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Writer's pictureXsara Helmi

Oceans of The Soul



How many oceans must I contain

Before they burst forth out of my chest?

The tides of self erode; all washes away;

This mortal coil, by watery weight oppressed.

I am unable to dam this cup

That spilleth forth of my emotions' tide;

A tempest of feeling engulfs my world,

As feelings flood where reason should abide.


Why must my spirit twist in mortal chains,

A vessel bound in skin that bends and snaps?

Some vast upheaval stirs beneath my ribs,

A second deluge, a flood within?


How many times must my currents drag me down

To depths where ancient visions sleep and wait?

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking deep.

I feel the pull from where I do not dwell,

Beyond this world's pale circles, I was born-

From realms where shadowed oceans whirl and break,

Where Leviathan stirs beneath the storm.


Salt crystallised, dried and evaporated,

My soul, throw me up to the heavens high;

O seers in the blaze of heaven's flame,

Rise from the depths of the eternal flame,

And lead me in a dance of sacred sound.

And be the singing masters of my cry.


Sand in my mouth, my voice a gritty rasp,

Chokes words that once flowed free as cosmic streams;

Consume my heart away; sick with desire

And fastened to a dying animal

That knows not what it is, gather me

Into the artifice of eternity.


My heart and chest are full of foam and waves,

Cannot find breath in this dissolving sphere.

O Byzantium, where form and thought abide,

A golden city, perfect and austere,

Sing to me of what is yet to come,

Of what survives when chaos is undone.


Once free from nature I shall never take

My form from any earthly, breaking wave;

But shape myself from seafoam, starlight make

A body vast as oceans, just as brave;

To ride the cosmic tides, forever wake,

And sing to distant shores beyond the grave

Of depths below and heights that still remain,

Of all that was, and is, and comes again.


From seafoam and starlight, I will rise

To sail on cosmic winds beyond the skies.


~X.Helmi


NOTES:

I have used intertextuality to pay homage to other poets while maintaining my own original writing style. These borrowings are intentional artistic choices, recontextualising familiar elements to create new meanings.

Direct quotations:


1. From W.B. Yeats:

- 'Twenty centuries of stony sleep / Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle' ('The Second Coming')

- 'Consume my heart away; sick with desire / And fastened to a dying animal' ('Sailing to Byzantium') - 'The artifice of eternity' ('Sailing to Byzantium')


2. From William Shakespeare: - 'mortal coil' ('Hamlet')


3. From T.S. Eliot: - A line echoing 'The darkness drops again' ('The Hollow Men')



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