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Cast Away
Island sunset, tropical illusion.
Love is a champagne cocktail:
Exquisite rhapsody in regret. Only one
Xeranthemum kiss lingers
In perpetuity ' all that's left. Then burning
Silence; lips like dry petals
Twitching in the breeze; now
Everything you held back is gone.
All you had to do was
Utter those three words.
Moonlight defies the night sky,
Illuminates your mistake
Like poorly buried pirate silver.
I never failed to see your smiles,
Expertly suppressed ' always
Understood those covert glances.
Did you never think to
Utter those three words?
The opportunity came and went a million times;
Every time I looked at you, hoping,
Maybe too much, that you would
Place your trust in my hands, open your heart to me.
Sacrifice your pride and decide it's now or never'
Love is a champagne cocktail:
All fizz, false colour and a bad hangover.
Perhaps you couldn't express such
Oceanic depth in simple words '
So hard to find the courage, risk
Stumbling or rejection. Didn't you know
I whispered you as my one-candle wish, made myself
Believe in destiny just because
I wanted you so much?
Love, I tasted you in my dreams,
I smelled you on my clothes,
Touched your face in my mirror,
Every day.
Death is not for the faint hearted. You dived in.
Utter those three words?
Now it's never.
Existence is a sinking ship. You were my desert
Island salvation.
Love is a champagne cocktail:
Exquisite rhapsody in regret.
«Il existe, au milieu du temps, la possibilité d'une île.» (Michel Houellebecq)
***still working on this - detailed comments where possible, please***
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That second stanza. Whew! That's a poem right there. A masterwork.
Perhaps I grow jaded, but hearing of the three words three times is more than enough. Once clearly, then sideways references or subtle allusions would have done it ... it's true, I started hearing those deadly repetitions that beginners think is poetry, although making such an comparison with your work would be far from accurate.
I think I dreamed an painting of this poem last week ... two boats, a orange-yellow wash, skulls in the poorly furled sheets, a little crazy man on the piano, a castaway on a raft, and the woman with a hook ready. Any of this fit your behind-the-poem? So, from a male paranoia, the woman is the Siren.
A great poem. Can it be shortened? |
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Comment by: costa - 2007-08-31 06:32
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WOW!
Now - it's as clear as an island of existance in the stream. :)
*applause*
That really is VERY well done, Cheryl. Sincerely.
A standing ovation here.
*applause*
Costa. |
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| o my god!!! |
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Comment by: costa - 2007-08-18 06:37
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Cast Away ?? throw away, also alludes to being a cast-away on an island ?? isolated. The speaker is isolated because of a lovers unreturned affections. Thus, a conflict between the speaker and the subject exists, waiting for the utterance of the three words that will never come.
The connection to the final phrase (the island in time ?? sanctuary; set apart from the world, from the stream) is very well realised (IMHO) throughout the piece. May be alluding to death or perhaps psychological removal from humanity/life in the ultimate and penultimate stanza.
I like the metaphor of the flower in the first stanza, I (IMHO) believe it works particularly well:
Xeranthemum ?? one of the prettiest everlasting flowers, growing wild in Southern Europe. Very popular for drying ?? nice illumination of the one lingering kiss. What a wonderful metaphor the speaker has used: the last lingering kiss, drying lips // the silvery, perpetual flower used for drying. Neat. That whole stanza is superb.
Ummm?IMHO, the stanza beginning with ??Moonlight defies??? didn??t quite have the same impact: I found it a little confusing. I am, however, finding quite a lot of things confusing atm, so it??s probably best to wait for someone better equipped than me to comment on this one ?? and I have no real suggestions. I wasn??t sure how the moonlight would defy the night sky, for example, but I understood the connection being made between the buried treasure and the cast-away/ocean theme. :)
I love the partial(?) refrain between the main stanza.
(Ummm?especially the use of ???champagne?rhapsody in regret?? Nice line. Well, I liked it, anyway. IMHO Champagne and her sickly cocktails are evil incarnate that should be placed in lead, crucifix encrusted boxes and jettisoned at sea (long, depraved story ?? best not to ask) so those lines really worked for me.)
To get a bit subjective to round up ?? I liked it. Loved the first refrain and the first stanza, really liked the closing lines, kind of fell out of the poem a bit with the ??Moonlight defies?? stanza.
But that??s my humble opinion, to be taken with a grain of salt. And no champagne.
:)
Best wishes
Costa |
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Comment by: jjsmith - 2007-08-18 03:42
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this was worth it
for that phrase
now it's never
surely someone
must have used that before?
wow |
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