Moonwalk

[arunansu]

A man retraces his path
to witness a sunrise by the sea.
He observes the sky lose its innocence
with each passing hour.

The day departs
taking back all its belongings,
leaving out a trail of colours.

Waves return bits and pieces
of a life: one of a pair of gloves,
a military jacket, and Ray-ban sunglasses.

[Dalena]

Arunasu

Could I be so bold as to say this seems very topical in relation to recent events relating to an individual?
If it had been a single glove that would have been obvious, I like the way you have used implication with your objects.....

A thoughtful piece........that uses some familar images to good effect.

Thanx

Dalena x

[arunansu]

Thanks Dalena for your reply. This can work both ways. It may be a tribute to MJ, or this may hold good for any person in general. I wanted to use the image of his moonwalk steps.
Thanks.

[Petronius]

Since I am an old and , for the young, inevitably wrong, my views on Michael Jackson may not interest you. I find that modern music has gone down the road of rhythm and eschewed harmony and melody in favour of a heavy simple beat and indecipherable words. However that does not affect my appreciation of the poem which I enjoyed. I know that it is not simply about M.J. and I see the ambiguity which is often found in good poetry. Poetry often works best in an oblique way.Well done. Have you read Empson's "The Seven Types of Ambiguity?" No. Perhaps not. It is better for a poet not to be too analytical. My besetting sin.

[arunansu]

Dear Petronius,
I'm myself not a big fan of "beat-culture". Still, his music and more importantly his performance, his reserve of energy - was breathtaking. Sometimes I wonder, where does such amount of energy go? Ether? When a person departs, we are mostly concerned with the tangible aspects. What happens to the soul. Does it starts "moonwalking" back for another birth?
These were some of my thoughts.
Thanks.

[Lovely]

Great tribute Aru.

It takes a poet to do it as only they can.

Heartfelt moments.

Lx

[Suzanne]

Aru,

I thought this was very nice. I liked the simplicity.
You did an excellent job.

Enjoyed,
Suzanne

[arunansu]

Thank you Lovely and Suzanne for your replies.

[Helen Bywater]

Hi Aru,

Since you said you like to have errors in your English pointed out, there's one here I noticed.

"Sunglasses" is one of those words like "trousers" that's always plural, even though it refers to one object. It's because the name originally referred to the glass lenses themselves. Similarly, modern trousers evolved from a garment that was two separate pieces. It's always "glasses" or "a pair of glasses". Here you could say "a pair of Ray-Bans" as they're often called that for short.

Helen

[arunansu]

Dear Helen,

Thanks for pointing to this. There is already a "pair of gloves" in the line prior to the last one, and I didn't want a repetition. Also, I thought "a Ray-ban sunglass" would be okay.

[Helen Bywater]

That's true. I was only thinking about the correct English, not the poem. "A sunglass" is wrong, though, and won't look right to any fluent English speaker. Maybe you could use the suggestion someone made about the single glove. I know it would make it seem more like Michael Jackson, but it could still be ambiguous. In any case, it's perhaps rather unlikely that both gloves would get washed up by the same wave. That was a point that struck me when I read this before.

[BenJohnson]

If you are going for syllable count you could just drop the 'a' and say 'Ray-ban sunglasses'. Like Helen this jarred at the end of an exceedingly well thought out poem.

[arunansu]

Ok, I give in. Let it be "Ray-ban sunglasses". Smiles.