Spirit whispered,
“Share my language,
Sea Man”
As he sailed towards
the lethal vipers of
the Sahara,
his mind was opaque to
the soft lens of Spirit.
Spoken heard
unspoken not
Spirit wept,
featuring occasional nudity
pampering her womb in the cosmos,
Sea Man milled it like metal
unspoken heard
spoken not
Sea Man was deeply,
madly, crazily
for the Sahara.
Spirit shifted the peel
of the banana
Sea Man slightly stumbling
adjudicator to
his narcissistic system
Sea Man glided home
Spirit grayed to black
there was no euphoria.
Was it hard to put banana in there? You did a really wonderful job of this. I loved "Sea Man was deeply,
madly, crazily for the Sahara" and kept going back to that one part and rereading it.
Also "Spirit whispered,“Share my language,Sea Man”. I guess if I keep going I'm going to retype the whole poem here!
Oh, just one more. "No euphoria" made me think that I should feel sad at the end, but instead I felt like it happened the way it should and was kind of satisfied, if that makes sense. I always especially love your poetry that has the sea as the backdrop.
Posted: May 23, 2008
Ok Peachy T, I’ve been recovering from one hell of an hangover, which means I have been unable to comment! Christ, I couldn’t even see for several hours. Now im feeling better,( tho I’m off to a club tonight so lord knows what state I’ll be in tomorrow) so here’s my little analysis.
Oh, by the way I’m not going to read the poem in relation to these 5 words or some sort of challenge. That would just spoil the poem for me. I know it’s fantastic that so many people from all over the world r writing in relation to this challenge from lionheart, but hey; I seen to wend my own way through the forest, and happily for me our paths seem to merge from time to time.
Ok, sense of journey screams from this poem. Obviously “Sea-man” but in terms of both physical and spiritual journey. But also I like the play on the word “Sea Man” in the sense of those little life givers that journey through the cosmos of the female body and create life. This is the first journey in our existence.
So I get the sense of “Sea Man” being physical and spirit being part of our deeper consciousness. The soul if you like that mirrors our earth-real existence with one in the spiritual plane.
I love the first three lines, its as tho there’s a plea from the spirit, for sea man as lost his way. (just want to add that sea man is a beautiful metaphor for journey, in all its contexts) “share my language” suggests that both are the same, but one as lost contact with the other, probably something that happens at birth. It sort of reminds me of your two peas in a pod.
The vipers and Sahara give the poem a sense of ones destiny as ruinous if one doesn’t wake up. The image of snake in poems like this always brings it back to a spiritual message, and one that doesn’t lead to the glorious light. The sea of the Sahara is all sand and dust, which implies to me the idea of being lost and sunk into a way of thinking/living. It is the opposite of the image of the happy boat sailing on the blue ocean to the promised land.
So his mind is closed to the spirit, or to a higher sense of consciousness. Does he hear the spirit and choose to ignore it? Well you swap the images of spoken heard and unspoken not in the poem, which suggests the voice of the spirit is there in life, but we don’t recognise it. Unknowingly we know that it is there, but its translucent, like the moon on a summers day.
Pampering her womb in the cosmos portrays to me a parental bond between the two. But sea man is so caught up in his life that he unknowingly almost destroys this bond between mortality and spiritual realm. He milled it like metal is a very worldly phrase, as though mortal actions can destroy the fabric of the spiritual plane/or I see it as our soul.
So the sense of neglect is also strong here, which could be a metaphor for so many things: our neglect of our spiritual side, our neglect of our planet, each-other ect…
I like the last stanza too. The play on narcissistic offers several interpretations. Could it be simply sea mans obsession with himself which perpetrates his own downfall, or is it more sexually explicit. Of course peachy T it also infers a sense of Narcissus the beautiful youth in Greek myth, who was obsessed with his own beauty, that he destroyed his life and those around him.
So this ends the poem in a sad way. there is no hope for sea man, through his own selfishness he destroyed the spirit who through selfless love tried in vain to save its own soul.
I could almost take this as a love poem between sea man and spirit. It suggests that unconditional love is the truest form of being in the universe, like a parent as for their child, and one in which they would truly die for. Real beauty is always inner beauty, the surface is just a mask we show to the world.
Well peachy T im probably way of mark in respect to your original idea, but this is what I take from your wonderful and beautifully written poem.
I am stunned by your writing. It’s just so beautiful. U have a stunning mind peachy, and I love it.
Thanks for crossing my path again. I now head off into the trees knowing that I will c u again soon!!
Posted: May 25, 2008
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