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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'.
I was born mid-eye-roll,
c-sectioned from a punchline.
First words were don’t start with me,
second were fine, stay.

My spine’s in italics.
I bend for no one
but poetry
and panic.

I talk in skip-steps.
I cry in parentheses.
I kiss like a loophole.
He said you’re hard to read,
so I wrote myself louder.

Time doesn’t pass here,
it tantrums.
I clock in and out of myself hourly.

My skin’s on backward.
My hunger has subtitles.
My ghost writes sonnets in the steam on the mirror
and signs them:
Almost.

I invented a verb that means
to leave someone before they prove they would’ve.
I use it daily.
It conjugates into silence.
It rhymes with obviously.

The doctors say it’s chronic.
Pre-traumatic glow disorder.
I blush before the pain hits.
I glitter out of spite.

Don’t ask if I’m okay.
Ask which version of me is answering.
Ask if I remembered to name my wounds
before dressing them up like confetti.
I invented a disorder to explain how it feels to always be bracing for impact while smiling through it. To explain how some of us glitter on purpose—because maybe if you sparkle hard enough, people won’t notice you’re cracked. This one’s personal, sharp, and more real than I wanted it to be. Hope it stings the right way.
Syafie R Jan 13
I drag this weight,
 each step a crime against the ground.

Am I a ghost,

too solid to slip away,

or an animal,
 broken, bent,
 flesh tight with the burden of living?

I cannot call myself human—

humans ache with love,

but I am jagged,
 a wound that won't heal.

Too wild to tame,

too hollow to be held.

Time to vanish—

to dissolve into night,

my absence felt by none.
Malia Nov 2024
I am being drawn and quartered
By each expectation pulling away,
Tugging at my fragile sense
Of identity (if there ever was one)
Until suddenly, oh no! So suddenly
I am in pieces, and each person has only
A part of myself, that is all I can give—
I gave myself the death sentence, they’re
Only the horses that tear away my
Skin.

As they bolt away, I wonder
How far they will go until they
Realize
That I am no longer Whole.

I sit here sinking
Into the dirt,
Without feeling because I am on
The precipice of numbness,
A mere step away from screaming.
M Vogel Feb 2022

Hey kid..

Vulnerability is your access in to what is real,
though  as you know..
not always is it safe to do or be,  in this world..
in fact, there are those who will,  or have..
shown you over and over again,  
that vulnerability of heart with them
will get your sweet little *** slapped down into the dirt..
over and over again..
(as if you did not already know, firsthand).

There are many reasons those people behave that way,
and every single one of them  deal with hurt..  
and hope (when they still had it),  being unfairly
and unkindly stifled back inside of them.  
In hating  and then stomping all over your vulnerability,
they are in truth, hating their own..  
and rightfully so, for what they had to endure..

but until they want to see and change,
they will be the death of you..  
   or at least the death of your awakening heart.


But there are those who thrive on vulnerability
because they have learned to believe  once again..
in the word, Hope..  and when vulnerability  of another
comes towards them,  they cannot help but celebrate it
from the place inside of them  that is overwhelmingly grateful
     that it still exists.

.. When you open up that way, I want to kiss you deeply.

In truth, all vulnerability and authenticity at that level
should always be met with the deepest of kisses.
You have the right idea..  but sometimes with the wrong people.
You've been nearly trampled to death in the process--
starting at such a tremendously tender, young age.

It makes a person edgy..
(and if  extremely brilliant,  in that gorgeous brain of yours..)..  
ya, kid.. sarcastic AF.

That's where you get hurt.
That is where you hurt yourself.
At times when the emotional **** hits the fan,
and everything starts feeling like its all going wrong..
that gorgeous brain separates itself  from that beautiful heart..
making it feel as if it has gone dark..
and then that brain..  thinking that it has been left to its own
survival resources,   turns 'mean' ..
in its own perceived abandonment by the heart.

At those moments, you feel  the horrendously-black
and empty, loss of self..

That is when it all starts compounding, quantitatively
No one understands, and so when you  actually
are needing it the most,
Grace  through understanding, in an instant  gives way
to judgment and ridicule by others..  causing you by necessity,
to retreat further back into yourself..
relying on more and more  of the one time, necessary (when little)
but now so relationally-damaging,  survival skills.

Beautiful girl with beautiful heart  and amazing mind,  
becomes fragmented..   compounded by her own  
now nearly out of control,  age-old tactics and behaviors...

And those that do not understand,  stand back and paint
(and allow to have painted) a view of you..  that in truth,
truly is not you..

but is only self-protection/survival-mode,
but on steroids--

Beautiful heart,  implodes..  
within the loss of its much-needed,  beautiful self.
Brilliant mind goes into hyper-drive,
now left alone to its own, survival-resources--
Hacking it out in the ******-up wilderness,  without  
its much trusted and needed,  Compadre..
     that Beautiful, beautiful heart.

You are not that person, Babe.
You are the owner and possessor of two extremely-gifted organs--
both placed into you  to be in full relationship with each other.
That is who you are.

When they are fragmented  and torn from one-another,
that is not truly the true, you.  But since they are both yours,
you are in the strongest essence, accountable.
Somewhere within all of that,  
guilt and self-condemnation kick in..
and literally beat the living **** out of you.
That brain of yours, Babe..  it is beautifully-brilliant
and also quite the *******.  
You are not "mean".
You are not "unkind"   or "unloving"
(though, in essence-- at those times, you are)

No..


..You are temporarily detached..   fragmented--
separated from what it is that you so desperately
need the most---
    y  o  u.
.. But your own guilt and self-judgment
slap the **** out of yourself
almost as hard (sometimes harder)
than the one who is now pointing their finger at you..

                                                       in all of their hurt.

All you need, is Understanding.
Love cares enough to want to give you that.
Love cares enough to want to take care of its own story

so it can better see and understand
how to help you with yours.


     That is what you need. That is what you deserve.
     That is the kind of love you are worthy of.


You are everything beautiful that I have been saying that you are.
Within your at times,  own Great Divide..
the blackness between the two parts of you  that you need most,
completely blocks out  your own, much-needed view of you.

I see the picture, my Beautiful..
I have a right to speak to you this way.
You took my breath away, right from the get-go.

       The only way I could get even
       was by looking directly at you.

It is your talking and opening up that did it.
What you so often and so rightfully need to run from,
is the very thing that is actually,  most saving you.
To be "seen" is to be understood..
if the one doing the looking
    is doing it for all the right reasons.

       No one has ever understood.
       That is where you get hurt.

And  in the aloneness within it all,
is where you hurt yourself the most.



       Mm.
       This party is far from over, Babe..
       Far from it, beautiful girl.
       ..And so it is with Magic.


       You are beautiful, beyond words.

       ❤️️

..yet within it all.. you must get fatigued--
almost beyond all recognition. :(

I L- Y
https://youtu.be/PgGUKWiw7Wk

xoxo
Kelly Mistry Nov 2021
Pieces of me
F  l  o  a  t  i  n  g

S
     i
          n
               k
                    i
                         n
                              g

Hiding below the surface

Keeping them submerged takes effort
Drains energy
Makes the pieces feel like a secret
                                       wrong
                                       shameful

What if
I lose them
Buried deep

Out of sight
Out of mind
Never to be seen again

The fear seems foolish sometimes
                                                       ­       but terrifyingly real

To be always incomplete
Never able
To put the pieces back together

What if my self didn’t need to fragment
For others’ comfort
Their easy understanding
And acceptance

Wholeness is hard to imagine
Especially for the pieces that started to s
                                                               ­       u
                                                        ­                b
                                               ­                          m
                                                               ­           e
                                                    ­                       r
                                                               ­             g
                                                  ­                           e
                                                               ­                  before memory began

What a wonderful dream though
To always have access to all of your parts and pieces
To in fact not have pieces

To just be

One person
                         
Complete
                                         ­   
And whole
George Krokos Mar 2021
A life lived without any meditation
is subjected to much fragmentation.
________
© 2021 George Krokos
From "Simple Observations" ongoing writings since the early '90's.
preston Oct 2020
the forming of substance 04
Stephan W

"For years I’ve wanted to live
according to everyone else’s morals.
I’ve forced myself to live like everyone else,
to look like everyone else.
I said what was necessary to join together,
even when I felt separate.

And after all of this, catastrophe came.

Now I wander amid the debris,
I am lawless, torn to pieces,
alone and accepting to be so,
resigned to my singularity and to my infirmities.

And I must rebuild a truth–
after having lived all my life in a sort of lie."
~Albert Camus



~
Worlds apart,
there is a tension
an alienation--

now, strangers-
in a not so strange land

So many parts..
fighting the glow
fighting each other-

These parts, hiding--
From having to be seen- when needed,

From the pain of
having to need the other parts
who also are so unable,

From the visibility--
from having to be asked to join in-
to the process of
an integrated internal functioning;
the metabolizing of things.

From the pain of it all-
and the despondency that will come
from any attempt
         to even try.


~  ~
The spirit--
its dimly-lit distant memories
of a wholly different time

now afraid to ingrain itself
into a body- that is as of yet
wholly unable to even know itself--

Fragmented parts of the heart;
broken spirit,
a lonely longing-

There is a division
a separation
immersed in a dank mist of fear--

Parts-- nearly touching
but, so unable to see..

or even feel each other in the dark

And the greatest loneliness
becomes the one that is lived within oneself--

An unlived-living
within the broken internal-world
of fragmented parts-
now huddled into remote corners
with such large spaces in between;

parts, isolated from
other parts.


~  ~  ~
One day they will no longer be
so afraid of each other--

Even in its dimly-lit state of being,
the spirit yearns for a cohesiveness,
a wholeness--

      a re-integration of all the parts;
      a reassembling.

Until that time, everything will be partial;
dis- assembled


                  fragmented.



"The park is now empty and bare
with an abandoned shame about it--
the jungle gym, the slide, the swing
have all rusted together.
They're all so terribly alone now,
where did all the children go?

Didn't they know that the park needed them?

A child’s intelligent heart can fathom
the depth of many dark places,
but can it fathom the delicate moment
of its own detachment..”
~Henry Barthes
"Detachment" (2011)

09/05/17
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