I’m crashing upon your walls over and over
Like the ceaseless ocean waves
I’m being swept away and swept back
By the currents of conversations
And the undertow of insecurity
Your walls are as unyielding
As the cold cold stone
These rock faces are made of
Your gaze just as impenetrable
(face just as unreadable)
As these granite crags
You are as out of my reach as
The top of these cliffs
Who never feel the salty sea spray
I’m crashing and falling
And pulling away
Pulling together my strength
for another attempt (attack)
And one day I’ll bring some of you back
Down with me into the churning waters
Back with me out to sea
(please forgive me another poem that has to do with sea imagery I really can't help it...)
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I liked the conceit in this poem, how the despair of the speaker turns into destructive force (ah, that sea imagery, so useful... as you know I fell back on them too when I was exploring your themes... I wonder why the subject of heartbreak and sadness always brings us images of a cold, grey sea. It must be some primeval instinct or something, wrath of Achilles-like) instead of just entering a circular stasis of despair. And the last part, of course, where all that frustration and anger won't go to nothing, because eventually the sea will tear away a part of the cliff. For me this wasn't only destruction, however, it had also to do with creation. The sea, by crashing against the cliffs, also reshape it. The waves create the shore they want to have, reshape reality, and so in a way it's a creative force as well.
This piece also reminds me of a song by Corinne Bailey Rae (entitled, surprise!, "The Sea"): "The sea, / the majestic sea, / Breaks everything, crushes everything, / cleans everything, takes everything /from me."
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