Tag Archives: Shipwrecks

Here and Hereafter

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James Shaw, The Admella wrecked, Cape Banks, 6th August, 1859

From misted dreams, the clouds blow back black
as sky-ships spray incandescent shimmer,
and with whispered wonder
sing, bring, ring-in the pink-rosed day.
This after disaster, hereafter and if–
the moon comes blue, and hums
for the sad sea, and those you see, in-between drifts
of shadow and shine, the haunted souls
of those who played with diamond cool, embracing now
the darkest deep, finding that water breaks, and aches
without why and whenever, with roars, ripples, waves, and swell
from here into hereafter,

and if, and if, and if. . .

My message today from the Magnetic Poetry Oracle. She knows it’s Halloween and that there will be a blue moon tonight.

Ghostwalk

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We marked the spot where first we saw her walk

there the woods, and then to the meadow dark.

She seemed to drift or soar, in white, like chalk

of the cliffs, where ships below lay there stark,

old bones without life, bereft without spark.

The ghost though, from what hauntings had she fled,

did she seek love, did she know she was dead?

 

 

 

This is a septet for dVerse. In honor of dVerse’s seventh anniversary, Frank has asked us to write a poem of seven lines on any subject. I’m not sure that it’s quite rhyme royal, but it’s seven lines, and it rhymes. I’ve used Secret Keeper’s weekly writing challenge words: ghost/mark/woods/soar/meadow.

The Siren Calls: Yeats Challenge, Day 5 and 6

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I’ve combined Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats Day 5 and Day 6 Challenges into one poem.

Day 5 Quotation:

“And like a sunset were her lips,
A stormy sunset on doomed ships;
A citron colour gloomed in her hair,”

–From The Wanderings of Oisin: Book One by W. B. Yeats.

Day 6 Quotation:

‘Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting heaven’

 

Beauteous she was there,

like a sunset were her lips

and citron gleams within her hair.

She sang a song to doom the ships

and though we knew to watch for her

her voice was softly sweet, and so beguiling

and with such sweetness, lured to rocks we were

to crash there on, while she sat smiling.

But as I sank beneath the sea,

a dolphin came to rescue me

from this cold place, this watery grave,

he carried me upon his back, from there took me away

from the siren’s call and the dangerous waves

to the shores of my home country.

And this is where I now will stay

in my home upon a hilltop bright

Heaven it is to me, I say

to see the rooks caw in murderous flight,

and I delight.

And yet, sometimes from out at sea

the siren’s melody still calls to me.

Dante_Gabriel_Rossetti_-_A_Sea-Spell

Dante Gabriel Rossetti [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
 “William Michael Rossetti described the picture thus: ‘The idea is that of a Siren, or Sea-Fairy, whose lute summons a sea-bird to listen, and whose song will soon prove fatal to some fascinated mariner.’”

 

 

The Messages

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JTF Guantanamo Sailor Sends a Message in a Bottle

After tossing several messages in bottles out to sea over the years as an outlet for his thoughts and feelings, Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Christopher Delacruz received a response. Delacruz, a culinary specialist at Joint Task Force Guantanamo, shared his experience with this method of communication, Dec. 1.

 

I am lost/ Where are you, cast away by currents?

alone, washed ashore/ After the ship sank

carried by the waves/  I searched for you

this island is not placid/ amid the debris

detritus mars the beach/ ethereal flakes of life floating

among the meandering silver fish/ glinting in the sunlight

in water, salty as my tears as I cry for you/ sending a message, of hope?

please find me / Do not forget me, love

© Merril D. Smith 2016

 

This is in response to Jane Dougherty’s Poetry Challenge.  This week the challenge was the photograph above and/or these words: ethereal, placid, meander, forget, silver. I wrote a cleave poem. Each side is a complete poem, but the full lines read together also make a poem. So, three poems in all.