Join the Neopoet online poetry workshop and community to improve as a writer, meet fellow poets, and showcase your work. Sign up, submit your poetry, and get started.

Gulfs

What ocean lies between us now,
A pair of dimming stars
in gulfs as vast as generations
Left behind by lives transformed
In time and pressure

What empty sea is this
That separates what we once were
Into what we have become
Bereft of all but memories
Of care and laughter?

On the surface sunlight sparkles,
Yet underneath lies growing void
Reaching down to lifeless dark
A drowning man might welcome,
A soulless man acknowledge as a friend.

And each time I think the gulf is crossed
Each time I think I have the answer
You find inconsequential words
To use as weapons in a war I didn’t want
And still don’t understand,

And now it's come to this:
The time we made to spend together
Lies flooded by your hate
and I am left without a boat
upon this lifeless sea,
about to walk away
on water quickly turned to stone.

Review Request (Intensity): 
I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back
Editing stage: 

Comments

Very sad but well structured poem, I stumbled at one or two lines. (That could be down to my reading), as I said very sad and I hope this is not relevant. enjoyed the read. Regards Roscoe...

Roscoe Llane,

Religion will rip your faith off, and return
for the mask of disbelief that's left.

Yes, I expect that you did find fault with one or two lines - this was a rush job, the first poetry I've written in awhile.
Let me know, please, which lines they were, so that I can take a look; you know how difficult it is to critique one's self.

Thanks

Respectfully, Race

"Laws and Rules don't kill freedom: narrow-minded intolerance does" - Race-9togo

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Race_9togo

author comment

I'm hoping this isn't reality for
you ... very sad indeed.

Haven't seen you in a long time man,
you have friends here.

Thank you for sharing your poem.

sincerely,
Richard

I have friends here, and I have neglected them, and the site. I apologize, and can only plead bad health, bad heart, and a bleak spot in my life.
The poem is not real, which is a departure for me. I've tried to go against the joy in my life, and go for something sad.
LOL I guess it worked.
Thanks for reading, Richard, and for reminding me that I have virtual friends.

Respectfully, Race

"Laws and Rules don't kill freedom: narrow-minded intolerance does" - Race-9togo

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Race_9togo

author comment

Great to see you back anyway Jim
Hope all is well!

❤❤❤❤❤❤

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words
........Robert Frost☺

Please follow me on Instagram
https://instagram.com/poetry.jo?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

thank you for reading, and enjoying.

Respectfully, Race

"Laws and Rules don't kill freedom: narrow-minded intolerance does" - Race-9togo

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Race_9togo

author comment

our mythic personas
mother as godess
little epics of the long
episode of life..

the hero with all the faults
and weaknesses

great poem!

vanquished and befalling
been quite the life for me
would do it all again

W

It's good to read your little gems of poetic comment once again.
I'll try and catch up on your work - if nothing else inspires me, reading you again most certainly will.
Thanks man

Respectfully, Race

"Laws and Rules don't kill freedom: narrow-minded intolerance does" - Race-9togo

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Race_9togo

author comment

https://soundcloud.com/neopoet/gulfs
Hope this helps.

Wow, glad I read the comments, this is effectively emotionally evocative.

Just don't get that last line.

Great to see you, mate. Oh, for Soundcloud, do you pronounce your name Race 9 to go or Race_9togo?

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

I did not expect the soundcloud. That was great, the first time I've ever heard one of my poems spoken by someone else. A little eerie, a little strange, but quite exciting. Thanks Jess.

(later)
Now I've listened three or four times, and I begin to hear the places where it stumbles. I will make an effort to edit for flow, and see if I can't get it to the point where I feel comfortable enough to recite it myself.
Jess, touching on ideas to improve things here, soundcloud is a damned good idea, for showing someone where cadence and flow and meter need improving.
Thanks mate.
Oh, yeah...its the latter.
Pronunciation.

Respectfully, Race

"Laws and Rules don't kill freedom: narrow-minded intolerance does" - Race-9togo

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Race_9togo

author comment

involving Soundcloud and/or Vocaroo for ages but there are just too few poets tech savvie enough to plug in a microphone.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

I can only guess it would be the best and easiest option, as it is easier to walk on stone than through water? Maybe I am wrong, but still an enjoyable read.

I tend to think that poetry should make one ponder, and think a bit. It was in my mind that the ocean was once the depth of feeling between the writer and his significant other, but has turned from an accepting embrace into an unyielding rejection.
I need to work on it, I know.
I usually do!

Thanks again

Respectfully, Race

"Laws and Rules don't kill freedom: narrow-minded intolerance does" - Race-9togo

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Race_9togo

author comment

the magic..passion..romance..
like ice...stone..
becalmned...
Stones sang of it..
listening today to nothing but
Rolling Stones...
music for those that had lived
back as a teen I listened to it
because it was popular
and I had yet to taste the vipers
sweet bitter poison of love
nor they to feel my scorpion sting
defense of the ego
the male bastion of inner realms

last line is perfect
bitterness is rust that seizes up
the once oiled function
and speed of that run
rush...

took years of in and out of very
intense relationships
losing much....
not about winning
gotta lose to know how to
win and then take the losses
and wins....
that balance that others find
so attractive with age or
if youthful luck brains and
the risk to play
thick skin to move along
not lingering over graves
of what never to ever was..
now i can smile wryly at the
show times...
and admire and let back in
those interludes of moments
intimacy and share to see
that the wolves...cougars
leopards truly did love me
they were mobile craftswomen
their territory wide...where i lived
in a pocket valley
or a lone hilltop then
not truly seeing how they put in
all that effort and willingness to
be with me
make the moments
I took their eventual movement on
towards their end means
of wants and needs as rejection
Great....here is another reason
to never trust anyone again
the once open view blocked by
the tall walls...
the savanah cottage now a compound

all that love and loss was terrible and painful
spent years just thinking it was a trick
that i was but a toy
my ego taking its blow
but now...now i see it..
that ive bumped up to the
transitionary...grown in maturity
for i was so immature till late

U have written it with feeling
and experience the feeling of
that heady momentum
and then the sudden loss
of that drive force of magic
between the dynamic combustive
embrace of the dance of muses

the ego is the carapace we need
it....but risk is leaving
like sitting at the game table with
the other true gamers
the ones that blew on my dice
were pretty and beautiful
but they could play...and for the
keeps of it

an excellent write
well worded and well
put

and some people never get
out of that time spent with
people that u oft can never
find if looking....they find u
like a stock car race
spun out of control
and forever watching the
home movie of that crash

i got bumped but they knew
i was good...and i do appreciate
them for the very things i wanted
admired and gave them
value comes in our experience
and how we adapt and change
lick our wounds
and walk...run with a limp if need
be...but never stop living
i have the names carved on my
heart...and im a tough old mother fracker
even if it was stone for awhile
so i could get out and walk
stretch my legs exposed

great poem
thank U
R.S.

Mr Wolfe!

that timeless, the breathlessness of sheer beauty
caught between one moment and the next,
rich with evocation and delight of words,
a courage of memory,
exhilarating touch of consciousness
flooding in streams of meaning
rendering in focused light
so much more than
just the words they're written in.

Thanks brother, you make me feel.

Respectfully, Race

"Laws and Rules don't kill freedom: narrow-minded intolerance does" - Race-9togo

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Race_9togo

author comment

but a couple of small points;
verse 3 line 2 you missed out "a" after "lies"
That last couple of lines are not clear to me,
are you saying something like
about to turn away
from waters that engulf?
That last word ties in neatly with the title.

Keith Logan
the happy chappy
https://www.neopoet.com/community-guidelines

Thanks for your criticism.
Verse 3, line 2, I deliberately left out 'a' because having it in the line adds another syllable, and breaks up the rhythm, for me.
In the last lines, I was thinking of being engulfed in a living relationship seen as water, that hardens with the growing breakdown, but I didn't want to use the cliché of ice, and so instead, used stone, which I find more brutal.
I do see a meter problem in the last verse though, as a result of your comment, so I'm making a small change to correct it.
Thanks again.

Respectfully, Race

"Laws and Rules don't kill freedom: narrow-minded intolerance does" - Race-9togo

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Race_9togo

author comment
(c) Neopoet.com. No copyright is claimed by Neopoet to original member content.