The Soft Cocoon

[Vistaldust]

The Soft Cocoon

An ocean crawling to shore,
waves whispering,
are you here?

A seagull descends,
cooing softly,
do you hear me?

The sun walks the sky,
repainting, reacquainting.

The world exhales;
a page flutters frantically
in the breeze.

This I see.
This I hear.

Inside, undisturbed,
I continue to read
about a man
who loved summer.

[Fred-Flossy]

I’m a big fan of imagery like the “ocean crawling” and “the sun walks the sky”, I think these work really well.

The 2nd stanza strikes me as weaker than the rest of the piece, “cooing softly” in particular doesn’t sit quite right in my opinion.

Overall a nice mood is set, has that almost nostalgic feeling to it, which I always appreciate.

[Brownlie]

The Soft Cocoon- The setting is the soft cocoon?

An ocean crawling to shore,
waves whispering, sibilance -- I'm just playing around.
I would get rid of are you here?
A seagull descends,
cooing softly.

The sun walks the sky,

a page flutters frantically
in the breeze.

I continue to read
about a man
who loved summer.

I'm just sort of playing around with your words here, there is the proverb "Show and not tell" which is not a bad proverb.

[Bunx]

The Soft Cocoon

An ocean crawling to shore,
waves whispering,
are you here?

A seagull descends,
cooing softly,
do you hear me?

The sun walks the sky,
repainting, reacquainting.

The world exhales;
a page flutters frantically
in the breeze.

This I see.
This I hear.

Inside, undisturbed,
I continue to read
about a man
who loved summer.

The poems subject is strikingly mysterious. I would say the subject of this poem is literature itself as an endless supply of multiple mind frames. I love the way you cemented the theme in the six lines. thanks for the poem

[cidermaid]

Hi Vistal,
I thought this was a beautiful piece. I have been back several times to read and on each occassion i have taken a different picture away with me, which is one of the things i love about it. In my read, the play between the idea of what is being read on the page, what is outside the window and what has been going on in the narrators life, is all subtly woven into the read which is again underlined and highlighted by the action word of each first line. Clever and very nicely done.
Each stanza presents an image I can relate to and a picture that can been seen from more than one perspective.
Although I am not sure if you actually need: This I see, this I hear. It is not obstructive to the read, but not sure it is needed after you have presented the images that can be seen and heard and then turn the view in onto the narrator sat "cocooned" inside his / her own little world within a book.

My only minor nit is that of an image of a seagull cooing softly. It does not match my experiance of them as gentle or particularly quiet


Well done on this one. I really enjoyed it. AJ.

[billy]

i'm getting that your snuggled up with a book, or at least that my take on the poem, but if you using the book as a portal, isn't there something more, or does it just lead up to you telling us your reading a book. i'm not sure how to say what i mean surely the book has a lot more going on than an idyll of the sea.

it's a soothing poem though i don't get a lot from it.

thanks for the read.

The Soft Cocoon

An ocean crawling to shore, a suggestion would be to remove shore as it's too obvious
waves whispering,
are you here? if you're personifying , why not use quotation marks and have such lines out on their own line

A seagull descends,
cooing softly, is cooing associated with gulls?
do you hear me?

The sun walks the sky,
repainting, reacquainting.

The world exhales;
a page flutters frantically
in the breeze.

This I see.
This I hear.

Inside, undisturbed,
I continue to read
about a man
who loved summer.

[Vistaldust]

Thank you all for the critique. This is about a person sitting on the beach a d not noticing what's going on around him because his face is in a book. He doesn't notice anything until the breeze disturbs his reading. Then he goes indoors to continue to read about a person who loves the beach that he, himself, never took notice of. Irony.

[Brownlie]

Thank you all for the critique. This is about a person sitting on the beach a d not noticing what's going on around him because his face is in a book. He doesn't notice anything until the breeze disturbs his reading. Then he goes indoors to continue to read about a person who loves the beach that he, himself, never took notice of. Irony.

That went over my head, that's funny.

[Vistaldust]

i'm getting that your snuggled up with a book, or at least that my take on the poem, but if you using the book as a portal, isn't there something more, or does it just lead up to you telling us your reading a book. i'm not sure how to say what i mean surely the book has a lot more going on than an idyll of the sea.

it's a soothing poem though i don't get a lot from it.

thanks for the read.

The Soft Cocoon

An ocean crawling to shore, a suggestion would be to remove shore as it's too obvious
waves whispering,
are you here? if you're personifying , why not use quotation marks and have such lines out on their own line

A seagull descends,
cooing softly, is cooing associated with gulls?
do you hear me?

The sun walks the sky,
repainting, reacquainting.

The world exhales;
a page flutters frantically
in the breeze.

This I see.
This I hear.

Inside, undisturbed,
I continue to read
about a man
who loved summer.

Thanks, Billy. Yes, from what I've researched, cooing is associated with gulls. I use the reference of waves crawling to shore because it is important for the man in the poem to hear them, and it lets the reader know he is on a beach and not in a boat. I didn't put quotation marks on the ocean or the gull because it is a sense perception reference. Obviously, these are all intentions and I understand that there may be errors in how to best express them.

---

Thanks for all the critiques, and I welcome more. I'm sure we've all written a poem like this before, even after learning a teeny bit about writing poetry: this is a poem that I tried to rework, and even if meter, form, and wording could all be improved, I have to say, fuck it. I wouldn't change a single thing. If an editor shitcans it immediately just from reading the first sentence, who cares. No matter where we are at in our writing, either a novice like me, or an experienced poet, I think it's healthy to have something we create that we would never change.