Forever Overboard

[Jeongwon]

I very much enjoyed this poem. It is complex, and has narrative depth. Some lines of this poem are especially lyrical and beautiful. My comments below. 

The wildest seas had risen up the night old Donny died.
Close running to the western gales and on an awkward tide,
the Gina Belle had tumbled on,
her stern was low, her going gone. Perhaps consider omitting"was"
The tumult thrashed and spun her round,
in waves that broke on jagged ground
no more than half a league away. 
 
Flayed bladderwrack flew in the spray, old Donny fought the wheel. Interesting word choice.
The grounding shook her, jarred her straight and pinned her by the keel;
Again, again, again she skewed
until her timbers cracked and flew
in shards that rained upon the deck,
or what was left, until she wrecked rhythmically very interesting
just off the heartless, granite shore.
 
This way then that she lunged and lurched until the anchor caught. Seems a little clunky, it doesn't flow as well as other lines. 
The hawser ran then plucked and held, the surging pulled it taut…
The seventh wave pressed Gina down, While the "seventh wave" does not scientifically hold water, it is thematically a nice addition.
great pinnacles of rock rose round,
four fathoms down she should have stayed
and lain there, but old Donny prayed    
and up she came to fight once more.
 
The cresting wave was peaking but  the anchor still held fast .
A fearsome groan came from  below, a crack and then it passed. Maybe "a passing crack" instead of "a crack and then it passed". Overall, I feel the less words there are in this stanza, the more the action shines through.
For but one moment silence came The tension is well constructed. This line seems a little wordy, breaking from the action. Just the word "silence/then" could carry this line. Or maybe "a fleeting silence/then Donny"
and Donny screamed his maker’s name…
too late, too late, the cry was lost, "his cry lost" instead of "the cry was lost" might fit better with the emotions of the rest of the stanza.
by weight of  water he was tossed 
in to the boiling, spume-frothed brine. "into" instead of in to, as it appears you are using it as a preposition
 
 Far down he dived in to the rage, in hopes of calmer sea; Same as above. Perhaps you are doing this intentionally, I'm not sure. Normally, "in to" is separated when "in" is part of a phrasal verb or "to" is part of an infinitive, etc. "Dived in" is a phrasal verb, and this wording implies that is your intention, but in context it is clear that you are talking about motion, not "starting to do something"
the safety bight was tight so he unhitched the line, made free.
He swam possessed, some distance gained,
then burst for breath while wreckage rained
around him, crashing everywhere. This line and the two lines preceding it, together, is very lyrical. Nice.
The anchor hit him hard and square;
and  blood was on the rusting iron. This line has a matter-of-fact tone and says the obvious (if the anchor hit him, of course blood would get on it). For me, the contrast between its tone and the gruesome death furthers my sympathy for Donny, so I like it.
 
Below the waves in plumes of red his twisting body spun; the rhythm/structure of this line is interesting. Omitting commas had good effect. 
suspended by the anchor fluke old Donny, lifeless, hung.
Next day the Belle was cast and strewn.
On high-tide line they found her boom,
the sheet all tangled, gooseneck sheared;
no sight of Donny though all peered
out to the sinful, sobbing sea.  
 
One year passed by and stories died of Donny and the Belle. Themes of death are prevalent throughout, and "stories died" seems a little trite. This line introduces the idea of time as a receding force, and the stanza deals with tides. A suggestion: perhaps something like "A year gave way, taking stories of Donny and the Belle" might emphasize both the cause-and-effect relationship and allude to how tides take things as they ebb.
Flotsam floated in on tides, by and by no one could tell
from where came tackle, shreds of net,
splintered clinker planks and yet
out on the highest granite spike
an anchor-line rust-crusted, tight,
sloped hidden, down in to the deep. I think I understand what you're trying to get at in the preceding 6 lines, but the execution seems muddled. "no one could tell from where came tackle" sounds a little awkward. "and yet" implies a connection between what comes before and after, but I fail to see a coherent connection. (from what I can tell, the first part deals with the mystery of where parts of the ship are coming from, and the second deals with the anchor-line being on a granite spike.)   
   
Beneath the beastly, bare-toothed peak, beyond the shelf of shore, "shelf of shore" stands out. With this line, I feel like the preceding line of "sloped hidden, down in to the deep" is unnecessary and is overshadowed by this extremely strong line.
the anchor hung and Donny swung, his fleshly self no more.
His bones picked clean…white-shining… gleamed 
in filtered sun, shot through with green; moving imagery
No ship would sail that close to be
the one who hauled him from the sea… maybe I'm missing it, but it seems unresolved as to why. Is the why thematically important? Is it because they don't know where he is? S6L6 seems to indicate so.
he was forever overboard. Maybe consider changing "was" with "is"? The sudden changing of tense may make the ending more interesting. And I think it fits better with the idea of "forever"
 
tectak
2017