bleak

[Richard]

Hey typing mantis,
This poem actually reminds me of how I use to write when I tried to always rhyme in my poetry. At the risk of sounding anti-rhyming, my biggest suggestion would be to edit this poem by dropping the rhymes. I would be curious to see what you would end up with. I'll go into more detail below:

There are tumults in the ocean,
but the ship must sail, -What ship? I feel like you need to expand on this image. If the ship is some sort of metaphor for life, I would also suggest expanding on it.
it cannot sink.

I must reach the port,
I cannot sleep,
not a wink. -This rhyme isn't the greatest. It would be much more interesting if you talked about why the speaker can't sleep. Is he/she depressed? Is it the rocky ocean? How would the inability to sleep relate back to the ship as a metaphor for life?

when times are hard
and light is bleak,
sea is the paper,
and tears are ink. -I like the last two lines here. I would like to see them expanded on though. For example, what are the tears writing? As well, this rhyme isn't bad.

I hope I didn't go into too much detail for a basic critique, but I feel like you got something here. You just need to do some editing. I look forward to seeing where you take this poem from here.

Keep writing,
Richard