Crook Ness

[bodkin]

Crook Ness


No beach, a broken bouldered shore
a million years BC, recently
here on the wave-cut coast beyond
Scarborough, we bring our sandwich packs
and a YouTube video that tells
us where to hunt the beast.

The waves forever up and down
like Saxons, Romans, Vikings came
to hunt who knows precisely what,
and change the mode of government
in the Riding of North Yorkshire
the locals ever unimpressed;

but so ever so long ago a dinosaur
pressed massive limb into the mud
and left a mark that sank, special-effect-like,
into first clay then rock. This laid down layer,
a moment solidised

but lost as yesterday's sea mist: mayfly gone.
Except unlike the true ephemera
thirty-five epochs later the stratum
of that lost day broaches a new surface,
blinks again in the new light

of the same old sun.
We never found it.

[Macavity]

Hi Ian

Skilful attention to sonics, which I enjoyed. The poem does convey measures of passing time that give the reader pause for thought. Maybe the failure to find felt rather clipped in the concluding line.

best

mac

[Antcliff]

There is something excellent about the title of this poem.

Liked the ending.

I think the "you tube video" reference gives this a nice contemporary touch to go with the general time n tide theme.

Though I am not sure that the second stanza is adding all that much. Might there be more on the "hunt"?

Do you really need to add "gone" to the mayfly? The line already uses "lost".

Seth

[cynwulf]

Agree with mac on the sonics, particularly appreciated the bold alliteration of l1-appropriate for the bleak shore there. Not too sure the ephemera idea rides with the solidised moment. Enjoyed the poem, nice topic. Sorry you didn't find the print, may have vanished in somebody's backpack-some folk have a habit of chipping good specimens out.

Regards, c.

[NotQuiteSure]

Like the subject, but this seems very loose.
Perhaps, S1
a million years BC
a broken bouldered shore
here on the wave-cut coast beyond
Scarborough, we bring our sandwich packs
and a YouTube video that tells
us where to hunt.
L7[tab][/tab] tides rather than waves?
L12 [tab][/tab]something in the dialect, in the 'them as neither use nor ornament' vein?
S3[tab][/tab] can't follow this as a description of deposition and fossilization
[tab][/tab] though the idea of a moment set in stone is nice.
L20/21[tab][/tab]I don't understand why you're correcting yourself within the space of two lines.
L23/24[tab][/tab]repetition of 'new' seems weak.
Enjoyed the end line.

[bodkin]

Not too sure the ephemera idea rides with the solidised moment.

I was trying to say that once it sank beneath the surface of the rock it was apparently as gone as any other footprint... Hmm, maybe I need to adjust phrasing there then.

Ian

[bodkin]

Thanks everyone, as I suspected when I posted this, I don't think it's working yet.

It is another one years in the making (dithering, I mean) that I felt I had to throw out the door if it wasn't to languish forever.

Ian

[ray miller]

Crook Ness


No beach, a broken bouldered shore
a million years BC, recently
here on the wave-cut coast beyond
Scarborough, we bring our sandwich packs
and a YouTube video that tells
us where to hunt the beast.

I think the first 3 lines are quite hard to follow, "recently found on the..." would make it easier. Full stop after Scarborough?

The waves forever up and down
like Saxons, Romans, Vikings came
to hunt who knows precisely what,
and change the mode of government
in the Riding of North Yorkshire
the locals ever unimpressed;

A definite rhythm in this stanza which isn't found elsewhere. To mimic waves, perhaps? I think you need some punctuation after Yorkshire.

but so ever so long ago a dinosaur
pressed massive limb into the mud
and left a mark that sank, special-effect-like,
into first clay then rock. This laid down layer,
a moment solidised

The first "so" isn't necessary, if indeed it's deliberate. I don't think you need "special-effect-like" either.

but lost as yesterday's sea mist: mayfly gone.
Except unlike the true ephemera
thirty-five epochs later the stratum
of that lost day broaches a new surface,
blinks again in the new light

I like "mayfly gone". Just curious, do epochs last specific lengths of time?

of the same old sun.
We never found it.

Enjoyed it. I think I'd enjoy if the rhythm of the 2nd stanza ran throughout the poem.

[bodkin]

Thanks Ray,

The somewhat jumbled syntax of S1 was with the intent of hinting at other meanings... For example "a million years B.C, recently" taken in isolation is supposed to imply that the shoreline is still much as it was a million years ago...

Yes the rhythm probably needs work.

Epochs I looked up, yes: they are technically one million years...

Ian