[Jan Iwaszkiewicz]

Doldrummed, a phantom ship heels,
in latitudes where horses drown.
It dips into a mirrored, silent sea
where nothing exists or reflects
other than intimations of facticity.
I am that phantom without traction.
My holds are swollen with ephemera,
knowledge banked without meaning.
Here, a crow-quill has inked a wake
with nothing plotted beyond the now.
Is any course taken then mine to make?

The sins of the father warp in time,
active and yet without momentum.
A disquiet exercised inside futility.
Nothing’s inside the mirror’s image
except time and increasing morbidity.
How much of me was made by me,
how much ordained by the weft of stars?
How much of my existence is reality?
Unhinged, the winds rise and flail,
we’re underway through a making sea.

Foul-hulled, sullen in surge and sway,
heavy, we heave, pitch, roll and yaw.
I am centred in this radial violence,
I can hold, but in this there is no mastery
there is only impending consequence.
I ask but there is no answer from the helm
I move at the whim of wind and water
yet my canvas will not muscle and fill.
It hangs salt-rimed, unbellied, limp,
like dead on the fence of an evening kill.

An albatross hangs below the bow,
swinging wild with suppliant wings,
an anchor for the sky, an absurdity.
Landfall is where the voyage ends,
where the earth waits hungering for me.
So, do I self-immolate as sacrifice,
sweet to heaven and cheating worms?
Will I burn bright on a clean sea breast
or, will I wait for the time that’s chosen
as I am chosen, driven to the west?

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Jan—

I’m having some trouble getting a firm grasp on this poem and sinking my teeth into it because of all the abstract nouns (many ending in -ion, -ity, or -ence). These nouns don’t evoke a clear image and tend to impart a philosophical tone to the language rather than appealing directly and personally to the reader. I bolded the abstract nouns below:

Originally Posted by Jan Iwaszkiewicz

Doldrummed, a phantom ship heels,
in latitudes where horses drown.
It dips into a mirrored, silent sea
where nothing exists or reflects
other than intimations of facticity.
I am that phantom without traction.
My holds are swollen with ephemera,
knowledge banked without meaning.
Here, a crow-quill has inked a wake
with nothing plotted beyond the now.
Is any course taken then mine to make?

The sins of the father warp in time,
active and yet without momentum.
A disquiet exercised inside futility.
Nothing’s inside the mirror’s image
except time and increasing morbidity.
How much of me was made by me,
how much ordained by the weft of stars?
How much of my existence is reality?
Unhinged, the winds rise and flail,
we’re underway through a making sea.

Foul-hulled, sullen in surge and sway,
heavy, we heave, pitch, roll and yaw.
I am centred in this radial violence,
I can hold, but in this there is no mastery
there is only impending consequence.
I ask but there is no answer from the helm
I move at the whim of wind and water
yet my canvas will not muscle and fill.
It hangs salt-rimed, unbellied, limp,
like dead on the fence of an evening kill.

An albatross hangs below the bow,
swinging wild with suppliant wings,
an anchor for the sky, an absurdity.
Landfall is where the voyage ends,
where the earth waits hungering for me.
So, do I self-immolate as sacrifice,
sweet to heaven and cheating worms?
Will I burn bright on a clean sea breast
or, will I wait for the time that’s chosen
as I am chosen, driven to the west?

You do include some promising images and phrases. I like “weft of stars” to suggest pre-ordained fate, and the allusions to Jim Morrison and Samuel Taylor Coleridge could be expanded and developed. I also like “my canvas will not muscle and fill./ It hangs salt-rimed, unbellied, limp,/ like dead on the fence of an evening kill,” to present the feeling of helplessness and lack of a clear plan for one’s life. The last stanza is more focused on concrete nouns. I’d like to see you use images like this to give your poem resonance.

Glenn

[Jan Iwaszkiewicz]

Generally Glenn the philosophical tenor is meant.

An ageing existential angst.

Does that make a difference to your reading?

Jan

[Glenn Wright]

It might just be my personal preferences, but I need clearer images to help me find meaning in the poem. Let me share my thinking as I read and re-read it.

In S1, I see a becalmed ship on a glassy sea heavily laden with useless knowledge. “Horse Latitudes” is a song by Jim Morrison. I can’t make any sense of “intimations of facticity.” It sounds like a glancing reference to Wordsworth’s “Intimations of Immortality,” but I don’t see a connection. The N is unable to plot a course for his destination.

In S2 does “The sins of the fathers warp in time” mean that successive generations tend to repeat the mistakes of previous generations? “A disquiet exercised inside futility” seems like a wordy way of saying “Anxiety is useless.” “How much of my existence is reality?” Seems like a wordy way to say, “Am I real?” (cf. Descartes). The N was waiting for a wind, which arrives, but he is unable to control or use it. I suspect that this is a poem about the creative process. Does the wind represent poetic inspiration?

In S3 the N is buffeted by the storm, but his sail is unable to catch the wind and fill. (Is it about writer’s block?)

In S4 the albatross makes me wonder if the N is Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner. That is also a poem that uses a sea voyage as a conceit for the creative process. The N seems to be about to make landfall and becomes suicidal. Does he despair of being able to make meaning of his existence? He thinks that sacrificing himself (with fire?) will please heaven and cheat worms. Does this represent rejecting physicality for spirituality? Why would heaven like this? Is he cursed, like the Ancient Mariner? He considers either setting himself and the boat on fire (Viking funeral style? Or maybe alluding to the Phoenix?) or just floating on to the West (toward a natural death, I suppose?) we don’t find out what he chooses to do.

At the end, I don’t feel as though the N or the reader has really worked through the issues that the poem raises. It has a dreamlike quality, but no elevated awareness. What do you want to say about existential angst? I couldn’t figure it out.

[Jan Iwaszkiewicz]

I will respond more fully later.

I am the vessel on my internal sea the Mare Meum and am the soul of the vessel. This is my voyage.

[R. Nemo Hill]

Interesting, Jan, but I can imagine a poem in which all that is negative here is treated as a positive. Perhaps it is my age, but I tend of late to turn anguish inside out until it becomes ecstasy—. Since the two are so mysteriously close in tenor: one gripping, one releasing, the reins.

Nemo

[Jan Iwaszkiewicz]

Age does have its blessings Nemo does it not. Internal sight unblurs as the external dims. I see all now as neither positive nor negative, neither good nor bad but interesting. A mental cud to be savoured without the passions of righteousness. A querulous angst without anxiety, the clarity that comes from questioning, the awe in knowing how little I know. The joy of doubt. Away from the page my life is levelled by my horses, my dogs, my goats, my land and my thanks.

Jan

[Erik Olson]

Jan,

Here is my basic reading of the poem, along with some notes about things I enjoyed and some sticking points.

The first stanza establishes the speaker as ‘that phantom ship’ which is described as wholly directed by the surf. He is surrounded by a sea where reality is absent save for intimations; and where the known is defined by the unknowable—‘knowledge banked without meaning.’ The last three lines of the stanza extends the metaphor to the artist’s enterprise. The artist can neither direct nor predict the form his drawings will take, the crow-quill of creation being out of his control and wholly centered in the now.

You strike a mostly effective balance between two types of diction, Latinate and Anglo Saxon; the one abstract and philosophical, the other tangible and direct. However, I think in the case of ‘intimations of facticity’ you have one too many latinisms. It would involve me better as a reader if the cold facticity were couched by more direct terms, like traces or shadows.

In the second stanza, I am unsure how 'the sins of the father' factor into the governing metaphor. I also agree with Glenn about—‘A disquiet exercised inside futility.’ I fear it resembles one of those hollow technical pirouettes that Conquest decried, an epithet where disproportionately little sense is found beneath the heap of verbiage. I do like the lines that follow, however, particularly the ‘making sea,’ reinforcing the sea as being at the helm.

As for the third stanza, I like the descriptive ‘heave, pitch, roll and yaw’; and the reflection that the speaker has no mastery over the ‘surge and sway,’ much less the canvas. I also enjoy the canvas hanging limp like an evening kill, a vivid and apt image.

The final stanza defines the destination of the voyage where land stands for death. At this point, the speaker concludes that he has but two choices left: either to reclaim self-direction by means of self-immolation or continue a passive object on the surf-directed course. The jump to this conclusion struck me as a bit unnatural and melodramatic; I did not feel convinced by it. Despite these nits I did enjoy this poem overall. I took the liberty of isolating the parts that worked for me, with two suggestions slipped in, for what it’s worth.

Doldrummed, a phantom ship heels,
in latitudes where horses drown.
It dips into a mirrored, silent sea
where nothing exists or reflects
other than shadows of facticity.
I am that phantom without traction.
My holds are swollen with ephemera,
knowledge banked without meaning.
Here, a crow-quill has inked a wake
with nothing plotted beyond the now.
Is any course taken then mine to make?

How much of me was made by me,
how much ordained by the weft of stars?
How much of my existence is reality?
Unhinged, the winds rise and flail,
we’re underway through a making sea.

Foul-hulled, sullen in surge and sway,
heavy, we heave, pitch, roll and yaw.
Centered in this radial violence,
I can hold, but in this there is no mastery;
there is only impending consequence.
I ask but there is no answer from the helm
I move at the whim of wind and water,
yet my canvas will not muscle and fill.
It hangs salt-rimed, unbellied, limp,
like dead on the fence of an evening kill.