Death Wades



Our lives were of this moment…
  the wave made sure of that

Winter nineteen sixty-nine
  Waimea’s fury spat

Thirty feet and building
  the giants all had come

Their lips four stories high above
  too late to cut and run

The paddle out a nightmare
  the ride a waiting terror

The drop in looming zero-sum
  the wall the devils mirror

We made it down and set our fins
  to climb the face again

Our ears were deaf, eyes frozen wide
  once more to climb the mountain  

On top we leaned and split the crest
  last turn to surf the violence

The beach in sight, through foams delight
   —death wading through the silence

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2019)
           ‘Memories Of Waimea’
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Submitted by KurtPhilipBehm on January 02, 2019

Modified on March 05, 2023

35 sec read
13

Quick analysis:

Scheme XA XA XB XC XD BD XX XC XE XE XB
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 674
Words 118
Stanzas 11
Stanza Lengths 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2

Kurt Philip Behm

Longtime writer with twelve books in publication. Three of them Poetry. : The Death Of The Playground : The Sword Of Ichiban : Searching For Crazy Horse : Darkening Sun : An Anthology Of Perception-Vol's 1 & 2 : After Midnight : Sammy And Bumpers : The Fall City Mandate : Revenge Along The War Trail : Death from The Sky more…

All Kurt Philip Behm poems | Kurt Philip Behm Books

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