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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 found my peace, but it was brief,  
I thought it would stay, bring relief.  
Day by day, night by night,  
I suffocate beneath this fright.  

I washed away what left me torn,  
Through my pain, I bore and mourned.  
I’m no player—I’m a victim,  
Yet it still hurts, for I have feelings.  

Through the pain, both flesh and mind,  
I endure, though I’m confined.  
I brush it off until it’s gone,  
Yet scars remain, etched upon.  

I kept it quiet, held it in,  
So no one saw the war within.  
Voices echo, sharp and cruel,  
Scheming shadows, mocking fools.  

I say, "Be silent!"—they only jeer,  
Where did they come from? Why are they here?  
Still, I fight, though I am trying,  
To wear a face that hides the dying.
Ali Hassan May 19
I scream where no one ever stands,
With fractured voice and pleading hands.
I shout to skies, to winds, to dust
To bones like mine and hearts unjust.
No ear will bend, no soul draws near,
Yet still I scream through every year.

I am the grave, the end you flee,
The truth beneath your trembling knee.
You pass with flowers, soft and kind,
But none of you look deep to find
The words I hold beneath the clay,
Of life you waste, the price you pay.

I hold myself, I breathe in slow,
My scream turns quiet, soft and low.
Not anger now—just aching care,
A voice that only wants to spare
You from the race that kills your soul,
And leads you to this silent hole.

You fight for love, for dreams, for names,
You guard your world from loss and flames.
But when your breath begins to fall,
None of it will heed your call.
No gold, no touch, no lover's face
Will follow you to this still place.

I too had dreams, I too had pride,
I laughed, I bled, I broke inside.
I swore I'd never die alone
But here I lie, just dust and bone.
The ones I saved, the ones I knew,
Have long moved on, as you will too.

I tried to shout before the end,
I tried to tell you, tried to mend
The path you walk with blinded eyes,
But joy and fear both sell you lies.
You hear me not—you never do.
You think this end won't come for you.

I watch you cry, then chase the same,
You wipe your tears and play the game.
You mourn the dead, then forge ahead,
Ignoring all we ever said.
You want to live—but not to see
The weightless truth inside of me.

So I screamed again, until I cracked,
My voice like stone, my sorrow stacked.
I broke myself to make you hear
But silence grew with every year.
And then I knew—this world won't change.
To them, the grave is dark and strange.

I, too, once danced and looked away,
While older graves would plead and say:
“Don’t chase the wind, don’t chase the fire,
All ends in dust, your false desire”
But I just smiled, then turned aside
And laughed, and loved, and cursed, and died.

So now I rest. My screaming ends.
No more to beg. No more to bend.
Perhaps this world will only see
When all return to dust like me.
But should you stop, and hear one day
Know it was me… who tried to say.
My pen is mourning the agonies and the sufferings
Of my people, who are drowning in the sea of misery.
My keyboard' strokes are shadowing the slow rhythms
Of the wandering beggar, who's lost in the sanctuary.

My voice denounces the filthy cholera and the injustices,
Which are punishing the weakest souls of the valley.
A tiny oligarchy is meagerly being rewarded;
What a shame for a man-made world corrupted with vices!

My daring pen defaces the inequality and the imbalance,
Which fool the image of a so called free world.
My laser beams burn the iris of the blind peasants,
Who can now see clearly the mini-sketch of my people.

I am the brother-in law of the cowardly executed poet
And the great-grandson of the poorest assassinated emperor.
I abhor the vanity and the lowliness of mankind in horror,
Oh! Lord, I'm going to read aloud twelve psalms, from my seat.

My pen is mourning my beloved people,
Who are innocently digesting the giant toxic apple.
My voice is seduced by the wind of liberty,
Which echoes the piercing screams of the hungry babies of Haiti.

P.S. Translation of 'Ma Plume Pleure Du Sang' by Hebert Logerie.

Copyright© November 2010, Hebert Logerie, All Rights Reserved
Hébert Logerie is the author of four books of poems:
A pattern emerges,
Beyond the seems.
It cries,
It screams.

Some are friends.
Some are foes.
Some revenges.
Some sew woes.

It screams to be recognized;
It screams to be.
It is the pattern,
On an apple tree.

Abyss as eyes,
Once it sees.
If one stares,
It will be.
Faith Cubitt Feb 8
I wanted to scream....
and
scream
and
scream....
I'm sorry! I'm sorry! god, I'm so sorry.
but I couldn't, I was choking, and crying.
silently dying.
every word I spoke killed, my touch shattering.
everything is my fault.
who is this person I have become?
I really am a horrible person, aren't I?
Antonia Feb 2
anxiety attack
sweat down my back

sleepless nights
and walking nightmares

I am being followed everywhere,
my own shadows are ahead of me

they lead the way,
and have me doubt
each step, each word, each thought
they crawl from underneath my skin
they mock, they push, they scream

“not good enough “
-again, they bluff
every time I am getting closer to being the person I wish to be, time and time again they reappear, and try to drag me back, into my endless self doubt pits.
celeste Dec 2024
everything feels so achingly far apart
my hands outstretched, grasping what once existed before me
time flies, they said—
but this much?
this fast?
so soon?

it was just yesterday,
or was it years and years ago?
when i was just a kid—
“when i was”—
where did that line come from?

it follows me,
creeping into my dreams,
where echoes lay
the cold sweat wakes me,
my words spilling
into the mouth of the toilet bowl

another day passes
where i try to do everything
but scream
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