Her bruises

[grant hayes]

infinitesimal tracks of the feed

channel a wreck of ribs fingered
in hope of doubloons

crustacean charnel stroked aside
in a cloud’s question

how about that - an entire seafloor
piped in wires to a bedroom

shadows of skates along the corals

her bruises await the rite
for cleansing away the drowned

yellow bloom and purple fleck
oblation for octopus and shark

the narrator wonders
in larking tones of the crèche

[Parkinsonspoet]

Creates a vivid picture of a sunken wreck. Was it inspired by a particular ship?

[grant hayes]

Not a particular one, Parkinsonspoet. What actually catalysed this was not a ship at all, but the phrase 'her bruises'. A shipwreck was the image I found for exploring that phrase.

[amenOra]

What I find interesting, other than being taken by the poem itself, my inference didn't make this scene "whole" until Parkinsonpoet fleshed it out-- inferential faculties I guess. The poem was beautiful, such a way with words to pick at the little tissue of images. The deep characterized by its fathomless depths, and how alluring the idea of sunken treasures and "cleansing away the drowned", what her waves hold, untold. This is truly musical, and done so artistically. "shadows of skates" reminds me of what I enjoy about your poetry, it's not quite alarming, but stunning indeed! Sunlight hits this place and it's alive, that's for sure, and now I must go look up the word- your piquant use of "creche" to end it like that, abruptly, to let the waters settle. Lots o color, friend, thanks for the share! A pleasure.

[grant hayes]

Hi amenOra. I like it that you heard the music, and that the 'shadows of skates' excited your perception! That was a vivid image for me, too. I was concerned that 'crèche' might be a bit lost in translation for American readers, as it has a slightly different sense in UK and Australian usage. Thank ya for sharing your reactions to the piece; I always enjoy getting your perspective!

[DWAYNE]

AmenOra is right on.

Your ability to ascribe human characteristics to inanimate objects, further dramatizes the eloquently described scene.

[grant hayes]

Thank you, Dwayne. Re-animation - or re-enchantment - is one of the tasks of poetry, I think. Ascribing agency and spiritual power to 'objects' is deemed a characteristic of primal stages of human cognition. It's a capacity that can get us into trouble, when mistaken for reality, but it's also the wellspring of much aesthetic beauty, if tempered by empirical observation.

[RhymeLovingWriter]

To birth beauty from wreckage - a particular talent of poetry - is something you possess in spades. Thank you for this wonderment.

[grant hayes]

We are alchemists, Rhymist; our wordy business is to transform one thing into another.

[Tony Grannell]

Hello grant, what an adventure into both the fathomless depths and descriptive poetic writing. You are like a pioneer with a pen discovering new territories in literature. Talk about, off the beaten track, you are to be admired. The poem in its entirety is wonderful and to say the least, fascinating, but the last couplet: a complete joy, reads like a giddy child fantasising over casks of shiny doubloons, a perfect end - the child in all of us - puts the tricorne on it. Very well done indeed, me hearty. Fond regards, Tony.

[grant hayes]

Tricorne - now that is a word and object that I love. I'm glad you think I'm venturing into new territory, Tony; that's something I would like to achieve. Pioneer of the page. Thank you for your lovely appraisal!

[AlexandratheLate]

How very well bruised she is Grant - all the ships that sank, the people that have drowned. There is a sad beauty about this.

[grant hayes]

'Sad beauty' points to a mood that I would hope the poem has, Alexandra; glad to know I've transmitted that sense. Many thanks for reading!

[grant hayes]

Hello, fellow Zone-ists; thank you for all the lovely engagement with this piece. It warms my heart that you read my material so generously.

I've gone kind of nautical again, like with the recent 'Opus'. And as with that piece, there is a layer of metaphor in this that doesn't exactly meet the eye (surprise, surprise, they think). I'm going to break my rule of 'no authorial interpretation' here, and offer some observations about the structure and sense of the piece, not because I want to impose a supersessory meaning, but because your enjoyment might be enhanced by knowing what was on the 'inside' of my process. Or it might not, but I'll risk it anyway. So gratuitous annotation, here I come.

What is happening at the start? Video, streamed: ‘tracks of the feed’, ‘channel’. This, of course, is not immediately obvious.

What is streamed? Footage of a shipwreck: ‘wreck of ribs’; it is being searched: ‘fingered in hope of doubloons’, ‘crustacean charnel (i.e. organic debris of the seafloor) stroked aside’.

Where is it streamed? A bedroom: ‘piped in wires to a bedroom’. Someone is watching: ‘how about that’. It's something to wonder at: all that oceanic magnitude through threadlike wires

Who is watching? A female who has bruises: ‘her bruises’. Their appearance is implied in the line ‘yellow bloom and purple fleck’, but whether they are physical or mental is not specified.

The streamed image of the shipwreck is anthropomorphised by the double-meaning of ‘ribs’ (both boats and humans have them). Initially, there is only the visual of the sunken wreck, but as a personal pronoun (‘her’) is introduced, and further reference is made to a body (‘bruises’), there is a blurring of distinction between wreck and fleshly form (the feminine pronoun ‘her’ can apply to both a person and a vessel).

The feeling-state of the woman-or-girl is suggested by the waiting for a ‘rite’ (sacramental undertones) that involves consumption of ‘the drowned’ – a spent, overwhelmed, inert self – by predatory sea creatures, ‘octopus and shark’. This puts an interesting spin on the word ‘feed’ used in the first line – ostensibly referring to the video feed, but also foreshadowing the later imagined ‘oblation’ to the sea creatures – a yielding up of the sources of pain to a consuming external force of nature; a pining for a final removal. Wishful thinking. What might the metaphor of predators point to?

The counterpoint of the cheery, teacherly voice (‘in larking tones of the crèche’) of the film’s narrator finishes the scene with a touch of irony and a note of suspense.

A bit of nuance to note: the softness of the act of touch in relation to the shipwreck – ‘ribs fingered’, ‘stroked aside’ – contrasts with the violence implied by the ‘bruises’. It’s as if the images of the gentle sifting for sunken gold make ‘her’ acutely aware of her ‘bruises’, and the violence which inflicted them is echoed in the violence of the wished-for removal of the ‘drowned’ state, via ‘octopus and shark’.

I've gotten into trouble before for overly long glosses like this, in relation to relatively short poems. May I say I offer it in the spirit of mutual poetic endeavour, a kind of self-dissection to examine the curious mechanisms of poem-making. To do so is not to imply that the mechanisms necessarily 'work'. Indeed, they probably fail, but I enjoy this level of analysis and hope you might find something worthwhile in it.

[RhymeLovingWriter]

Oh my, my...deeper than I'd have dared to go. Thank you for this.

[amenOra]

beautiful, i'll be on the look out for sure now for more 'meaning', and at first buff the end bit of analysis, quite pleasing, makes a lot of sense, the dynamical relationship there. You are definitely on point and I love how you used that informative tone, definitely reminds me of "narration" on the nature videos I love to view. That image of the pipes, it definitely gave this partly its tropical feel ...
And, right, "the metaphor of predators" and our own nature ... and yet the piece sort of turns inside out? the narrator wonders, bit ... self-reflective, self-referential, and I was amused when I read your explanation and it clicked! for some reason. "how about that" seems bare, mainly contrasting the rest of the language I think, good use of effect there imo.

So it puts in view a relationship which its expression is tenuous, is it a physical scene, or we wonder at the point of "her bruises" how a sea can have bruises, yet you've set it up constructing a sort of metaphor, yes, that supports this ... it also reminds me of shining light on darkness, in a way; I've been imagining "pain" as dark clots needing lasers shot at it to loosen it. In a similar manner as your poem 'hints' at in its own way.

Psyche, or matter, that tenuousness is interesting, and quite something to ponder upon, and wonder at. All of it.
Thanks for the interesting little 'addendum' there... it's dark and things are moving all separately there, and time eats away through the currents and little beings ... but no mention of real life, it's a dying still life there, that really does make me wonder.

[Parkinsonspoet]

I am in awe you achieved something here that can be read on a more straightforward interpretation yet is multi-layered. A piece that offers different levels of interpretation without seeming in anyway oblique.This can be enjoyed just for its beauty. You achieved complexity and accessibility.

[Johntee]

Video feed of Ballard's dive
seen from the deeply remote R.O.V.
fogged in propellor swept lint
dawn mote sediment
far below coral's
bruised electric
colours, fresh
fish creche
and more
stuck
understood
glass-floored
Titanic Experience
Acraphobia's unbalance struck.

You must
take a tilt at Tricorne
as befits a Highwayman.

[grant hayes]

I shall try on a tricorne,
Johntee, and see
how it likes
my type
of 3