Fairy Tale Prompt: Volume 1

"Miranda at the Stern"

If you haven't seen this before or are new to SSiG, this is a writing prompt community project in which we share our art and writing for encouragement and constructive criticism.

Click here for the rules and deadline.

I'm posting this way ahead of time in case some people are still unclear about how to go about participating and what that participation entails.

Copyright Claudia Bernasconi Esposito.  Source.

Reflecting on the prompt (above) made me think of undines, which became the wreaths or petals of the poem, and grew backward and inward from there.

I would be very grateful for a critical eye: style, word choice, stanzas, story, anything that catches your attention.  I purposefully did not ask for feedback on this before hand.  

The idea is to encourage and critique.  But please be gentle and considerate!  We want to uplift, not to trample.*

Miranda at the Stern

The buoyant fruit, seeded

with pearlescent faces bearing names

of extinct, pedantic gods,

dives from father's cay

in albatross form, sails puffed

but breathless, catching no current,

slapped by the wide palms of rain;

the mineral sea a mouthless

appetite, devouring islands, spitting them

back like stones.

The waves' tongues pitch and roll

the rootless boat.  Fish-eyed

undines swirl, stare

at she who tore and drifted through

the veil, broke the soot-circumference

of Prospero's pentagrams, forsook

what is solid, with no place

to anchor.

*  Please also be aware when offering constructive criticism that, as a writer once said about her craft, "there are no mistakes, only effects."  Tone and style are unique and personal.  It can be hard for the un-trained critiquer to recognize the difference between what isn't working and what isn't his personal taste.  I would be mortified if, through a desire to help foster someone's creative inclinations to art and writing, we unwittingly discourage and cause self-doubt and discouragement.