Comments
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Very nice ending couplet, with ponderable content.
I get a little lost with the number of characters--the protagonist [me], the personified storm [who can touch me] and the personified wind [upbraiding the shore] and the personified ocean [aching, screams] and the personified darkness [my unyeilding enemy] and the personified solitude [that heals].
Excellent imagery, particularly in the first two stanzas.
Perhaps a bit more explanation Stz2 L4..how are screams and roars shaped by stillness? L2, perhaps "my silence reigns while winds..."? L4, mayhap, "a kindred stillness echoes in its roar"??
S3--note a contradiction between darkness being a "balm" and an "enemy," not a common combination.
S1 L1, consider other possibilities for "touch". I get a sense you are indicating one who can 'equal' or 'speak' as a peer, or 'reach' ... rather than simply 'touch'.
I particularly enjoyed your descriptive word choices.
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Thank you! I do like "reach" better for line 1. It holds more of the meaning I was 'reach'ing for, ha ha, ha ha. Though I personified a lot of things, the key still is that the speaker is alone. Even if she's observing the sea, the storm, and the wind, she's still the only living thing there.
I don't know if this will make sense, but S2 L4 is something...it's an odd experience. Since it's first person, we're seeing what this lonely person is thinking and feeling and observing. Have you ever been so depressed or absorbed in a problem that you slip out of the world? You can be in the middle of a teeming, noisy crowd, but all you hear is a dim murmur? The speaker's so encased by her loneliness that, though she registers the noise and violence of the storm, all she can see is her silent solitude.
Thank you, your comments always help me to see my poems more objectively!
I hope you're having a better day.
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Yes, I know the roaring of internal deluge can entirely submerge full perception of any outside tempest.
Sometimes it's almost as if the impersonal thundering of an external storm is the purest sympathy, as it scours at pain, even numbs the heart that too long has dwelt on a wound...it can be a cleansing and refreshing experience, no? -
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Exactly! You expressed it so much better than I did! You're AMAZING, Mama-face.
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