[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by Mark McDonnell

"What ghosts, what galaxies, fall down the cracks" was still tetrameter, I'm sure. David prefers galaxies and maybe you do too?

Mark, “fall down,” like “grew up,” is a phrasal verb normally stressed on the preposition. That’s how I got pentameter. HOWEVER, accents can be shifty, and I don’t rule out the pronunciation “fall down the cracks.” I didn’t get it, but others may. I do miss “galaxies,” but sustaining the marine motif is also nice. I’m on the fence.

[Jim Moonan]

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I love "crook" but prefer "galaxies".
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[Matt Q]

Hi Mark,

I like it. I enjoy the anapaestic bounce. And I relate to the fondness for (some) memories, for digging them and reminiscing.

Dive down the sofa, tobacco-stained fingers,
pale dregs of the evening still shine.

This struck me as in the imperative, and as such didn't trouble me. As I read it he's telling his fingers to dive down the sofa, where I presume, more memories may lay in the cracks. There's still time left in the day to indulge in more memories.

One line puzzles me:

Sometimes a day can be stranger than years

Are you saying that sometimes a day (i.e. the one with the woman from Michigan) is stranger that the combined strangeness of several (relatively dull?) years? Somehow, to me, it doesn't quite seem to say this. Also the only overt reference to day is the present one (whose evening is upon the N). But that could just be me overthinking. Or are you saying something else? Or is this part of the puzzle?!

EDIT:

I guess it's in part the indeterminateness of "years" that leaves me scratching my head. I might say, "a day can be stranger than a year", or "a day can be stranger than some years". But absent a determiner, it seems more like years in general.

Though even then, I'm not quite sure what the comparison is saying -- how it works: Is the strangeness of that day more than the sum of the strangeness of each day in several years? So, the day was maybe 1000 times stranger than than the average day in those years? Or just that it was stranger than the strangest day in those years?

Now, what was I saying about overthinking this?

Anyway, maybe there's a clearer way of saying what you want to say here? Or maybe I'm the only one who thinks it strange.

best,

Matt

[Mark McDonnell]

Thanks Matt, Jim, Carl and John

I'm going to stick with "shipwrecks" for now, I think. Carl, I see now how you got to pent, though by that point in the poem a tetrameter reading would probably be instinctive. Well, it's a moot point now, I suppose (unless I change it back!)

Thanks John

Hi Matt,

I'm glad you like this.

Are you saying that sometimes a day (i.e. the one with the woman from Michigan) is stranger that the combined strangeness of several (relatively dull?) years?

That's more or less it, yes. Perhaps you are over-thinking (or I'm "under clarifying" ) but you got there! There may be a better line, though. Thanks for giving it some thought.

Thanks again, everyone.