I mentioned — can’t find it — that if anyone asked to see what I consider the one decent bit of poetry I’ve ever written, I’d post it. No one has, but I’m feeling brave (fortified?) tonight, and thought I’d share it.
With all the poetry that I’ve spent lots of time on, this was a moment in my undergraduate “Creative Writing: Poetry” class at which I arrived at class ten minutes beforehand and thought, “Oh, shit, sonnet!” I wrote it longhand on a piece of filler paper. I didn’t really like structured poetry (although, with distance, I think C.S. Lewis was right when he stated that one needs to understand the rules of poetry before one breaks them), so I restructured the sonnet into an ABCDCBA ABCDCBA format to suggest the to-and-fro motion of an ocean storm. Anyway, here it is:
Shipwreck (1996)
Beneath the blue-grey sky, upon the blue
Entombed, in ice, my dear-love ship remains
As I, alone, am tossed above the sea.
No bird, no fish in view to see my plight
For Neptune in his frigid heart must be
A vicious god, whose brutal mind complains
When forced to see what angered mortals do.I faced the sea with rage, that much is true –
Alas! this icy cold must chill my veins!
My rage alone cannot afford to be
A martyr slain, beside my soul this night.
I faced the sea alone, that much I see –
And left adrift, with Neptune at his reins
I gasp, and scream, and bare my rage anew.
Please be gentle.
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No need for gentleness: this is fucking beautiful.
No need for gentleness: this is fucking beautiful.
Wow, thank you.
You know what is completely absurd about this? I keep going over these two lines:
and I’ll think that there is profound and haunting truth in this, but that I don’t entirely get it. I’ll catch myself thinking things like, “Yeah, I think this kind of thought would go through my head, but I don’t understand why it would be remotely relevant, if he’s going to die anyway. And ‘afford’? Why ‘afford’?! Also, how could his rage be ‘alone’ if it’s ‘beside [his] soul’? Except, it kinda would be, wouldn’t it? Or maybe it’s that, if there is a martyr slain, he demands that it comprise more than rage. But wouldn’t his rage be part of his soul? Well, no, not necessarily; at least he wouldn’t want it to be. Hmm.”
Basically, I’m not sure if I used to get it or never did, and maybe thinking we can completely understand the truth of everything we write is as much a conceit as thinking we can write with truth beyond what we intended in the first place.