The Battle

The Battle

hissing and

      howling and

            whispering fury

                           sneaking

                                  ever further

                                            into sands domain

                                                              wet and black

                                                                                    like

                                                        middle Eastern oil

                                                      with the anger

                                             of nature

                                                 on it's heel

                                                       a torrent of

                                                                      froth

                                                               boiling

                                               attempting to

                                     break the shore

                                        playing

              paper scissors stone

with it's brother

             the unmoveable

                          spinning earth

Reviews

[Einstein Noodle]

whoa! love the form straight off! the craziness of it adds to the feeling of the "Battle" ... whether human of Nature .. powers undeniable are pitted .. i can not help, reading, just how unmoveable the Earth is .. our solid ground eaten away by the froth ... great stuff .. so many angles in your poem to be seen .. allows for diversity eh!? ;) powerful write says i!
E.

[gram linski]

hey, E, great review says I, always appreciate your rambling mind and poetic touch

[Einstein Noodle]

yes..ramble i do...much to the consternation of me love, Norma! ;}

[CD Campbell]

The form of your poem looks like a slithering snake. I like the idea of two eternal elements constantly in battle. The crushing break of the water that chips away at the shoreline. Eroding. Nice work.

[gram linski]

Hey CD, thanks, if you ever get the chance to sit on a beach at night just listening to the roar, just do it,

[Chris Shaw]

Your poem reminded me of the ebb and flow of the tides and the sharp contrasts in nature's ways. And then there's the oil and people and there lies a story of those who have everything and those who have nothing. That is life sadly, total inequality. Can't pretend to know what goes on in your mind gram, but that's how your words spoke to me.

Chris

[gram linski]

thanks Chris, I can't pretend either, but that is the joy of picking up the pen, what is the mad papermate fool going to write next

[Chris]

I liked the style, flow, and words of this one... Well spoken.

[gram linski]

Thanks Chris, if you can imagine it in dulcet Scottish tones with the roar of the ocean in the background, a well spoken word ensemble, haha

[Chris]

The appearance was a shoreline... a background of waves marching ashore would fit..

A Scots burr would do it justice.

[Eilis]

Maybe we write the same poems from different perspectives. You always seem ahead of me though. And your earth is the brother where mine is the disinterested lover. I like the idea of the two forces as siblings because there’s that natural rivalry but also the impulse to protect. So that’s like the natural ebb and flow of the tides. Very cool concept.

I’m glad you posted this in your original format because your girlie formatting(?), thanks John ha ha, offers a real sense of movement. A progression and then withdrawal. It’s dynamic. Like the natural world, but the ocean is so passionate and violent, especially on your side of the world with all of those cliffs and winds.

I love the comparison to Middle Eastern oil. The sea over here is grey on the Atlantic and crystal blue in the Gulf of Mexico (those are my two closest shores) but I know it’s darker and more vicious there. Like it could grab something and that thing could sink in instantly and disappear.

Ben Howard has this song called Towing the Line that always makes me think of the sea there throwing itself at everything. Maybe you’ve heard it:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VtaTIBymLcw

this is my favorite version. I don’t know how to share links at this site, so the url is all I’ve got. Sorry.

Anyway, I love this poem. The paper, scissors, stone bit was a great flourish because it adds to that sense of sibling rivalry and the two forces being like kids fighting it out.

As an aside, I went looking on your Shazbatt page the other night to see if you had this poem posted there. Man you have some great poems there. Anyway, sorry I didn’t get to this yesterday. A bit of one of those sucky days.

[gram linski]

many thanks Eilis, I do feel a strange kind of kinship in our poetry, when I read some of yours I think, s**t that's the poem I wanted to write but came up with this s**t instead, lol, am aware of young Ben, this song reminds me of Neil, Young for some reason, if you like a bit of acoustic then check out a Scottish guy called Gerry Cinnamon, some of his lyrics will have you reaching for the tena ladies, glad you enjoyed and took time out of
your sucky day, as a young man I used to pray for such days, slight aside, aye old Shazz is definitely the better writer haha, shame his writing career never took off,

[gram linski]

… apparently that mad f**k got bad additude, :)}

[Eilis]

Shazz is just misunderstood, pity for him, ha ha. I just listened to Belter on the old YouTube. I like that, definitely. Love his accent. Usually it’s not easy to tell when someone is singing what their accent is, but his shines. Thanks for the recommendation. Good stuff.

[gram linski]

haha, glad you liked it, translations available on Scotswahey.com, lol,

[jacob erin-cilberto]

the form reminds me of the Hawk's beak as it attacks its prey...with a fury, but one needed to survive...today's world...all of the anger and fury is so misplaced...it isn't about survival...it's about power, control, oil, money....
the hawk turns into a vulture.
j.

[gram linski]

and you turned a beautiful poem into a monster, lol, thanks for reading, j. didn't get a single review last time round

[R.E. Ray]

An Emersonian zig-zag path, a straight line from a distance, revealing truth and terror in one brief poem. "The Battle," indeed, gram. Exceptional piece!

[gram linski]

wow thanks R.E., Emersonian as in Lake and Palmer, thought they were more wah wah than zig zag, lol

[R.E. Ray]

Emersonian as in Ralph Waldo, a phrase from his essay, Self-Reliance. But, read what you like from Lake and Palmer. :)

[John Alexander McFadyen]

As I said before this as a poem which is up there with your best gram. No need for the 'girlie' embellishment when words alone do speak!

[gram linski]

double thanks John, I really hope some of the esteemed female writers take issue with your comments, haha, that would make my day, just watched Scotland hump Russia, a good morning indeed,

[John Alexander McFadyen]

Yes watched it too and it looked easy but Russia are not Japan. Shame we had to put in two forward passes with three man overlaps each time. Sloppy will be punished by better teams. And I have to say I will deserve the beating if our female colleagues cotton on!