The Goldfish (edit 2)

[tomoffing]

In this extended metaphor you anthropomorphize a "Goldfish", but for the metaphor to work it has to be goldfish things that represent human things. You cannot write such things as "from a child's journey of life and death discovery", because the speaker is a goldfish and not a child.
I think the first three stanzas would work better if written in present tense, as it would give it more of a sense of immediacy.

Overall the metaphor fails for two reasons, it does not follow an apprehensible chronology, and it goes beyond what a goldfish is. I do think it is a worthy idea, and should be pursued.

Dale

Thanks for the crit as always Dale.

Good call on the first 3 stanzas. The first draft of this was in the present and I will revert to that and resolve the chronology.

Re the human versus goldfish attributes, is the problem here with the specific example you mentioned (line 3 & 4) or the fact that I'm giving the goldfish a human voice throughout?
In those lines, the goldfish is referring to itself as flotsam from a child's journey, not as a child itself.
Does this simply lack clarity or am I missing something wider, ie that a goldfish could not understand said journey and therefore the metaphor fails?

Thanks again, t

---

This is not bad, though a goldfish is incapable of human speech. Just being facetious with you though.

Sometimes, I'd drift
on eddies of my own
unknown making; flotsam
from a child's journey
of life and death discovery. -- The way it's written, I read death discovery as one phrase which seems to be an important moment of epiphany in a child's life.
Jettisoned.

Sometimes, I'd tail-flick
into the perpetual pipeline
that returns me unaware
to my immutable aqueous present.
Recycled.

Mostly I stared out
into the refracted, convex,
ever-expanding universe
through a dim ochre
upside-down shadow of myself.
Reflective.

Once, I was rolled
by a seismic concussion.
Blindsided, agape,
flapping, tapering, gasping
at overwhelming clarity.
Exposed.

But I was scooped and saved -- Maybe a comma after But. There is also that old maxim that you should never start a sentence with but that you may want to consider.
by a teacup drowning,
sieved, flipped and sluiced
back into my cold clouded cyclical
inescapable bowl;
Irreversible. -- I'm not sure irreversible can stand alone as an independent article.

To me, I see a goldfish in a bowl as a piece of furniture in someone's house. Perhaps when I owned one I formed a small attachment to it as a pet, but I didn't think much about it. However, from the viewpoint of the fish an incidence of knocking its bowl would be quite dramatic!

Thanks brownie,
Noted and agreed on "but", originally stanzas 4 & 5 ran into one another. I'll work to remove that.
And also agreed on irreversible. I was unhappy with this but left in for consistency of structure. It adds nothing really so I think I'll omit it.

Thanks a lot, t