"The Sea In The Head": Two More From Kennelly's "Islandman"

When will we permit the sea in the head

To flow as it will?

The moon has laws but no theories.

It sends out a cold, golden call

And hangs in suspense for the answer

We fear to give.

I would release the sea in the head.

I would let it live,

Pour through the brain's darkest caves,

Out through the eyes,

Touching the distant skin of other 

Minds and bodies.

Who will say which is more real --

My hands on the sea,

The strange flesh or the hurt roar

That is part of me?

Who will say which is more felt --

Loneliness

Or the desolation written on stones

When the sea withdraws?

I have learned to live both night and day

Uncertain of day and night.

This beautiful island is poised forever

In a dubious light.

--Brendan Kennelly,

Two poems from his "Islandman," a book or sequence of poems that  I've pointed to and quoted from before here and here.

Borrowed, with respect, from this volume:

Brendan Kennelly, Breathing Spaces: Early Poems, 
Bloodaxe Books: Newcastle upon Tyne, 1992.