Whaler’s Elegy

Far too long my creaking, rocking prison,
this whaling ship asunder, lost at sea.
Why can I not be flung to shore?
Neptune, why so intent on punishing me?

My dear wife’s visage alive within my soul.
Grant she knows this forever more.
Neptune, why so intent on punishing me?
Why can I not be flung to shore?

Her lips, her breasts, I long for deeply.
You roiling monster, you unforgiving sea,
why can I not be flung to shore?
Neptune, why so intent on punishing me?

My death is near and she so far.
I curse and scream at thunder’s roar,
Neptune, why so intent on punishing me?
Why can I not be flung to shore?


Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the world. Today Grace is hosting and asks us to write a Mirrored Refrain.

A Mirrored Refrain “is a rhyming verse form constructed by Stephanie Repnyek. The poem is formed by three or more quatrains where two lines within the quatrain are the ‘mirrored refrain’ or alternating refrain. The rhyme scheme is as follows: xaBA, xbAB, xaBA, xbAB. x represents the only lines that do not rhyme within the poem. A and B represent the refrain.”

What I always find most challenging in following a particular form, is letting the poem make sense such that the form doesn’t stick out like the proverbial sore thumb. I’m always up for a good challenge! Image is in public domain.

Convergence

Hands gnarled by fishing gear
introvert with lonely heart,
I’ve sailed the seas many a year.
I search the horizon,
especially in breaking dawn.

Skies painted tangerine,
meld into passionate reds.
Converge with glistening waters
awakened at first light as well.
She’s come to me only thrice.

Some say I imagine her. But I say to you,
I’ve cast my eyes upon that face
sweetly framed by seaweed tendrils.
I’ve marveled at her iridescence,
that silver-flecked aquamarine tail.

Once she rose up high as if to greet me,
as if to mimic the sun’s rising arc.
Her breasts, opalescent soft mounds
barely covered by white cap foam,
nature in its ultimate innocence.

I gazed until her eyes locked on mine.
That one glorious moment
etched sublime within my mind,
keeps me more at sea than ashore,
searching forevermore.

I seek that miraculous convergence
when divine dawn breaks early light
and she appears once more.
She, the sweetest balm in all the world,
for my aching lonely heart.

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today is Tuesday Poetics and Laura is hosting. She asks us to think about the poet as a painter. And most especially, she asks us to consider the ekphrastic poem: “The practice of using words to comment on a piece of visual art is an ancient one. One of the earliest and most commonly cited forms of ekphrasis occurs in The Iliad, when Homer provides a long and discursive account of the elaborate scenes embossed on the shield of Achilles… the term ekphrasis derives from Greek, where it literally means “description” and was formed by combining the prefix ex- (“out”) with the verb “phrazein” (“to point out or explain”)”. (Merriam Webster)”

HOWEVER, for this prompt, she gives us a number of artwork titles from contemporary artists and asks us to use that title, as the title of our poem – without looking at the actual artwork itself. With our words, we are to paint the story of or the image of that title. One title she provides for the prompt is Convergence by Jackson Pollack.

Image by Sharon McCutcheon:”Unsplash”