This Poem was Submitted By: Mark Andrew Hislop On Date: 2004-04-21 08:19:55 . . . Click Here To Mail this Poem to a Friend!

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The waking tide

Trains below our bed report the dayrise. With a breeze your room’s bright curtain  Has unsashed the dawn. Oh, go dark again, day, return, plunge me  Into night’s bright shadowland, Unless some augury can foretell A happier life than this. Soft, too hard a word for your full softness, You rest and turn, your tide of breath  A balm and tincture clear To wash me clean in your deep soul’s  Sweet longing. I watch you now, knowing all your desire. My elusive eyes find a whisper-- Love-- Once lost between impossible and never. No silk sheet, no cloud Drawn to keep the countless eyes of night From earth's modest breasts, Can conceal the enervating hour Of this couple here in peace.
Copyright © April 2004 Mark Andrew Hislop

This Poem was Critiqued By: G. Donald Cribbs On Date: 2004-05-01 08:56:16
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.60526
Mark, Wow, didn't know you had it in you! This is great, possibly my favorite poem by you. The words flow nicely and create a delicate mood full of passion and weight. Nothing like a lover to bring out the best in you. I found it interesting that you look for a "life better than this" and yet you are talking about a lover here. Perhaps it's not all paradise? A complicated and difficult feeling to express in poetry, yet you do so well here. Nicely woven together, man. Warm regards, Don

This Poem was Critiqued By: Elaine Marie Phalen On Date: 2004-04-25 22:19:03
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
Such lovely language here, Mark! In S1, images such as "unsashed the dawn" and the oxymoronic "night's bright shadowland" introduce us to a poem of considerable power and beauty. The speaker's concern with night's end (L4) reminds me of Juliet on her wedding night, who desperately seeks to have the darkness linger so she can be with Romeo but an hour longer. However, the situation in this poem is one of quiet joy, not impending despair. Soft, too hard a word for your full softness, You rest and turn, your tide of breath .... yes, perfect! A balm and tincture clear ................ very nice!! To wash me clean in your deep soul’s Sweet longing. You make excellent use of consonant combinations here - very soft ones, like s/f/th, edged with the sharper c/t. The first three lines are especially fresh and striking; the last two are a bit more sentimental. I'm wondering if there's a metaphor that would work in place of "soul's sweet longing" since you're speaking of being washed "clean" in it. "Soul's deep currents", perhaps? It would pick up the water imagery of "tide of breath" used earlier. Your call, of course! No silk sheet, no cloud Drawn to keep the countless eyes of night From earth's modest breasts, This is a most wonderful passage. The couple on the train are being juxtaposed with a much wider setting, so the earth and sky restate the idea of the humans, peering through their sleeping-car window at the predawn "enervating hour". The dreamlike suspension of energy will cease with day. But the poet places us "in the moment", between the depths of sound sleep and the first rays of morning. It is fitting that the final word is "peace". Very nicely done, indeed. Brenda
This Poem was Critiqued By: Mark Steven Scheffer On Date: 2004-04-22 13:48:32
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.00000
Mark, I'd say we're both Romantics, with the capital R. Big, fat egotists you and I. I think the esteemed Harold Bloom, that great defender of Romanticism, would love our psyches, if not our poetry. :) I'd also say we pursue the same kind of "music." Simplicity, but wrapped up in Elizabethan fur. Anyway, as to the first stanza. Some nice music there, but i don't like "augury." I'd like to attach an adjective there to "freshen" it up a bit, like take that "bright" from the preceding line. God forbid what the current Gods of poetry would pronounce as to the insertion of an ADDITIONAL adjective. But you know what they can do, with their neat rules of order. Love the Elizabethan music of "countless eyes of night / From earth's modest breasts." I've noticed you're signing off your critiques "with love" or whatever. Are you gonna leave this rat alone in the bottom of the barrel? Mark
This Poem was Critiqued By: Wayne R. Leach On Date: 2004-04-21 19:51:48
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.65517
Mark, truly enjoyable poem of love [as I read it]. The waking is such a rude thing when the night and darkness is so comfortable when within each other's recaptured arms of love. I see almost nothing I could suggest. Maybe centering the whispered and renewed "--love--" in its line, possibly in parentheses, to soften and separate it even more, singling it out to reaffirm its (whisper) shhhh. Just a thought. Beautiful job. Peace. Wayne
This Poem was Critiqued By: Thomas Edward Wright On Date: 2004-04-21 09:32:34
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.24528
Mark- Bravo. An expansion of the Haiku. Tremendous. I checked. You were here before. Welcome back. Stay. When my son gets to Australia, see to it that he learns the language. tom
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