Oceans of Silver Cracks (REVISED)

[Queerventions]

FIRST EDIT:

Oceans of Silver Cracks

3am

In my bedroom

Sitting at my desk

Typing words on my computer

The overhead lamp

Shinning pale above my head

Illuminating my dark curls

Like bioluminescent phytoplankton

My eyes glisten like polished silver

Holding back oceans with dams of cement

Slowly, crack by crack, it falls

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

I feel the burning of salt water

Creep from my cornea

But the water will not flow

More words wash out of my fingers

Onto pages of digital records

I stop

Stare blankly at the screen

The light pouring so angular on the screen I can see my reflection

I look upon a face with no emotion

A face holding back oceans

Oceans that contain emotions

Emotions known and yet to be discovered

I can see a face that has been to the deepest depths

Depths of Hell

Depths of the Sea

Depths of Despair

I look down at my wireless keyboard 

Where my hands stopped making words

"What now" I ask

Cracks begin to fill with silver

Oceans recede

Fire returns to Heaven

Mermaids dry their tears

Elves turn away.

And the words do not return

ORIGINAL:

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.

[billy]

hi qv,
for me the title could do more, while it's almost clever it doesn't quite make it. a suggestion would be something along the lines of:
the eyes are seas. erase any words or phrases that add nothing. words like being, and slowly, and [i ask] and [nothing more than ] if you can use a non [ing] word do so.

The eyes can sea

My eyes glistening like polished silverware. [glisten] nice attempt at imagery
The ocean they hold. would oceans work better? also think about mixed images, can polished silverware be connected to the ocean visually?
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.

[REW]

I like the idea of the glistening eyes being compared to ocean. I think it is a concept that can be revized though. In my mind I like the idea of polished spoons holding oceans, or something to that effect. I like the glistening silverware, but I don't think it is readily conected to the ocean . For me something more specific, as in spoons could work better. I do not care for the line, " the ocean they hold." I think it needs to be rephrase to a more conventional construction: they hold oceans.

As for the poem as a whole, I liked it and was impressed that the concept of not showing emotion was conveyed so freshly in my opinion. The issues I could see were in the beginning as pointed out.

I also agree with Billy that the title could use sprucing. My suggestion is Eye Sea. The reason I don't like the title is because it doesn't fit with the content of the poem, unless you mean eyes can see better when not full of tears. In that case I suggest spelling sea see instead.

[ellajam]

Hi. QV, I think you've really got something going here. IMO all the endstops don't help. Some notes below.

The eyes can sea

My eyes glistening like polished silverware. I'd use glisten and possibly drop the "ware", it's an image that doesn't really lead any where while just "silver" leaves it open for me but still has that twinkle.
The ocean they hold. You might drop the period and the "being" below.
Being held fast by a blockade of dams.
Slowly crack by crack it falls into shambles. comma instead of period.
Bringing down with it heavenly fire, mermaid tears, and the kindness of elves. I love "the kindness of elves".
Not a drop of water flows. Again, comma instead of period.
Only words on a page escape these many fissures.
What happens now I ask. Either comma after "now" or, my preference, drop "I ask".
I see nothing more than a face that shows no emotion, Is this "emotions" to go with the "they" below?
but contains the sea where they all dwell.

I seconf Casey's suggestiong of Eye Sea. I hope this helps.Thanks for the read.

[Jae Mc Donnell]

The eyes can sea

My eyes glistening like polished silverware. If you want to link this to the next line use a semi-colon, the way you have them make them seem detached 

The ocean they hold. Comma, held back by "   "

Being held fast by a blockade of dams. 

Slowly crack by crack it falls into shambles. Maybe a comma after slowly to give pause. And what falls into shambles?

Bringing down with it heavenly fire, mermaid tears, and the kindness of elves. It could be just me but this I don't really get. Maybe revise.

Not a drop of water flows. detached If the dam (which I'm presuming cracked) should the ocean not flow? 

Only words on a page escape these many fissures. IF it fell into shambles there would be no 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.

I haven't seen any other replies so my apologies if I am repeating anything already mentioned.

I get the overall goal of the piece but for me it has quite a few issues. I hope this is helpful. And thanks for the read.

[Achebe]

The eyes can sea

My eyes glistening like polished silverware.     

The ocean they hold.     better to use a simile rather than a metaphor here to avoid dissonance with the silverware simile above eg. My tears are like oceans  held back by dams / til they crack

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. this line doesn't do anything for me. Heavenly fire and  mermaid tears as metaphors for ocean water themselves metaphors for tears is stretching things too far

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.

[homer1950]

The eyes can sea

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.

Hi Q,

There has been much said already on your opening lines. My thoughts are on your closing.

You could drop the word many, I think it would make the line more concise.

Also "I ask" is not really needed since we know it is a first person poem. 

You might consider this: 

I see nothing more than a face "without" emotion,

"Its contents" the sea where they all dwell.

Thanks for posting this very imaginative 
Homer

[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!

[Queerventions]

Okay, My first edit it posted. Thank you for understanding my feelings and providing the best response I could hoped for. Let me know if this was a direction you suggested I turn to. Quite frankly, I really enjoyed rewriting it this way and I think it's taken on a new shape. What are your thoughts?

[underthewronghat]

Okay, My first edit it posted. Thank you for understanding my feelings and providing the best response I could hoped for. Let me know if this was a direction you suggested I turn to. Quite frankly, I really enjoyed rewriting it this way and I think it's taken on a new shape. What are your thoughts?

Howdy QV

Okay, I'm coming back to this.  I think you stretched the form out --it may be a little long now for what it is.  It's a moment of emotion, sleeplessness, a breakdown, a giving up on sleep, and giving in to the keyboard.

In the original, I liked the buildup of line-lengths heading into the "heavenly fire."  That created some pressure.  We are missing a sense of previous events, however, an antecedent to this insomnia.  Now we may not need the previous events mentioned explicitly, maybe just a setting.  Maybe we just need a description of you doing something while being completely preoccupied with something else (a cause for the buildup).  This description of the speaker at the computer is simple enough, but there's no hint in there.  It's too innocuous, and we wonder why it's included.  Let this intro get interrupted a little with some odd, perhaps emotional, actions or thoughts.  To that extent, I like the phytoplankton, which seems stray, but serves to depart from just sitting in front of the computer.  Now it's a little undersea.  I'd push toward that, so that when you get to "heavenly fire" the line lengths are increasing, and the water imagery is starting to overpower.  This is more what I mean by "stretching things out."  Stretch the imagery, the surreality, until you get to the break.  I like that you are explicit about the result --you show that there are no tears, just words typed into the computer.

The new edit also has some interesting possibilities with repetition.  Plath does this very well, and for my money, it works best after the break (as you have it).  You can be repetitive, however, while surprising us.

Depths of Hell
Depths of the Sea
The blood of the Sea

When you get to the more overpowering repetition, I think you correctly keep the lines short.  It really marks a breakdown in language, an inability to express something with words where pounding fists or sobbing might make more sense.  Robert Frost does it:

"and miles to go before I sleep,
and miles to go before I sleep."

Plath's poem "Daddy" really hammers out her emotion with heavy rhyme, repetition, and short lines.

You get something really spinning with screen, emotion, face, ocean...  I think you need to fiddle with those a little more. Less AABB, more ABCCACBB crazy...  Also, with those repetitions, you're gluing them together with less active verbs, "holding," "containing," "look."  Go for some movement there: "biting," "lip-syncing," "selling," "diving."  Get some psychedelic action going in the ocean there.  Plus the enjambment tends to sound more severe when there are action verbs.

I'm not sure if you need a complete denouement.  This doesn't seem to be a poem about the mermaids going away, or the words drying up.  I think if you're going to see the rocket launch, write about the launch, and not so much about what happens when that excitement is over.  Cheers for giving it another go.  Keep on writing!  :-)

[Achebe]

QV - I liked S1 in particular. The bioluminescent plankton bit was a great image, bringing to mind the picture of a head of black hair with a light shone on it.

[Cousin Kil]

[quote='Queerventions' pid='210404' dateline='1462572227']

FIRST EDIT:

Oceans of Silver Cracks

3am

In my bedroom

Sitting at my desk

Typing words on my computer

The overhead lamp

Shinning pale above my head

shining.

Illuminating my dark curls

Like bioluminescent phytoplankton

I like this line.

My eyes glisten like polished silver

Holding back oceans with dams of cement

Slowly, crack by crack, it falls

Falls or fails? Maybe pick a more descriptive verb. Splits. Drips. I don't know.

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

Hmm where did these come from? To me these references have no poignance. Then again, this is a personal moment. I just don't connect with it. But I kind of don't mind the mermaid tears. Just where are they coming from. I guess the character himself/herself is being equated to a mermaid.

I feel the burning of salt water

Creep from my cornea

But the water will not flow

More words wash out of my fingers

Onto pages of digital records

"Digital records" feels like a forced observation to me that hasn't much merit in its odd phrasing. But it's not hard to understand what you're referring to. It's just not a line I enjoy.

I stop

Stare blankly at the screen

The light pouring so angular on the screen I can see my reflection

I look upon a face with no emotion

A face holding back oceans

I would almost go to say you should end at this line. Maybe that cuts out meaning that I'm not getting, but beyond this point the poem feels a lot fluffier. I would say condense all this and take the real pearls of this piece that you've created and string together something really great.

Oceans that contain emotions

I don't like the rhyme you've made here. I enjoyed the metaphor of oceans. I don't exactly want you to spell out what these oceans are or symbolize or contain. Maybe this is just an issue of preference.

Emotions known and yet to be discovered

I can see a face that has been to the deepest depths

Depths of Hell

Depths of the Sea

Depths of Despair

I look down at my wireless keyboard 

Where my hands stopped making words

"What now" I ask

Cracks begin to fill with silver

Oceans recede

Fire returns to Heaven

Would like to find out how the fires of heaven and elves connect with the character's struggle. I could understand maybe this is the material he or she is writing about, maybe. But it's just not clear to me.

Mermaids dry their tears

Elves turn away.

And the words do not return

This line is alright. Still prefer you to keep this more concise and end it with something like "a face holding back oceans". I think brevity is your friend for this one.