Boardwalks (edit #4.1)

[ChristopherSea]

Drift along the shoreline's ghost
paths; count the feet that rutted
the splintered gray slats,
the bicycles pedaled
as mornings' rolling light set fire
to the curves of early tides.

Hear the dogs' yap and pant
bursting through their freedom run;
the murmur of old friends
that fill long days as the horizon
glitters before them, reflected
in storefronts (now shuttered) behind.

Absorb the empty spaces
where the lucky lived; buried
lawns scattered with debris
and what were memories
still wait (twelve months shredded)
for their autumn rakes.


I'm not sure I'm settled on this. Any suggestions, particularly on punctuation changes, are of course welcomed. I keep adding the "the"s then cutting them again. Help please.

Good Morning Ella. Another of your hurricane pieces, nice! I think you can dispense with all the ‘the’s’ if you want to, there are too many. There's something with those plurals that is off. Those semicolons are not really needed; commas should serve those connected observations. Those parenthetical thoughts can easily be incorporated into their respective lines and not disrupt the flow as much as they do. Collectively, those edits would yield:

Drift along shoreline ghost
paths, counting feet that rutted
splintered gray slats
which bicycles pedaled
as morning’s rolling light set fire
to the curves of early tides.

Hear dogs' yap and pant
bursting through their freedom run,
murmurs of old friends
that fill long days as horizons
glitter before them, once reflected
in storefronts now shuttered.

Absorb empty spaces
where lucky ones lived; buried
lawns scattered with year-old debris
and shredded memories
await their autumn rakes.

A very quick run through! Take a look and see what you think. Cheers./Chris