Surreal

[Aish]

Wide ache, awakened.

Stormgreen glass
smoothed across jazz,
notes elongated.

Frozen downbeat.

Bones of the sea arise,
orbiting naked
in iambic moonlight;

no longer fluently
paralyzed.

[Leanne]

I love the sonics of your first line, and it opens the poem up straight away. I wonder if you'd consider making "stormgreen" a compound word? "Smooth jazz" -- though I like the feeling of smooth against the glass, the phrase itself has become a little hackneyed.

"Frozen downbeat" gives me the idea of waiting in vain for the next upbeat, being kept in a pit of not-quite-silence -- it actually makes my skin crawl a little, in a good way (poetically speaking). This ties in beautifully with "fluently paralyzed", and the preceding strophe is eerie. Were it mine, I'd probably break that last line and put "paralyzed" on its own, but that's a very small thing.

[Aish]

Thank you so much! I have edited, and truly admire the outcome. If you have any suggestions to replace smooth jazz, I am willing to hear them out. I tried in vain to put something different there, but had a bit of thought aphasia.

[Leanne]

What about a bit of synaesthesia, like:

stormgreen glass
smooths across jazz
notes elongated

[Todd]

You could also just change your title to Smooth Jazz or Surreal Smooth Jazz.

Everything else is evocative:

Stormgreen glass
Notes elongnated
Frozen downbeat
The entire iambic moonlight section

I really like all of that.

So, maybe let the title do more work for you. Just a thought.

Best,

Todd

Wide ache, awakened.

Stormgreen glass
and smooth jazz,
notes elongated.

Frozen downbeat.

Bones of the sea arise,
orbiting naked
in iambic moonlight;

no longer fluently
paralyzed.

[billy]

Wide ache, awakened. would wide ache read better hyphenated?

Stormgreen glass
and smooth jazz,
notes elongated. beautiful image

Frozen downbeat.

Bones of the sea arise,
orbiting naked
in iambic moonlight; would Spondaic moonlight work better

no longer fluently
paralyzed.

the reason i asked about spondaic is because moonlight is a spondee, (i think ) two stressed syls (a kind of play on words)

i like the lazy feel of it, the wide ache awakened of the first line fits the theme perfectly, so does the 2nd verse.

thanks for the read.

[Aish]

Leanne, I took your suggestion, changing S2 L2.

Billy, 'iambic moonlight' is a bad reference to reading Shakespeare by moonlight on the beach? (Something my eyes could not handle now.) Thanks for the new word (spondaic).

[billy]

fuck off then

on a more serious note (note=jazz reference) the more i read it, the more it the more it grows.
i'm going to be hated by some but it does have a beat poem feel to it considering it's shortness. (weird cos i'm not a beat poem fan, but i like this )

[Aish]

I have never attempted beat poetry - might be interesting. Why not? You're so fond of writing Irish drinking songs LOL

[Wildcard]

   To me, this poem is beyond my critiquing ability. I'm not sure if there is some form involved (I think not) but regardless the effect is wonderful. It feels calm and crisp. I did get the 'iambic' reference (I wasn't thinking Shakespeare, but older poetry in general) and I like 'spondaic' (like Billy said) but not as much.
   Great work, Aish. You've outdone yourself IMO Thanks for sharing.

[Aish]

Thank you. It's very close to me.