Seasong
of sea, sail and spray
A rugged life of brawn, Meaningfull
effort.
The whip of salt air in the
face
Snapped taught like the sail
rigging
and the raw muscle and flesh
joined to it
like some commander, gripping
at the chain of command
in an effort to controll unwilling
sailors.
That red dripping ripped and
torn hand
burning up with pain, clenched
with fear,
of the next forcefull blast
of the sea
which strikes all breath away
for an instant
before leaving him stranded
like a dream,
floating in air, gasping, spluttering,
before pushing back
toward awareness once more,
toward physical pain.
Inches away from deaths dark
seething pressure.
That icy bitter sea on which
life floats, precariously
untill it breaks in the foam,
and plummels under.
Or somehow surviving on, triumphantly
to the new landfall!
I wrote this poem in the 1998 Australian
mathematics competition. The one where you arn't allowed to use a calculator.
As I am rather maths challenged, especially without a calculator, I came
to a point where I could do no more maths, gave up and started to think
about some of the set poetry in the General English HSC that I had been
studying the previous day. Slessor's poem "Captain Dobbin". Suddenly I
had to write down a line that came to my head in a flash... "Seasong of
sea sail and spray" I wrote the poem on the maths "working out" paper.
It took about 25 minutes to write, and the only change I made was to change
the scentence "floating on air" to "floating in air" for effect. you float
IN air, unless your in a space vacuum. and it felt a little wetter like
that too.
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