The Suicide Cliffs

[dustinzgirl]

This is a very long poem, and is actually fitting within a set of poems that tell a story about a girl whose lover cheats on her and they both get in this big huge fight and they both commit suicide, but she throws herself off a cliff and finds a magical path to Atlantis --- which comes up in another poem, anyways......

The Suicide Cliffs

From the cliffs of a forgotten
Avalon
Paper on the wind, she did fall
Into the sea’s unforgiving thrall
Morgana promised not the world above
Green and shadow where once was love
Infinite time in an ebbing power of will
If wishes were fishes, she would still
Be gone.

Death should have been swift and bold
Down in that rocky oceanic cold
Shouting the tales of betrayal
Deities and Kings forgotten by all

Breaths of the sea, up and cold, again
Inverness
And to that point she did not pout
Hailstone and diamonds, she did without
Giving away to the blue-green depths
Last thoughts of the tragedy of Macbeth
Bloodstains on hands that no longer exist
A tryst of fists ends in flicks of the wrist
Blessed.

Not Morgana, or Lady Macbeth,
Or even a spirited water nymph
She did not find a wardrobe,
Or a cursed celestial globe

She found only the benumbed bitter bay
Donegal
Waiting in the cold whipping waters
To take her to the Heavenly Father
Airless lungs sputtered and spewed
But for her, death was eschewed
Instead, light and light and light again
And the world above was soaked in his sin
Immoral

But to this she paid no mind
And to the light she swam blind
To the sea’s calming warm palace
She no longer bore him malice

The green shadows became fractional
Atlantis
Beneath the ocean’s wavering delight
Of Plato’s accounted myths and might
All the world she remembered then
Floated away on a mermaid’s fin
And for all its magic and watered glory
Her pain would always be hers to carry
Enchantress.

 

[j d worthington]

Hi, Dusty! This one is quite nice, and has a good cadence to it, and (as one expects from your work) a lyrical imagery that's quite striking.

However, I'd like to make a suggestion or two on a couple of minor points, if I may:

The Suicide Cliffs

From the cliffs of a forgotten
Avalon
Paper on the wind, she did fall
Into the sea’s unforgiving thrall
Morgana promised not the world above
Green and shadow where once was love
Infinite time in an ebbing power of will
If wishes were fishes, she would still
Be gone.

Death should have been swift and bold
Down in that rocky oceanic cold
Shouting the tales of betrayal
Deities and Kings forgotten by all

Breaths of the sea, up and cold, again
Inverness
And to that point she did not pout
Hailstone and diamonds, she did without
Giving away to the blue-green depths
Last thoughts of the tragedy of Macbeth
Bloodstains on hands that no longer exist
A tryst of fists ends in flicks of the wrist
Blessed.

I think I might add a comma after "wrist" here, for reasons similar to those of the final lines below.

Not Morgana, or Lady Macbeth,
Or even a spirited water nymph

The false rhyme here, given the much stricter rhyme scheme in the rest of the poem, rather stands out. It's going to be difficult to find something closer that carries the same imagery and/or idea, but I think it might be advisable to see what you can do in that regard.

She did not find a wardrobe,
Or a cursed celestial globe

She found only the benumbed bitter bay
Donegal
Waiting in the cold whipping waters
To take her to the Heavenly Father

Again, the rhyme here would demand "water" rather than "waters", and it would be a quite permissible usage in this case.

Airless lungs sputtered and spewed
But for her, death was eschewed
Instead, light and light and light again
And the world above was soaked in his sin
Immoral

The false rhyme here stands out more boldly. I know that "again" is often pronounced "agin" dialectically, but given the formal diction of the poem, it should hold its original pronounciation to rhyme with "pain", which would make that last couplet a non-rhyme. I'd suggest "stain", which also carries the reading of "sin", fallen nature, etc.

But to this she paid no mind
And to the light she swam blind
To the sea’s calming warm palace
She no longer bore him malice

Another false rhyme, though this one is very, very close, and a slight slurring of the sound makes it an "allowable rhyme"; but best to avoid those where possible in something as given to exact rhymes as the body of this poem is.

The green shadows became fractional
Atlantis
Beneath the ocean’s wavering delight
Of Plato’s accounted myths and might
All the world she remembered then
Floated away on a mermaid’s fin
And for all its magic and watered glory
Her pain would always be hers to carry
Enchantress.

Oddly, the false rhyme that stands out here (to me, at any rate) is the "then/fin" -- again, in dialectic pronunciation they tend to be the same, in formal diction, such as the poem is couched in, they are not. I'm not quite sure how to fix that one right off, but I'd give it some thought. While "glory/carry" is not an exact rhyme, the final syllables are, which makes it work better, I think. And, on a technical point for impact... I think I might add a colon after "carry"; this would emphasize the pause between lines, and add a beat in reading aloud, which in turn emphasizes the final line and gives it more power.

 

[dustinzgirl]

Thank you JD, I will look at some changes you suggested!

The Suicide Cliffs

From the cliffs of a forgotten
Avalon
Paper on the wind, she did fall
Into the sea’s unforgiving thrall
Morgana promised not the world above
Green and shadow where once was love
Infinite time in an ebbing power of will
If wishes were fishes, she would still
Be gone.

Death should have been swift and bold
Down in that rocky oceanic cold
Shouting the tales of betrayal
Deities and Kings forgotten by all

Breaths of the sea, up and cold, again
Inverness
And to that point she did not pout
Hailstone and diamonds, she did without
Giving away to the blue-green depths
Last thoughts of the tragedy of Macbeth
Bloodstains on hands that no longer exist
A tryst of fists ends in flicks of the wrist,
Blessed.

Not Morgana, or Lady Macbeth,
Brought her from that watery death

She did not find a wardrobe,
Or a cursed celestial globe

She found only the benumbed bitter bay
Donegal
Waiting in the cold whipping water
To take her to the Heavenly Father

Airless lungs sputtered and spewed
But for her, death was eschewed
Instead, light and light and light again
And the world above was soaked in his stain
Immoral

But to this she paid no mind
And to the light she swam blind
To the sea’s calming warm palace
She no longer bore him malice (can't think of anything here)

The green shadows became fractional
Atlantis
Beneath the ocean’s wavering delight
Of Plato’s accounted myths and might
All the world she remembered sin
Floated away on a mermaid’s fin
And for all its magic and watered glory
Her pain would always be hers to carry;
Enchantress.


Thanks JD!