literature

A fleet of 'maybes', a navy of 'what ifs'

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comatose-comet's avatar
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Literature Text

We were ships passing in an open bay,
our red sails melting like an eclipse;
in that moment, we filtered out all light
and let our eyes glow from beneath our lids;
but moments are fleeting and ships pass
and our anchors drop in the close embrace
of other harbours.
 
26/8/14
About a boy I met a few weeks back and haven't seen since

*hastily uploaded since it's the first time dA has worked properly here in China for me! :la:

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miserabel's avatar
:star::star::star::star: Overall
:star::star::star::star-half::star-empty: Vision
:star::star::star::star::star: Originality
:star::star::star::star::star-empty: Technique
:star::star::star::star::star: Impact

First things first; what really grabbed me here was the title. I love that title; it is so eloquent, and it already manages to evoke images. A fleet of maybes, a navy of what ifs. I could ramble about this for a while, I just consider the title itself a stroke of genius. It makes my small writer's soul very happy to read. <img src="e.deviantart.net/emoticons/h/h…" width="15" height="13" alt=":heart:" data-embed-type="emoticon" data-embed-id="357" title="Heart"/>

The one thing I find rather tiring about this is the subject. It is not a new one (but then, these days, what is?), and I personally feel I've seen this, read this, maybe even wrote it too many times before, so the theme appears cliché and I feel overfed with it - you save yourself though, through the brevity of this and the metaphors.

It's not "a shared smile, never saw them again", but it's ships sailing past each other, and instead of simply going into different directions, they "let their anchors drop in the close embrace / of other harbours". Those last two lines reconciled me with your piece, because - again - pure genius, beautiful metaphor, wonderfully worded! Maybe ships need harbours more than they need other ships?

All in all, this very nicely puts the feeling into words you get when looking at strangers through a bus window, wondering if you could love any of them, wondering if any of them could love you. I adore the ships-metaphor so much the "let our eyes glow beneath our lids" part almost feels too human to me, but that might be personal preference here.
Very nice work! <img src="e.deviantart.net/emoticons/c/c…" width="20" height="20" alt=":clap:" data-embed-type="emoticon" data-embed-id="60" title="Clap"/>