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Velox

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Staring OceansOceans.They stare at youThrough the wooden edges of the frame.A snowy plane lines his cheeks, bushy and misshapenLike a wild plant, growing this way and that,Thinning here and there like his life.Soon it will all be gone.So will he.But he is still there for now, and he smiles at you,His bright blue eyes sparkling,His niveous beard a tangled mess.He looks at you in such a happy way—But such a strange way.He seems to be calling you,Inviting you.Perhaps he wishes to tell you a story.The twinkle in his eyes gives it away.Yes, this man has a story,A story he wants you to hear.Every day you see him come to this place.He brings with him a fishing line and a flag.An American flag, displaying it proudly as he goes.You see him tie the flag to the pier,And you watch it wave in the wind for a moment or two.The man watches with you, and smiles again—Pride.Pride for his country.He tells you how he had served in the military,Proudly bearing his uniform for four long years.Through trial and tribulation, he made it through.He made it home, when so many of his friends didn’t.You want to rush up and give him a huge hug—To tell him it’s okay.But you don’t.You realize he is hurting,You see it in those ocean-eyes of his, staring kindly at you.Yet, his smile remains. He is poor, coming here every day for his nightly meal of fish.Yet he does not complain. He simply smiles at you with his wrinkly face, and you smile back.And you both silently watch the vast ocean spread out before you.~ :: ~Now, there is a bit of explanation I need to post here. Usually I am against doing that (everything should be explained inside the story, not outside), but this was written for my Creative Writing class, and therefore had guidelines I needed to follow. The prompt was, paraphrased: "write a poem about a photograph. Start by describing the photograph, then tell a story about the person you described. Poem can only be 1 page long, and it cannot rhyme." So, because of that, I'm not completely satisfied with the ending, as I literally used every line I could (the title I even had to place in a header, because the poem was so long) and had to squish things together. But still, overall I am pretty happy with this. I haven't written a poem in literally years, so I'll definitely have to more, now, as I really enjoyed this. All comments/constructive criticisms are welcome! Enjoy!newso1.png

"As a writer you ask yourself to dream while awake." ~ Aimee Bender

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All in all, a good poem. I personally am not a fan of what I see as the excessive patriotism of the poem, but it seems you enjoy fervent support of the military in your written works, which is obviously a difference of personal opinion.However, I think "You realize he is hurting" is rather insufficient to describe what someone enduring PTSD must be like. I'd suggest adding several addtional lines describing his experiences, to do more justice to what his experiences likely are, if that makes any sense.~B~

Edited by Ballom
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I'll admit, I was a little confused at what you were describing when you first started talking about your character, but reading it again I suspect it was probably just me. ._.Anyway, you did a very nice job on this, and the flow is well done; almost makes me want to write a poem, but I know I'll fail.Though I must say, I was quite shocked and disappointed with your lack of babies. Better luck next time, eh? (;

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All in all, a good poem. I personally am not a fan of what I see as the excessive patriotism of the poem, but it seems you enjoy fervent support of the military in your written works, which is obviously a difference of personal opinion.However, I think "You realize he is hurting" is rather insufficient to describe what someone enduring PTSD must be like. I'd suggest adding several addtional lines describing his experiences, to do more justice to what his experiences likely are, if that makes any sense.~B~
Haha, yeah, that does seem to be a recurring theme for me, doesn't it? It is true that I am very patriotic, and therefore that theme often ends up in my written works. In this case, however, the genesis of the idea came from the image itself that I wrote the poem on. As you can see here, the man is described as tying a flag to the pier every day. I just really liked that idea and so used my creative license to explain why he did that -- "who would do something like that? Who, when they get their nightly meal by fishing, would be patriotic enough to tie a flag to the peer every day?" I thought the soldier role fit that well. Well, it wasn't so much about PTSD but just wearied by life in general. Obviously he had bad experiences in the war, and perhaps hadn't had the best life, but it's not PTSD exactly that's bothering him -- at least, I didn't mean for it to be. He his hurting because he has gone through so much, but he's not necessarily hurting as much now. But I do agree that some more lines on that would've been better -- I was, however, unfortunately already at my limit, literally taking up every line I could on the page (as the poem could only be a page long). I could've added some more to it, but I decided to just share it how it was written for my class. Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
I'll admit, I was a little confused at what you were describing when you first started talking about your character, but reading it again I suspect it was probably just me. ._.Anyway, you did a very nice job on this, and the flow is well done; almost makes me want to write a poem, but I know I'll fail.Though I must say, I was quite shocked and disappointed with your lack of babies. Better luck next time, eh? (;
It's okay, haha. That's kinda the thing I both love and hate about poems...so often you're just like "what the heck is he saying?!" but when things do click I love reading and discovering metaphors like that. Hopefully that didn't distract from the poem, though.But thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it! You definitely should write a poem, Katie. Like I keep telling you: you're your own worst critic. =P Seriously, try it! And yeah, I'm definitely disappointed with myself too. =/ Never fear, I made up for it in my second poem! I'll probably post it here in a few days. Thanks again for the comments, you two. =]newso1.png Edited by Velox

"As a writer you ask yourself to dream while awake." ~ Aimee Bender

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