Sea Howl

While walking with my dog along the beach,
I found a seashell different from the rest,
a torrent of waves filled with Neptune’s speech.

Spellbound, I contemplated every word
enunciated on the ocean’s breath –
a poem or the cry of a seabird?

Savouring it like salt upon my tongue,
the foam like fishy kisses on my lips,
I opened my mouth and the sea howl sung.

Kim M. Russell, 17th March 2020

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Image found on Flickr

My response to dVerse Poets Pub Poetics: Three from The Welsh Speaking Sea

This Tuesday, Laura brings us Poetics with the late Raymond Garlick, ‘an English dyed-in-Welsh-wool poet’. I am a fan of Welsh poets but had not read Garlick in depth until now. Thank you, Laura, for reminding me of his word magic and his triplet rhyme scheme.

Laura tells us that Garlick was a synaesthete, who saw letters and words in colour, giving him ‘a multi-layered fascination with words which is evident in a poem he wrote as his young son Iestyn was coming to grips with language’. She has shared with us a poem entitled ‘Welsh-Speaking Sea’, on which she has based today’s prompt.

Our challenge is to choose at least three rhyme word sets, taken from ‘Welsh-Speaking Sea’, and write a poem, which can be three or more three-line stanzas or a composite nine-liner. Laura says that strict meter is not a requirement but for an extra challenge we can try pentameter (10 syllables to each line). We don’t have to follow the sequence of the given word sets and may reverse the order of the first and third words, but we should keep the integrity of each set.

I have chosen SPEECH/REST/BEACH, WORD/BREATH/BIRD and SUNG/LIPS/ TONGUE.

45 thoughts on “Sea Howl”

  4. Three tidy tercets capturing enough sea lore to fill a novella; excellent poem. The sea theme looms large on the trail tonight. For some reason the prompt words spoke to me of the Great Depression.

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    1. Thank you, Sarah! How are you surviving? I just had a Face message video chat with daughter and grandson, which cheered me up and then made me cry. WordPress and Facebook are coming into their own.

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      1. Keep calm, Kim, it’s only just starting, and it’s going to get a lot stricter. They’ve increased the fine for being caught outside without a written permit. Must mean that people weren’t taking it seriously enough yesterday.

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      4. They seem to have forgotten that and BJ has just said they’ve been implementing ‘the right measures at the right time’.

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      9. I just can’t understand what gave people the impression they would be anything but contradictory and confusing. If I could work that out, I might be able to see why they are disillusioned now.

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