Angels and Robins

It's sort of a poem about a song about a person. She's off somewhere being amazing.

Before you walked off into the ocean to play catch with the backrush,

before the months of long comfortable radio silence and stagnant static IPs,

before the summer of Hummingbird and goodbye lessons,

I penned a half written song dedicated to prescience.

The melody was made to look forward.

The lyrics were sung in slow dance.

It goes like this. [Major lift]

I’ve been preparing for a dream I always fall asleep to.

Where distance is closed and gravity is optional.

Where we can stand brazen beneath an ocean

that won’t even whisper to spoil a memory.

You can show me all of its secrets

and I promise not to tell anyone

because it’s hard to talk underwater.

[Suspend]

I can just move with you.

When the current becomes now

and you passively change all of the grey areas into lightshows.

You are riptide motion under serenades

laying shatter proof and full of breath.

I make stationary look like a rest between notes

before a cadence that just never seems to happen.

[Cadence]

I can’t help it if my hands shake.

I can’t prove that I don’t get scared.

My flaws are buoyant.

I am not immune to the uprush.

I just thought that maybe

if I could spark a light from my spine tower,

with my foghorns bellowing this slow dance,

you might come back from the waves,

for just a moment

and show me how not to get swept away.

And I will try.

I have to.

I want to prepare for a dream,

I always wake up to.

I hope the stars light up enough

to read the North between my knuckles

telling me I haven’t hit home yet.

Not even close.

[Ritenuto]

But I’m getting there.

My nostalgia still has a crush on you.

I still haven’t properly learned goodbye.

So until then,

you can find me keeping the coast clear,

slow strum style,

with a half written song dedicated to prescience.

Go.

The horizon is shimmering

and you are brilliant.

I’ll be here.

[Fade]

Author's Note

I wrote a song with the same title five years ago for a girl named Sea. Some years ago she moved to Wales to study Maritime Archaeology. I know she reads my poetry sometimes, so I was nervous about posting this because I'm that kind of dude. Consider this a message in a bottle; Consider this driftwood.

Reviews

[Kim]

This is beautiful and anyone would be lucky to have this written about them. I really love the way you string words unexpectedly together to make these unique and gorgeous phrases. I love the interjections in the song (you obviously really know music!) -- my only question/suggestion concerns the first interjection (Major Lift). It seems inconsistent to have it on the line instead of by itself like the others. You could play around with it and see what you like better (where it is or separated like the others). My only other criticism is that it's a bit unclear what the title means in terms of the "robins" part. I could have just missed something or maybe it only means something to you (which is totally fine - this is poetry after all), but if you want that part of the title to be clear, you might want to add/edit something in the poem to facilitate that. Really, though, it's a beautiful piece of work and I really love it.

[GunMetal]

Thank you =) I appreciate this a lot.
The first interjection is actually a nod to Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. But it's also there like that because if I was to read this poem with music, this would be about where the music comes in.
The title of this poem is the same name of the song I wrote about her when I was 18. The "Robins" part comes from how my friends at the time had animal related nicknames, sort of like an inside joke. The "Angels" part comes from me being 18 and bad at metaphors =P

[Kim]

I had a feeling that it was a nod to Hallelujah - it made me think of it right away. My only question was its placement. I like its existence very much. Glad I could be helpful! :)

[Amelie]

I've read this a couple of weeks ago but I read it again just now to review. It didn't feel the same as the first time I've read it.I'd like to think that I have empathy towards this poem more than the average reader coz of the little things I knew of, and I think thats really cool. Forgive me if the next things I'll be babbling involved film again. This swooning piece is a brilliant contemporary embodiment of Romanticism. The feeling that spurred in between the lines, which is a concoction of sheer delight, melancholy and nostalgia was a melody, orchestrating a certain consciousness I felt when I watched the film, Gone with the Wind. It was yet the greatest epic- romance film in the history of American cinema. The feeling escalates, suspends, sustains, and fades to a memorable denouement that brings coziness to the mind. But the film's ending contrasts to yours. It was tragic and yours emitted a sense of hope that left me smiling stupidly in front of my marketing chart and half opened cookie bag.

[Amelie]

Wait,about the last thing I said. nah it wasn't hope. I was quite overwhelmed with the pretty surface and I failed to acknowledge the crux. It rather emitted a bittersweet sense of surrender and yearning,but nevertheless a peaceful one. but yeah, hope could be somewhere in there.

[To be scene To be heard..]

wow im so speechles! this is jsut so amazing

[Johnny Joe]

good stuff great poem

[CHRIS ANDES]

no need to be nervous with this kind of writing
definitely she'll like this
=]
every line can make a tear fall

[Robbie~xoxo~]

This is beautiful... your lyrics have a surreal beauty that touches the heart. I think this would be an awesome ballad. Very Romantic, and bittersweet. Lovely!

"I’ve been preparing for a dream I always fall asleep to.
Where distance is closed and gravity is optional.
Where we can stand brazen beneath an ocean
that won’t even whisper to spoil a memory.
You can show me all of its secrets"~ Love this!

[afra]

awesome ......i got lost in it .....keep writing

[writingurl14]

Awasome poem

[Corset]

this poem is incredible but it's very confusing, I can't tell if he wants to run off with the north or the sea or to whom the sea was named, or to whom the letter is addressed, because the title seems to be addressing the north about the angel and robins and the dream of a life with a northern sea, but it sounds like he's running off with the north because the sea is off on an adventure? But he wants the sea to wait for him? I wish I understood it better, but the words and the metaphors are so beautiful.

[S. Michael Long]

well if she has not already read this, i hope she does.. its brilliant.

[G!o]

Absolutely awesome and brilliant poem. Now this is flawless. Great writing.