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Sea Shanty
Once I thought I had pain for my oceanliner, but
it was a clipper ship, a visitor skimming
the shallows of easy tears, creaking
in every board its promise of moonlight drowning
the dark-kissing sea in silver flakes,
of fools' journey's-end a Crusoe'd sort of shipwreck
where everything needed is salvageable,
of undiscovered places to find but never know.
But that of course was not pain.
Pain is an ocean
without any ship, flowerless and vast,
no islands of palms and coconuts
no brown eyes dancing
from the landward side of the reef
to blunt
the sharp-split wreckage of spars and bones,
no Man Friday
to carry my white man's burden for me,
to feed me
on conch meat and keep me alive
with all the driftwood exotica of empire.
There is only
the cold that pierces too deep
before it numbs, the struggling silence
that floats the water
that slides through my hands
and the
constant
unbearable fear
of breathing it in.
December 2024
posted for Word Garden Word List at
Images: Sea Spray, 1908, pen & ink watercolor, ©Harold Sohlberg Fair Use
Untitled, ©Zdzislaw Beksinki Fair Use
Wow, Hedge, when you dip your pen, the results are so worth waiting for. This is incredible. Pain as, not an ocean liner but a clipper ship, and then, fully, as the ocean itself without any ship. How that speaks to me. And the white man's burden, which is getting heavier by the year. Spectacular writing!
ReplyDeleteThank you, dear Sherry. May the new year be a better one for us all.
DeleteI agree with Sherry, this is amazing stuff, Hedge. It kind of sneaks up on one, starting out calmly with sea references--even though pain is at the wheel from the beginning. Then, like a ship going down quickly and leaving nothing but the cold and threatening waves, the reader is lost and to put a finer point on it, without hope of comfortable rescue and life in a shady grass hut on a tropical isle. The poem is like a guided tour of a particular Hell, which starts out easy but quickly leaves one scratching to get out util fingernails are gone. Then that knockout punch of an ending line. Just wow.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Shay. Another that would never have seen the light of day without your nudge to write.
DeleteWhat a powerful poem - rich in both imagery and emotion - Jae
ReplyDeleteThis beautiful poem speaks right to me. What the hell do we do with grief, with pain? Your poem expresses so much of what I have felt the last few years, but didn't have your eloquence to speak it.
ReplyDeleteI think you've spoken it very well, Susie. Your poems are translucent with feeling.
DeleteThe familiar line by Rilke so brings me here: "For among these winters here is one so endlessly winter / that only by wintering through it will your heart survive." Survive by not surviving it, by finding the winter inside the winter of winters, beyond mere surface pain. Drowning in pain is wholly another thing, and naming that is the step beyond that which this damn good poem takes: "There is only / the cold that pierces too deep / before it numbs, the struggling silence / that floats the water / that slides through my hands ..." The poem dances there with miles of water yet below, rapt in the "constant / unbearable fear / of breathing it in." Appalling enthralling work, Hedge, only you could write it. Here's to the dire life ring it throws, at least for the next poem.
ReplyDeleteThank you,B. As the unfashionable Tennyson said, "Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes/but ring the fuller minstrel in." May we both have that this coming year.
DeleteSo many awesome lines here - " creaking / in every board its promise of moonlight drowning", "where everything is salvageable", "Pain is an ocean / without any ship, flowerless and vast," "with all the driftwood exotica of empire." - I'm basically quoting the whole thing! Love it
ReplyDeleteThank you, Dina. A pleasure to read your work as well.
DeleteI love the way it tightens like a noose, or sends us swirling down the drain. Every line drawing us down, down, down, until our lungs are ready to explode.
ReplyDeleteWow, this is powerful. So haunting. I am swallowed up in the vastness of the scene of you've painted. I am afraid of this cold you describe! The accompanying images you have chosen too are so evocative. May 2025 bring you anchorage, peace and much wellness, Joy 🩷
ReplyDeleteSorry to have been so absent. I've visited a couple of times and read but could not find the words to comment. I'm glad to read you, though, numbing as this subject may be. I'm not near the LA fires, though I have an uncle on alert to evac just in case. and yet though the vast Pacific is *right* there, no way to tap it to quench the flames. irony's definition, yes? the sea of pain cannot douse what rages ~
ReplyDeleteGlad you are not in the line of fire, so to speak, and good to hear from you, M. Stay as safe as one can, and as pain free, in this world drowning in danger and various little and large torments.
Deletesigh. just in the line of other fires. 2 weeks back a major lithium battery storage plant burst into flame, about 15 miles from me. authorities shut down the road and evacuated some 2000 people for a couple days. this morning's news shows that there is a spike in heavy metal deposits in the marsh surrounding the area - it's a preserve (Moss Landing) and so birds and sealife - and the people - now get to deal with the potential long term effects of the particulate rain. so, much like our present administration, the effects will be seen in days to come. I hope you are as well as one might be, in this twilight of democracy. ~
DeleteJust what you need, toxic particulates in your life. And in the larger life around you. Though metaphorically speaking, they seem to be falling pretty much everywhere after the explosion of life as we know it into some billionaire's surreal wet dream. As for me, I am as well as my age allows, physically, but mentally... well, less said, etc. Take care of yourself, my friend.
Deletethe repeat of the dark surrealism of the 1930's again weighs on us as the Trumpets for war resound. that we knew this was coming is no balm - who wants to be right about this? and yet, f&C( 'em. my 88 year old mom is hopping mad about it and still feisty as all get out. she's lived thru war and its aftermath, and reminded me just this morning that 'this too shall pass'. (We're getting together Sunday in advance of my 60th next week. yeesh.)
DeleteI truly needed to reread your mom's comment this morning. I'm amazed at all the fears surfacing these days, but we each have to face our own hell of fear and fight it with our own found light, wherever we can beg, borrow or steal some. Today, Feb 1, is Brigid's Day, Imbolc, the promise of a continuing life after the hag-face of winter recedes, or at least thinks about it, so I am doing my best to just believe I will be around after this too passes. ;) And yeah, sometimes it sucks to be right. Happy Birthday, regardless, M. and all good thoughts.
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