At Sea

[poliphilo]

The wind in the trees sounds like a rough sea....

That's a fairly banal observation and most people with any imagination will have made the connection between the two sounds at some time or another- but when Ted Hughes in an early poem observed "This house has been far out at sea all night" he turned it into something magical. Don't ask me how it's done. Nobody knows. The words may come by themselves or they may have to be worked for but any fool can recognise when the magic's there and when it isn't. Great poets are Prosperos and can command it- but even they can't tell you exactly what it is they're commanding- and they know that there are times when they call on the spirits and the spirits refuse to come.

Comments

[cmcmck]

When I write poetry, I find it happens when it happens- it seems to come unbidden.

I've probably written a dozen poems in a lifetime when it has actually worked.

This one, par example:

Brugge 3

Freak Storm



Sun streamed window upon leaving
For another long day of toil.
Cobbling across the Grossmarkt
By the Belfort belling nine.
Goedemorgen to friends.

Then of a sudden it came-
Sky blue black raced in
Lightning frets silver filigree
Fat, heavy splash of raindrops
Warm and wet as blood.

The sky dark satanic plum.
Short sharp thundershatter
Then the bright blue back
Blue as a sparrow's egg
And the smell of drying

Spring storm soon stilled
Scene of sundrying
Scent of earth and tree
Refreshed and cleansed,
Shine and slick of cobbles.

The gutters gurgle gladly
Downpipe music mingles
With the treedrip opera.
Damp earth's rich smell-
Gastronomically intense.

(c) Marianna 2013

[poliphilo]

Vivid.

It comes when it comes, when the channels are open.....

[oakmouse]

It's very much like another bit from Shakespeare, not Prospero but Glendower and Hotspur: "I can call spirits from the vasty deep!" "So can I, and so can any man! But do they come when you do call them?" For a great poet, sometimes they won't come, but many times they come very willingly.

[poliphilo]

I wasn't consciously recalling Glendower and Hotspur- but they must have been lurking at the back of my mind.

[oakmouse]

I've heard it said that, metaphorically speaking, Shakespeare is in the DNA of all native-born Britons, regardless of their ethnicity or whatnot; they breathe it in with the very air. So yes, it's quite possible that Hotspur et al were lurking in the back of your mind!