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.

Shadows in Blue Sandals

Blue sandals
step between the roots
polished to shine
in the gloom of the forest.
Years of exposure
to the unruly shuffle and worries
oaks wouldn't mind
if only to open
their palms and jointed trunks.
Grey and silver tangle
of thoughts, dreams and hopes
is supposed to be underground
deep in the brown dirt
under the blankets of crumpled
leaves and fallen branches.

Blue sandals
walk on the shoals,
jumping from stone to stone
as if they dance
to Ravi Shankar
and the sound of hurrying
whitewater, birds chirping,
and chuckles of rotting
in comfort tree stumps.
They pass towering reeds,
each flower like a lighthouse,
beaming hope of white dots,
teasing innocent bees.

Following the setting sun,
shaking the sand out,
thinking about the shoals
and the oaks
Long-Legged Shadows
come home and take off
 their favorite blue sandals.

Review Request (Intensity): 
I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back
Review Request (Direction): 
What did you think of my title?
How was my language use?
What did you think of the rhythm or pattern or pacing?
How does this theme appeal to you?
Last few words: 
Walk with the shadows, enjoy your Thursday night or Friday morning, and tell me please if the name spoils the poem.
Editing stage: 

Comments

"chuckles of rotting".....not sure if that line rings true as rot, in my opinion, is too slow to chuckle...... maybe something like broken murmur? As to the title, I myself tend toward short titles. Seems a short title has more impact. Therefore I'd suggest a shorter title here. Try to compress, almost Haikuize, the thought you wish to use as bait to lure in the reader. Your imagery is exact and powerful and using sandals as a repository for memories works well.======bet you wish I was recovering more slowly lmao......stan

Dear Stan, I am so glad you are feeling better and even have enough energy to type your comment. I hope your computer time is not too exhasting. Let me think about the stumps.
I had in mind the image of old men sitting on their porches with a beer and chuckling over the passing by strangers. Maybe rotting is too strong, do you know if there any other words for dead stumps decomposing in the woods?

IRiz

author comment

A stump slowly rotting away could be described as reclining or melting with occasional grunts

Cool, brilliant! Why don't you use it?
Let me know how that comes out in your poem.
Feel better, hugs.

IRiz

author comment

your poems are full of abstract and between the lines stuff...it hurts my jaws to break them into pieces to make a meal of them :)

after a lot of chewing and regurgitating to me this poem is about state of mind in a blue mood in deep contemplation trying to co-relate with the surrounding as it treads and after the long walk have another mood swing and get rid of the blues....
................................................................................

raj (sublime_ocean)

I am sorry, my friend. Maybe you don't want to take it apart that much? Just think about long shadows moving across the woods and shoals in the late afternoon. They alongated shapes are often blue. They are coming across nacked roots and hear the music of the evening.

IRiz

author comment

I always thought
shadows were
colour blind
Any how sound poetry
along your individulaistic mind..

my shadow is red
how will any one know
when I am dead!!

you haven't traversed my poetic fields
in a while yet
I am still living and wish to be read
ere dead

dobrivecher
nyet....
then dobridenh
where ever you may be
USA
could be
lol

Hello Lovedly, the Red Shadow!
You sound redelious more than ever, I am glad you came across my lines in this mood.

IRiz

author comment

at times
your poetry vibes with mine
You of course walk in sandals blue
and
I under the shade and cover
of the hue

whose
of course
of you

Telepathic red shadow.

IRiz

author comment

Oooops I went into the wrong alley again....didn't know that shoals and woods cast blue shadows...hmmmmmmmmmmmm..
......................................

raj (sublime_ocean)

Don't have to know this, just try to I and if it doesn't work, it is okay. I am thankful for you time and interest.

IRiz

author comment

your poems are not just a matter of interest but provide tools for learning.
..........................................................................................................................

raj (sublime_ocean)

I am really glad you find them useful

IRiz

author comment

My Sunks are testimony of how I have benefited from this learning experience thanks to your tutelage....aren't they?
............................................................................................................

raj (sublime_ocean)

Thank you, you are very kind.

IRiz

author comment

trying to convey a mood through an image which probably reflects the environment the poem was written in or the mood during the poem's writing.

To my mind, the sort of enemy of experimental poetry is this refusal to entertain even a little deviance here or there from a boring, linear mindset no one really has.

I wish I am a deviant. All my life I struggle to be myself and end up like Somebody Somebody.
It is the toughest part of life. Pardon my elevated speech on the bordering and falling into banalities.

IRiz

author comment

definitely captures the mood of walking in sunlight with long shadows around you, often created by one's own legs. The mood is reflective, and the mindset probably familiar to anyone. Really good.

Thank you, fink555, for reading and giving a nice comment. Yes, you have got the poem exactly right and I am glad you came across it. Have a great and inspiring Friday/weekend.

IRiz

author comment

always skip
Lovedly
Iriz you ofttenly

"I am sorry, my friend. Maybe you don't want to take it apart that much?"

This has been my problem with you last three poems. The music, word play and metaphor remains excellent. But I have a bit of an analytical mind which always wants to see the controlling hand.

I have noticed that the motivating thoughts, which give birth to your representations on the page, are often too personal to be ascertained by the reader. so I will enjoy the beauty, and accept the emotional lift they bring to me, without being so clinical as needing to set things in proper boxes.

Do you live near a forest, or now vacation near one. I saw this as a walk in the forest, and the events as your ideas and reflections during the walk. Only, for some reason blue sandals made me think of the beach.

T

The most powerful reaction
of mind on mind
is transference of sight

Hello Tyro,
I slowly come to realization that only small things that we usually miss and never value enough deserve my attention.
Because they rule the moment, we live in.
To be present to live conscientious life we want to focus on now and most of the time it is small things.
The underlying spectrum of my emotions is a mix feelings of transtion between two professions science and writing, it is also fear of aging and death and even more so fear of degrading or starting to decline in my abilities, it is a pleasure of solitude, walks in the woods, rock climbing and companionship with the best books and art internet can provide.
I write about things that are important to me, my poems may not convey all of the above, but they are related. If you find the subject boring it is okay, it might never sink in, because you might be seeing things completely differently.

IRiz

author comment

"If you find the subject boring it is okay"
Ah, come on IRiz, I have never found your writings or your subject boring. You being a poet of quality, I think its impossible for you to be boring to me. Not only your poetry, but some of your suggestions and ideas have already started to change my precepts about writing.

Please don't ever think I find your work boring, I received a pang just by you suggesting it, so much do I respect your talent.
Now that you have clearly explained what moves you, I have a guide line to keep me on track.

T

The most powerful reaction
of mind on mind
is transference of sight

Dear Tyro!
Poetry is a social art, we do inspire and learn from each other.
In theory, good poem does not need explanations. So I value your input very much!!!

IRiz

author comment

to understand the very abstract connections that are occupying your poetry of late. As most of us, myself included, we go in different phases of our moon, our selves, and reach for the metaphysical
in our own "town". These are hard to let the reader in to exactly what you mean, they become experiential. I do pick up on the color of the shoes and it's relationship to the landscape- forest or beach, and that the shoes represent you, your presence in there. I like particularly

They pass towering reeds,
each flower like a lighthouse,
beaming hope of white dots,
teasing innocent bees.

These lines, while not directly involved with the inner narrative of the poem, add the right touches.
But it is hard for a deep felt from the gut response for me about the poem, for me it might have a little too much thought, needs a little blood. But when we are in one of those symbolic intellectual phases it's hard... It's hard to write from the gut, the heart and the brain at the same time.

I do think the title is too long and too explanatory.

..

Eumolpus
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance
ee cummings

I agree, perhaps too much thinking.
Sandals belong to shadows not to me, see last stanza. Lol. Thanks for reading and a sweet comment. Next time perhaps will be more blood, but I can't promise.

IRiz

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