Crash

[Jacurutu]

This is meant to be a piece of poetry from Hammerfell about a ship that crashes.

Crash

The harsh clang of iron – a bell
ringing through the evening and
murky waters. They kept secrets from sailors,
drew them into rocky embraces –
their food-stores empty save for a few
paltry grains here and there in damp corners
and their beds cold and wifeless;
the ship's seams bulged and stretched
ominously, the wind like wailing women
in lonely morning.

How could they resist the temptation?
It had sounded like land, like home
at last, but only broken planks
and bodies waited.

[Haplo]

*bumpaging* Anyone want to edit this one for anything?

[xroninbasho23]

The harsh clang of iron – a bell
ringing through the evening and
murky waters. They kept secrets from sailors,
drew them into rocky embraces –
their food-stores empty save for a few
paltry grains here and there in damp corners
and their beds cold and wifeless;
the ship's seams bulged and stretched
ominously, the wind like wailing women
in lonely morning.

How could they resist the temptation?
It had sounded like land, like home
at last, but only broken planks
and bodies waited.

hmm...poetry's hard to edit, obviously, but i'll give you my opinion on this anyway.

i think there should be a comma at the end of the first line. i'd rework the "ringing through the evening and/ murky waters" bit. the line break and wording are oddly done. i would make a single line:
'The harsh clang of iron - a bell,
ringing through the murky evening waters'

in the next few sentences, the word 'their' is becoming highly ambiguous. i'd start a new line:
'The treacherous waves kept their secrets,
Drew sailors into their dread embrace -
Sailors, their food stores empty but for paltry grains
Sailors, their beds cold and lifeless;'

then the last bit, i think 'ominous' may be misplaced as well.
'The ship's seams bulged and stretched,
The ominous wind wailing
Like a woman in lonely morning'

the morning/mourning wordplay is quite good.

again, in the last stanza, it just seems oddly broken:
'How could they resist the temptation?
It had sounded like land,
Like home at last -
But only broken planks and bodies waited.'

my thoughts, anyway.

--xrb23

[Jacurutu]

Most of the breaks in the poem are to physically symbolize the breaking of the ship upon rocks. Most of the breaks seem odd, but, on top of the physical representation part, they also serve to emphasize the detached words:

murky waters - emphasizes that they are lost and confused
a few - idea was to "wait" until the last second to say what few things they had
ominously - emphasizes the danger by adding it's thought into the next line
in lonely morning - physically detached, and yes, a pun too
like land, like home - having these words together in the same line symbolizes that feeling of too-early hope, which gets destroyed in the end
at last - combination bewteen the "sigh of relief" and the last act for these sailors
and bodies - separating the two suggests some respect for these fallen sailors

The way you've offered to rewrite this puts the emphasis on the sailors instead of the emotion. Not every reader is a sailor, but every reader has felt desperation, confusion, fear. I think you just had a different idea of what I was getting towards.

[Haplo]

Jac would you like this to be a unique item or would you rather it be added to the poetry book thread?

[Jacurutu]

By all means, add it to the poetry thread.