Surfacing

Love poem attempt 3,395

I am vulgar, I am rotting
a corpse left under water
senseless and sightlessly waiting
while flesh drips off of shattered bones,
Fish feast upon the stale body.
Eyes stare to a sea of horror
escaped souls in dirty water
silence fuels my contemplation
about a life that I had lived
Particles of flesh escape me
evacuating a lost cause
A Shadow lurks within the depths
A cloud of forgotten feeling
with the desire to live again
Emotion erased arises
My scaly skin exposed to air
Wounds fester from vitality
and I wish to disentagrate
or dissolve in evil tides
The air burns in my weakened lungs
and I had yet to see a face
that made the pain of revival
a burden fit for me to bear
Before I could retreat again
I learned to love the burning sun
and the Shadows it cast for me.

Author's Note

I tried to keep 9 syllables a line, but I might have messed up.

Reviews

[Shards]

I really enjoyed this
there's more here than meets the eyes at first
like all the best forms of art this works well after a few reads to sincerely absorb everything being said
you slap the senses with your stark and vivdly intelligent lines
and I absolutely loved the ending
the last two lines were the clincher for me

"I learned to love the burning sun
and the Shadows it cast for me."

amazing
spoke straight to me

[Deder Bonner]

Great imagery! The fourth line of "flesh drips off the bone" was amazing especially considering everything was underwater - it gave the possibilities of flesh separating and either drifting to the surface or sinking deeper to the bottom. It left the mind swimming with lots of vivid possibilities.

I am curious as to the attempt to keep 9 syllables in a line (though I counted 8 in most of them); was it a whim or were you looking to make it more "readable"? (i.e. working with the 'meter', or how it flows as its being read)

If that was the case, I would suggest (for future poems; this one is great as it stands) you play around with where the emphasized syllables fall (stressed vs unstressed). For example, the word Hyphen (HI-fen) has a different emphasis then the word cadet (kuh-DET) (if you want to learn more about those devices, google any of the following words: "iamb", "trochee", "spondee", "pyrric" - there's others, but those are the two syllable ones). To make a line flow easier, you could toy around with the accent-nonaccent pattern for each syllable pair (called a "foot") so that it remained uniform: a "DUH duh-DUH duh-DUH duh-DUH" effect. I hope I explained that well; you can send me a message if you want me to explain more or use Google. Overall, I wouldn't sweat the syllable patterns too much if it's frustrating; the poem came across quite nicely.

I think what I enjoy the most was the fact that the poem had depth to it. The more times I read it, the more I got from it (it's like Shrek's onion so-to-speak =D ). It really did a fantastic job of flawlessly combining several themes and transitioning between them very nicely: from the 'lost cause' to the hopeful 'Shadow' to the 'burden' of living, you did a great job.

You have an eye for figurative language. I know you said that this was one of your infrequent attempts, but you should definitely try your hand at it more often. You've produced a great piece. Keep up the good work.