Oceans of Silver Cracks (REVISED)

[underthewronghat]

The eyes can sea

My eyes glistening like polished silverware. 

The ocean they hold.

Being held fast by a blockade of dams. 

Slowly crack by crack it falls into shambles. 

Bringing down with it heavenly fire, mermaid tears, and the kindness of elves. 

Not a drop of water flows. 

Only words on a page escape these many fissures.

What happens now I ask. 

I see nothing more than a face that shows no emotion,

but contains the sea where they all dwell.

Howdy QV,

I'm going to push the boundaries of mild critique here, which I am loathe to do, but I love the idea that you hand us: how emotional cracks lead to a breakdown --and words come out.

Now it's probably "heavy critique" to suggest a complex re-write where the physical act of crying is enacted in the typography and cadence of the poem.  That sounds more like a challenge for ee cummings or someone.  I'm not going to ask you to wrestle with the words on that stage.

BUT...  I think you should stretch it a little here.  You've given yourself some real room to work.  I mean you can be downright psychedelic, if the words are sort of breaking out --through your wits, through your composure.

Starting with a public setting could add some pressure to the speaker's desire to hold back emotions.  That would let you start with a different tone, then give it some stress, then just open up...  ...We'd get to really feel the cracks, and the break...  when you get to the disconnected moment at the end, I'd just show it.  Have the words really taking off into crazy-land, while showing that the speaker is doing something mundane --maybe folding laundry or something.

I'd even mess with the left mar--  heck, maybe don't let any of the lines start on the same margin.  
Make a perfectly rhymed stanza, then break it apart so that the rhymes are taken way out of rhythm.
Get some emotional words in there.  I hate using profanity in poems, as they tend to overpower the tone, but I might try one here.
Have some fun.  Throw in a brand name, misspell a large and annoying word like "resplonsibility,"  over-punctuate a sentence, let it out!

Because I think you should let things go further astray, I disagree with the others --I like this bouncy imagery you get to with "heavenly fire, mermaid tears, and the kindness of elves."  You get some mythology jumping in, I mean you're halfway down the rabbit hole.  This is a good start.  If you do try to take this a little further into Wonderland, I think you should try it two ways:

1 include a few overt lines where you spell out that this is a break down, and you can't cry, but words are coming out.
2 try it without those lines, and see if you like it better.  ==> not as easy to pull off, but sometimes awesome.

--Cheers!