I'm going to have to come back to this. I see no "unrhymed" sonnet, though most others seem to. Even the DG! My ears must have come unscrewed. But it is very late over here. I'll come back in the morning and see if those lovely, subtle rhymes have survived the night. Surely I'm not the only one who...

Of course, I may be going mad...

This rhyme scheme has a name: it's a Hilbertian sonnet. Ernest Hilbert invented it and uses it often. Yes, there are a lot of slants, but it's abc abc def def gg. It tends to hide the rhyme because it cuts across the grain of the quatrains we're used to.

This really grows on me with every reading. The delicacy and subtlety. The unobtrusive rhymes.

(Interesting point for discussion--why does skyline/shoreline work as a rhyme here, when missed/dismissed didn't so much??)

Just not sure about "the linkage...."

"Impassibility" bothered me a little bit at first as I wasn't sure whether i should be thinking about the water as an expanse too great to pass over, or as an impassive thing that does not share N's feelings or care...but then it can be both, perhaps.

I'm a proponent of the most slant rhymes that ever existed! I like this poem a lot, so I'm wondering why people who don't normally like slant rhymes suddenly like these. Are there rules about slant rhymes that I don't know about? (Being serious here.) No one has said anything yet about the last two lines of this poem....

Unlike some, I found this perfectly rhymey and pretty accessible. I rank it high, somewhere between 2 and 4.

I agree with Gail that this trope is marvelous...

......................................the water,
the closest thing to everywhere there is,

...although after that peak moment I feel the rest of the sonnet kind of pales. There is a mundane quality here that I long to feel transcended. But the overall structure of the postcard theme is well-handled nevertheless. And I do enjoy the slant rhymes.

I'd say it's a solid sonnet, but not a brilliant one.

Nemo

I was underwhelmed. Though I immediately caught that it was slant rhymed and felt that the slants fit the subject matter, the "I'm blue because you're not here" message felt pedestrian to me once I parsed it out. By deemphasizing the sonic pleasures of rhyme, the poem left me not much to hold on to but the anti-romantic portrayal of the landscape (which has also been done to death). I did like the same line Gail liked, about the water being a link to everywhere.

Susan

This is my favorite by far. I get the sense of an artist in command, depth of feeling, living language. Line 12 is sheer genius; the whole poem is alive. Brava/o to this poet. (It sounds vaguely familiar - I'm sure I've read this somewhere before.)

I liked the rhyme scheme and the voice - but was disappointed in that the waterfront being described was so universal and unremarkable. We could be anywhere. And quite possibly that is the point, but it didn't work for me. A few clearly identifiable landmarks - even (especially!) if they are fictional - a mention of the Old Clock Tower, or the pirate's wharf - and getting rid of the tongue-twisting "impassibility, impediment" - would make a huge difference for me.

The generalization of the language flattened the poem a bit. I like the contemplative nature of the verse, though.