Beach With Absence Of Yellow
Because
you were gone
the sun was a gin-soaked gypsy
in a yellow dress
going inevitably down
down where sticky darkness
wants to go, sliding from
the mouths
of ruined sailors
whose pleasures led them to the overflow,
drowned down gold-bright waves, row on row,
to wash up sorry scarecrows
on the shore, back-stabbed and
broken to the empty land once more.
Because
everything is gone,
the morning sun is sober as a cat,
bored and batting at the palm-leaf's knees.
The sailor's flattened hat is
shredded on an unpersuaded breeze
that only wants to quit
and all along the boulevard
cigarette butts still roll,
the mirrors lie,
the telephones ring.
March 2023
posted for
Images: Venus and the Sailor, 1935 ©Salvador Dali
Vegetal Puppets, 1938 ©Remedios Varo
Very rich imagery - I like how I'm pulled in by the superb detail of the sun as a gin-soaked gypsy, and the rhythm of the words, the flow, inevitably feels like I'm being pulled into and down, along with what's happening. And the idea of ruined sailors washing up as back-stabbed scarecrows (as you've worded it in that stanza) is just stunning and amazing. Sharp contrasts and unusual comparisons/metaphors make this poem sing for me from start to finish.
ReplyDeleteGood to see you back and writing Joy.
Joy, this just gets better and better as it goes on. First off, I love the personification of the sun here. I usually hate personification because it often comes off sounding childish or overly whimsical, but not in your capable hands.
ReplyDeleteTo wit: the part that really grabbed me was the "unpersuaded breeze that only wants to quit". So original, so descriptive, and just plain pleasing to someone who loves poetic imagery. And then of course, that final stanza. I also love the tags.
SO nice to see you writing and writing so well after so long a lamented absence. Welcome back, Joy.
The title suggested to me that when memory ghosts itself, every beachside reverie is able, sterile and ruined. The description of that is so precise ("the morning sun is sober as a cat, / bored and batting at the palm-leaf's knees. / The sailor's flattened hat is / shredded on an unpersuaded breeze / that only wants to quit") that "you" is all of us, the world, beloved and lover both, become the colorless fabric of absence. And yet it is a place to begin, and the writing sings of more. (Perhaps the ghost is Elizabeth Bishop's "write it!") Welcome back, H. You have been sorely missed.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Shay. But this still stays with me after re-reading: “ the sun was a gin-soaked gypsy” I love that so much!
ReplyDeleteJoy, how are you? How lovely to read you again! And thank you for the lovely comment you left over at my blog :-) It seems strange to say I enjoyed this, dark and dystopian as it was, but you paint darkness so beautifully, it's difficult not to get caught up in the gothica. The first stanza is just captivating and I adore the phrase "gin-soaked gypsy"!!
ReplyDeleteAnd then how it goes on to show us the scene of them lying as sorry scarecrows on the beach, terrifying! It reminded me of the bleak scenes the surrealist painters would sometimes paint, stark against an empty horizon. So the last two stanzas topped it off just so eloquently. I absolutely love:
"Because
everything is gone,
the morning sun is sober as a cat,"
and the last stanza:
"and all along the boulevard
cigarette butts still roll,
the mirrors lie,
the telephones ring." This reminded me so much of the opening scene of a film. I could hear the phones ringing.
I'm taken by the rhyme, how they ring and reinforce the imagery; by the bored sun especially ~
ReplyDelete