Thunder, Free, Curse: Three Poems from Brendan Kennelly

SPECIAL THUNDER

He had to reach the island in the winter gale.
From Saleen Quay he pushed the little boat
Over the rough stones till she came afloat;
You'd swear he could see nothing when he hoisted sail
And cut the dark.  Once a grey shape blurred
Above his head while pitchblack water slapped
And tried to climb over the side but dropped
Into the sea, thwarted.  In time, he heard

The special thunder of the island shore,
He hauled the boat in, sheltered near a rock
And smiled to hear the sea's defeated roar;
Breathing as though the air were infinitely sweet,
He watched the mainland where the hard wind struck.
The island clay felt good beneath his feet.


FREE

Once ever a boat capsized on Red
So simply he couldn't tell why.
One moment the sun caressed his head,
The next, his world was water.  His eyes
Opened, closed, hurt by the urgent green
That pressed him down, down into the mud
Until his face touched the obscene
Slime.  Strange, though, how foul touch calmed his blood.

His grey head about to split in pieces,
He kicked free, free till he broke into the air.
Breathing hugely, he righted his craft in time,
Clambered aboard.  Ghoulish faces
Of water haunted him, seemed to stare
At his repose.  The sun tasted of green slime.


CURSE

They said a curse was on the boat.
It would never put to sea again
Because two men were lost from it.
Red bought it from a fisherman
For thirty pounds and four tides later
Headed it out into the Shannon.
'There's no such thing as luck,' we heard him mutter
'There's but the skill and strength of a man

With sure hands and sense in his head.
And one thing more.  Luck was never known
To drown the living or raise the dead
But many a cocksure man went down
Because his trust was not where it should be.
Out there, forget your brothers.  Trust the sea.'


--BRENDAN KENNELLY,
from his Love Cry sequence,
collected in Breathing Spaces: Early Poems,
Bloodaxe Books, 1992.

To Em--: Shark-Dream (& Of Fear)

I
Em--
I'll do a quick description of this latest shark dream/nightmare:

I was free diving up and down in the ocean, but the visibility was great and there were all sorts of people diving with tanks and doing stuff, odd stuff, like grilling fish underwater with cars anchored in the water, parked, floating, and such.

In the dream, I swam all the way down to the bottom here, and people were impressed and I was happy with that, but I really needed to head up, and I paused to accept a bit of underwater-grilled salmon from one of my students this term, an older fellow who was the nicest guy AND had faced great adversities, and I swam up and pulled myself onto the roof of this floating car, anchored with a giant chain to the bottom, but floating, sort of, with the car top at the surface.

I pull myself out and sprawl across the top of the car, enjoying my grilled salmon. (Underwater grilling?) Then, the shadow of a large shark--tiger shark, I think, but definitely not a great white shark, but big and aggressive and commanding--swims below. I can't really see very well from the car top, and I'm lying down and putting my face in the water trying to see the shark, worrying about all those tank divers and my student, etc, but the car keeps tipping and I'm worried it's going to lose whatever air is holding it up in place and that it will sink, and the shark is circling around and around.

I keep having to shift position, and I can't keep the shark in sight, and I am wondering if I should swim to somewhere else, but I'm the only free diver and I'll be silhouetted, and ... and ... and... I'm pretty worried, but I'm worried about everyone else a bit more than myself (which is a good feeling) and then

the shark is pushing against the leg I've got hanging off the side of the floating car, pushing against me, not biting, but maybe he's grabbing at someone below, so I'm beating the shark's body where I can reach it, beating and beating with my clenched fist, and I reach for my small dive knife, and

I wake up gasping.

A fairly usual night of dreaming for me.

II
Oh Em--,
I'm not that cool, though I aspire to be. I'm a bit afraid of being afraid. And, so far in life, I hope that I've stepped up as needed, not let fear get in the way.  (Maybe I'm not remembering the failures right now, but still hoping to not let fear take over in the future.)

I know that my imagination can be so strong that I have to ignore it or overpower it sometimes, and yet I also try to stay true to my intuition. Case: if it's feeling sharky out there, what do I do? Resist the over-imagination or respect the intuition? Can I tell which is which?

If I've been relaxed up until the sharky thoughts start coming in, I tend to respect the anxiety. I'll keep diving or paddling and keep checking the vibe. Finally, if I can be a little relaxed and yet still feel the sharkiness coming, I'll go in to shore or I'll not dive over the side. That's been an issue two or three times, and once I was solo in a very remote place, so it seemed wise to respect the feeling.

If I am imagining too much on the drive to the site, or I've been watching Jaws or something, I'll work harder to resist the fear. I'll push further just to test myself. Unless I've psyched myself out completely. Then, I'll do 20 or 30 minutes and head in. Only happened twice so far, ever.

Most of the time, I have no thoughts or just one or two thoughts of sharks, I knock wood on my head, and I keep diving or paddling.
--MD

Non-fiction: two passages from the correspondence I've had with a friend, lightly edited.  Gist--or roughish notes, in both cases.  I'm posting now not to lose the material, essentially, for I know I'll come back here and want to edit and revise for more accurate vision, more attentive assessments.  

Strong Woman

Trickster: I've posted shots of her a few times, at least twice. Here's the link to her August 2012 appearance.

Fatality Knocks

"Dead people and dead thoughts and supposedly dead moments are never, ever truly dead, and they shape every moment of our lives.  We discount them, and that makes them mighty."

--from Caitlin R. Kiernan's The Drowning Girl: A Memoir