Fond of You

[tectak]

I'm sneaking back in here. Looks like the same good site it was last year. Sharing my first serious attempt at rhyming. I could never manage to rhyme without force and unnaturalness. But it seems if done right, the thing actually starts flowing and has a momentum that pulls the reader through. That's pretty special, but I'm not sure I will manage it. Thanks for any feedback.
A few questions I have:
Is anything unclear?
What is the measure of interest to you?
Does it end too soon?

Hi danny,
notwithstanding your Damascus moment vis a vis rhyming, you do yourself no favours by doubling you couplets  into an ABCBDEFE... scheme. Just as an exercise, no changes:

Evening warmth slips over your face as you turn toward the sun.A
Out of many on the rocky shore you seem the calmest one.A
I've never seen anything so gently touched by wind,B
parting bangs not stuck with salt or still wet from your swim;B
never such carefulness between gleaming lumps of stone C
as your naked feet step in line through a gliding cotton foam. C

Now it is just meter/emphases but with longer lines you have more "space" per line to correct things. So:

Evening warmth slips over your face as you turn toward the sun (15 syllables, but note the emphases)
Out of many all who walk on the rocky shore you seem the calmest one. (15 now. was 16)
I'veNo one that I ever saw anything was so gently touched by the wind(15 was 13,and emphases are close. The repeat of "one" is bad. Your poem. No more of this.)

[b]Fond of You
Evening warmth slips over your face
as you turn toward the sun.
Out of many on the rocky shore
you seem the calmest one.
I've never seen anything
so gently touched by wind,
parting bangs not stuck with salt ...a parting bang? Sheesh , you ARE a fast one...I just stammer, "see yah" What the hell does this mean?
or still wet from your swim; This is getting to the topple over point. Sticking commas and semicolons in to a "sentence" cantilevers the thing out past its own feet. I think a period after "swim" is required.
never such carefulness between
gleaming lumps of stone
as your naked feet step in line
through a gliding cotton foam. The image is fortunately more obvious than the syntax. You need to expand on the "never" because what you fail to say but hope to mean is " (I have) never seen such careful steps as I saw that day when you walked bare-footed through the shallow, swirling water...now and then uncovering gleaming rocks which you took great care to avoid." Even if you left the semicolon in place after "swim" you would still have a fragment to follow.  Read it out loud

Your eyes almost return Unfortunate avoidance (subconsciously?) of a cliche...but  whilst "Your gaze returned" works, I think that "Your eyes returned" implies "Not known at this address".
to the step you had in mind,
but hang in space for a moment before
buoyantly rising to mine. buoyantly. Hmmm. Hanging in space/floating in a fluid. No.
I've never felt such fondness These next three lines are a car crash. It is the "...never felt such fondness", a feeling...juxtaposed with "...as in seeing", an action. You need to tie in the abstractions so that you say " I have never felt such fondness (as I felt) for you when I saw your half-wet (pervert figure. Frankly, this is sterile ). The fondness is probably something else entirely and you don't fool me. Say what you mean...where is the PASSION, LUST and HONESTY. Fondness...sheesh.
as in seeing your half-wet figure "as in seeing your half-wet figure forget about adventure"? What meaneth this. A forgetful figure....huh? This is Serious
forget
about adventure.

Some neat imaginings with well visualised markers. The syntax is probably less important than the rhyme, to you, in this one...but do try to multi-task. If you cannot whilst writing, and I cannot, then put it all to bed in the pre-post edit.
Best,
tectak[/b]