Surfing my mind's midnight Sibylline sea
from a pandemonic Promethean quay,
caught in a creamy host, her countenance floats
off a weary coast, and I in briny thoughts.
Still see that wafting veil over gust and gale
tears in a frozen stare from a turbid tale.
Pride, where's your strutting stride on her rampant ride
as soul swamps the sight and rills roll the side?
Tossed to a tempest, once this enchantress,
off her fortress —to spume; to spray,
regardless...
Her keel creaked in sags as if on racks…
Her helm helpless in drags as if on tracks...
Her sails fretted in shreds; tattering dregs…
Her soul ripped in scraps; ravage and rags…
So—
Could she hold the kraken heaves
from her deeps to heaven’s weeps?
Could she stall Neptune's steeds
spuming her cherub cheeks?
Yet—
Neptune nabbed in the nooks in nymphal eyes;
silent seagull-cries swam the eyes' sodden skies.
A Bragolin gleam on a Mona Lisa meme;
hanging loose on the brim, then succumbed to a stream
. .. ... . .. ... . .. ... . .. ... . .. ... in a briny, silent scream.
And I—
Cast to the thalassic tides of this mystery,
still bobbing in memory's Venusian locks.
How this Seraphine gaze knocks in query
on the Lethean tyranny of clocks!
And I —
Tossed to a tempest in her Seraphine scream.
Home, now Avalon, beyond the rippling rim.
Lost on her gaze in an Olympian gleam.
Her silent scream in my Sirenic dream.
Still I—
Locked in a bottle in an Apollonian deluge,
sooth on Pandoran shores shares no refuge.
Swept with a stream with a Babylonian gleam,
what she'd screamed to say, now nothing than a dream…
Repost
© Hirondelle, Apr 27, 2025
Arif Hifzioglu
This was a living Bragolin version of Mona Lisa I once saw and have ever been haunted by ever since: a version with eyes pooling with anguish yet in a cryptic Seraphine chemistry. Eyes Bragolin-painted with both pain and peace --two tides in the same still sea.
Both serenity and turmoil which I have little idea as to how they managed to federate on that haunting visage... Tears pooling in the eyes and exuding a strange, heavenly glow on the face...
Ever since my curiosity had the better of me to steal a furtive glance at this person, who I knew wouldn't rather me to have seen them in that undeserved heartbreak, I have been cast to a mental tempest, rudderless, at the sporadic hauntings of the moment.
We were in a place with other people, and she was summoned to go out. When she came back, she went to her place as if wading through the thick waters of leaden disappointment. Ignoring would have been unkind, yet my noticing her in that pool of sorrow, let alone looking, would have been upsetting to her, either. What would you have done in that situation? Walking out was not an option, either. You knew nothing -nothing more than the vague notion that you were the best person to help, but the least one to do so all the same.
After curiosity had had the better of me despite all reverence to her, and I dared to steal a millisecond furtive glance at her, my peek was met with a frozen poignant gaze which had already been there on me, screaming volumes from across an unknown sea of pain. I don't know how much longer it lingered on me after my eyes stampeded back to the shelter of the article I was reading. I was not meant to see her in that raw sorrow; this is for a fact. Once she was everyone's champion, and now, she was this fallen angel. Falling is hurtful, but having the others you love to witness it... I don't know; I have never risen so much to see what happens, and how it happens later.
Not being able to help, my troubled conscience has ever been in a sealed bottle in a troubled sea of why's and how's with the deafening silence of the scream in that frozen stare.
Human expression could sometimes be unbearably cryptic. And when we are overwhelmed by the emotions of a person we care deeply and try to understand them, we hit an intersection of two roads leading in two different directions. If we don't let our emotions overrule our reason, we can whisper a word or two from the rational world in which they have already suffered the heartbreak, which may mean that they already know the answer. We almost invariably ask them to strip their dreams off the truth to make life less disappointing. Yet, isn't sacrificing your dreams for a less disappointed heart already a disappointment?
Sterile and packed with realism; nevertheless, this could be the better path though it fronts the emotive aspect -the human psyche. We should be that beacon of reality calling them back from the tempest of emotions they have been swept into in an open sea of heartbreak. Yet, if we are also overwhelmed by the raw sorrow they have been hit with, we are in no position of playing the part of that lighthouse of resolve and reason. Thus, we hit the other road less often taken. We romanticize the situation seeking an answer in the same ocean of heartbreak, rudderless. We try to approach them like some story hero rather than a mentor.
I might say, for the sake of the people you love, keep your walls strong and keep casting your light to them in the thick of a tempest, taking the brunt of colossal waves of pain and suffering. Speak to them the truth they need to hear to get out of the problem even if you know they know the answer already.
In this particular situation; however, I have tried to walk both roads. I not only played the lighthouse taking the brunt of the pounding waves but also sought solace to my pain in romanticized poetry. Hence 'The Seraphine Scream'. I partially played the hero; I have given counsel and encouragement through writing a highly emotive letter of encouragement. However, this poem which romanticizes my memory of her mourning behind a mysterious veil of restrain is not only written to crown my cherished memory of this excellent human being who happened to fall for a time and for a reason, but for my own healing of the memory as well. Not having the means to help her properly get back on her feet hurt indeed. But, I'm sure she will do it by herself when time comes.
Some Cultural Notes about the MYTHOPOETIC Images I Used:
APOLLONIAN: poetic prowess
SIBILINE: the potential of the mind to interpret conjectural reality
PROMETHEAN: the pain knowledge brings
SERAPHINE: for angelic purity and beauty
LETHEAN: the pull of oblivion
PANDORAN: chaotic and destructive qualities BABYLONIAN: banishment and spiritual exile
OLYMPIAN: divine quality and beauty
SIRENIC: dangerously alluring
Reference to ART
GIOVANNI BRAGOLIN is the Italian painter famous for the haunting portraits of crying children he painted.
VENUSIAN LOCKS are used for the whitecapped waves inspired by Boticelli's iconic Greco-Roman painting 'The Birth of Venus' featuring her hair like the whitecapped waves, echoing the sea which birthed her. Venus is the Roman version of Greek Aphrodite whose name means 'the one born from sea foam'.