Charles Bryant: Poem: Interior Seascape - Shoaling

This poem of mine was originally published in Acumen magazine in April 1994. The first picture on my video is by Burne Jones and it was this beautiful painting which inspired the poem. The music is the first song from Frederick Delius's 'Songs of Farewell'.

Interior Seascape -- Shoaling

Where herring shimmer in clouds
ascending silver bubbles cluster
cathedral rays of sunshine pierce the depths
of skull's interior sunken ocean
sea of mentation, shifting tides of thought.

Beside encrusted basalt columns
waveringly poised as if in air
waking visions drift through empty water.
From enormous caves great fish eyes stare.
Hot flesh cools.
Subaqueous seasons ebb and flow.

Unwaking unsleeping
abstracted from sensation and the world
the constant steady rise and fall
of oceanic currents moves us,
memory stirs the shining floor.
Sometimes hovering here beside us,
strange presences glide the glittering sands
or tumble in the wave-foam of the shore.

Sunset and moonrise, green and gold envelop all
and endless separate callings from the deep.
Half fish, half woman,
companionably remain beside me here
till putting off our last remaining fear
we require no more to hug the coast
where customary creatures come and go.
Passionately entwined
we slowly drift into the great gulf stream
conjoined with legions of the finned and winged
until is formed a universal flood
swept out into a cosmic timeless sea
where stranger lovelier fishes be.

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Tags:

• charles
• bryant
• interior
• seascape
• english
• poetry
• burne
• jones
• frederick
• delius
• spoken
• word
• performing
• arts

[fersheeze]

wow. i want to make that picture come to life. the first one...

[brychar66]

that's the one that inspired the poem, innit great? by Burne-Jones, English pre-Raphaelite. Chas.

[grasshopa]

Nice, where is that picture at 01:43 from?

[brychar66]

Thank you. It's a clipped version of Gustav Klimt's 'Mermaids' widely available on the Net.

[tHEnOOSEsWINGS]

We need to remind ourselves that life exists on a tangible labyrinth where we view all things within a conscious and of an unconscious level. Until the scientist can conclude our dreams we can go on dreaming where many vessels occur and poetry like this can evolve and waver between different beliefs. Thank you Charles for a brilliant reading and brilliant prose (poetry). 10/10

[brychar66]

Exactly. In my creative writing I seek always to point up the philosophical message (without writing philosophy) that there are two worlds, the inner and the outer. In reality, as the Vedantists long ago noted, there is only the internal world. Science is fast catching up to this idea!

[Ulixunda]

what is the name of the picture at 2:24?

[redibeaver]

It's better as a tongue in cheek presentation or it morbidly swallows itself by deluded self-import. It's a fine line fellow critters

[wopetui]

haha, i like it, it has a funny atmosphere :)

[fersheeze]

its awsome