Waves of You. I want to hold you, long and close, where waves break in twilight. I want to hold you, long and close, and feel your skin gleaming with joy. I want to hold you, long and close, in the tiered fragments of a vision. I want to hold you, long and close,
Poets don't generally write happy poems. They seem to prefer stark poems about misery, grief, and death.
But I wrote 'Gasp' about the eternal wonders of life and love, and how they can leave a person gasping for more - and readers seem to love it. So, thank you for your positive comment. I really appreciate it.
Focusing on the positive side of life has helped me to become a positive person, even when faced with some very sad situations. As Yoda in Star Wars might say: "There is too much sadness in the world, me thinks."
I’m glad you both have had this conversation, because it occurred to me one day that I have never written a happy poem. I don’t know why, but happy themes don’t seem to inspire me poetically. I was beginning to wonder if there is something lacking on my part, but it would seem that I am in the majority rather than the minority.
Thank you, Martin, for such a profound comment. Regarding “Virgil”, I wanted to prove to myself that I could write something that wasn’t entirely despondent and was genuinely positive in some way. I feel that I accomplished this when I wrote “Virgil”.
Matin Mc Carthy truly is a poet of the highest order. I believe he is one of the greatest poets writing today, and I am delighted to see that he now has his own Substack. “Waves of You” and “Gasp” are both profoundly beautiful poems. I absolutely adore water imagery in poetry and song lyrics, and based on some of his poems, I suspect Martin does as well. Not to mention that both of these poems have spectacular closing lines. I honestly don’t know if I necessarily prefer one over the other, but below are some lines from both poems that really jump out at me when I read them:
I want to hold you, long and close,
in the tiered fragments of a vision.
I want to hold you, long and close,
whenever you come back to me
on the froth of the tide.
————
but here you are, as the night undresses
in an alcove of dreams and moonbeams,
uttering the long tidal gasp of a longing
that is echoed from every shore.
Truly sublime! To anyone who may be reading this: if you have not done so already, I greatly encourage you to visit Martin’s website, as well as his page on The HyperTexts. I have included the links below. You will find many more of his poems there. I trust they will not disappoint you.
Shannon, thank you for your kind comments and for providing links to other poems by me. That was immensely thoughtful of you, and I appreciate it so much.
You are correct in thinking that I am fond of water imagery, being from Ireland - the land of mist and rain. But, more than that, my hometown is a seatown, and has a beach that is over two miles long. Even though I don't live there now, I can still hear the sea forever beating in me like the sounds of my own heart.
Oh, you’re very welcome, Martin! I was happy to do that. Thank you for sharing where that fondness for water imagery comes from. What you wrote on that is incredibly poetic, and as I read it, I can’t help but dream of seeing the “land of mist and rain” for myself. You make it sound so magical.
Shannon, it's good to see you here and I look forward to seeing you here again. One of the more ambitious poems of my youth was titled "Sea Dreams" and my second real poem, "Infinity," was about the sea. Plus I was born in Florida and lived my first six years in Florida and England, surrounded by the sea. So I suppose it's in my blood.
I never knew you were born in Florida. That explains a lot about the source of some of your poetic imagery. The sea is in us. Once you've seen it, or heard it just once, it is there forever, and perhaps always has been. By the way, would you please do me the honour of posting your two poems here? As you know I love 'Infinity', and I don't think I've read 'Sea Dreams' yet, so I look forward to doing so.
Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair?
Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air
that your heart sought its shell like a crab on a beach,
then scuttled inside to be safe, out of reach?
Might I lift you tonight from earth’s wreckage and damage
on these waves gently rising to pay the moon homage?
Or better, perhaps, let me say that I, too,
have dreamed of infinity … windswept and blue.
***********************************************
I believe I wrote "Infinity" as a high school senior, age 18.
***********************************************
Sea Dreams
by Michael R. Burch
************************************************
I.
In timeless days
I've crossed the waves
of seaways seldom seen.
-
By the last low light of evening
the breakers that careen
then dive back to the deep
have rocked my ship to sleep,
and so I've known the peace
of a soul at last at ease
there where Time's waters run
in concert with the sun.
-
With restless waves
I've watched the days’
slow movements, as they hum
their antediluvian songs.
Sometimes I've sung along,
my voice as soft and low
as the sea's, while evening slowed
to waver at the dim
mysterious moonlit rim
of dreams no man has known.
-
In thoughtless flight,
I've scaled the heights
and soared a scudding breeze
over endless arcing seas
of waves ten miles high.
I've sheared the sable skies
on wings as soft as sighs
and stormed the sun-pricked pitch
of sunset’s scarlet-stitched,
ebullient dark demise.
-
I've climbed the sun-cleft clouds
ten thousand leagues or more
above the windswept shores
of seas no man has sailed
— great seas as grand as hell's,
shores littered with the shells
of men's "immortal" souls —
and I've warred with dark sea-holes
whose open mouths implored
their depths to be explored.
-
And I've grown and grown and grown
till I thought myself the king
of every silver thing . . .
-
But sometimes late at night
when the sorrowing wavelets sing
sad songs of other times,
I taste the windborne rime
of a well-remembered day
on the whipping ocean spray,
and I bow my head to pray . . .
-
II.
It's been a long, hard day;
sometimes I think I work too hard.
Tonight I'd like to take a walk
down by the sea —
down by those salty waves
brined with the scent of Infinity,
down by that rocky shore,
down by those cliffs that I'd often climb
when the wind was tart with a taste of lime
and every dream was a sailor's dream.
-
Then small waves broke light,
all frothy and white,
over the reefs in the ramblings of night,
and the pounding sea
—a mariner’s dream—
was bound to stir a boy's delight
to such a pitch
that he couldn't desist,
but was bound to splash through the surf in the light
of ten thousand stars, all shining so bright.
-
Christ, those nights were fine,
like a well-aged wine,
yet more scalding than fire
with the marrow’s desire.
-
Then desire was a fire
burning wildly within my bones,
fiercer by far than the frantic foam . . .
and every wish was a moan.
-
Oh, for those days to come again!
Oh, for a sea and sailing men!
Oh, for a little time!
-
It's almost nine
and I must be back home by ten,
and then . . . what then?
-
I have less than an hour to stroll this beach,
less than an hour old dreams to reach . . .
And then, what then?
-
Tonight I'd like to play old games—
games that I used to play
with the somber, sinking waves.
When their wraithlike fists would reach for me,
I'd dance between them gleefully,
mocking their witless craze
—their eager, unchecked craze—
to batter me to death
with spray as light as breath.
-
Oh, tonight I'd like to sing old songs—
songs of the haunting moon
drawing the tides away,
songs of those sultry days
when the sun beat down
till it cracked the ground
and the sea gulls screamed
in their agony
to touch the cooling clouds.
The distant cooling clouds.
-
Then the sun shone bright
with a different light
over different lands,
and I was always a pirate in flight.
-
Oh, tonight I'd like to dream old dreams,
if only for a while,
and walk perhaps a mile
along this windswept shore,
a mile, perhaps, or more,
remembering those days,
safe in the soothing spray
of the thousand sparkling streams
that rush into this sea.
I like to slumber in the caves
of a sailor's dark sea-dreams . . .
oh yes, I'd love to dream,
to dream
and dream
and dream.
**********
“Sea Dreams” is one of my longer and more ambitious early poems, along with the full version of “Jessamyn’s Song.” To the best of my recollection, I wrote “Sea Dreams” around age 18. For years I thought I had written “Sea Dreams” around age 19 or 20. But then I remembered a conversation I had with a friend about the poem in my freshman dorm, so the poem must have been started around age 18, or earlier. Dating my early poems has been a bit tricky, because I keep having little flashbacks that help me date them more accurately, but often I can only say, “I know this poem was written by about such-and-such a date, because ...”
Thank you so much for posting these here, Mike! I personally love “Sea Dreams”. I think it’s a very fine poem and well worth publishing. It’s quite impressive, given its length, its quality, and the age you were when you wrote it. Personally, I have always recorded the date I start a poem and the date I complete it, just for my records.
Thank you for replicating your original comments, Mike! They are a fantabulous addition to the conversation here. I have lived in New England all my life, and much of my childhood was spent visiting a sea town that isn’t far from where I live. I’d imagine those memories have contributed to my love of water imagery in poetry. I’m of English ancestry as well, by the way. I’ve long wanted to see the UK. It’s such a beautiful country with a rich history.
Shannon, you should definitely go to England if you get the chance. And try to visit some of the scenic villages, because London doesn't give the flavor of the rest of the country. Wales and Scotland are also full of history and picturesque towns and villages.
Thank you, Mike! I will definitely take your advice if I ever have the opportunity to visit the UK. I’m not a city person at all, so the scenic areas appeal to me far more than London.
For some reason, Mike's comment in this thread and the one near the top of the page seem to have been deleted by accident. I have no idea how this happened, but I can't find any way to restore them. What a pity!
The thing is that when something vanishes, we don't just have to sit there and doing nothing. We, being wordsmiths, can conjure more words, perhaps better ones, out of thin air. So Mike and I have just restored those original comments, and we've added a few new one for good measure.
I just checked your stack to see if you had posted anything new (not that I am impatient) and since not yet, I went back and read "Waves of You". Which was pretty timely since I said goodbye to Lisa yet again this morning on an early airport run. She is traveling for a few days to visit grandchildren in Colorado. I felt the feelings you describe in this poem...the desire to remember the embrace, the yearning to see her return, and the feeling that it is all occurring in the froth of the waves.
Thank you, Rena. I like to think that the poets in the substack community are adding a little beauty to the world. There's too much division and hatred there now. Being a love poet I don't feel comfortable in it anymore. But I'll go on of course..
Thank you, Maureen. I really appreciate your comment. I think that feelings and emotions are very much underrated now in poetry. And I think also that they are very noticeably present in your own work.
Thank you so much for commenting. I appreciate it.
Two fine poems, and I particularly love "Gasp."
Poets don't generally write happy poems. They seem to prefer stark poems about misery, grief, and death.
But I wrote 'Gasp' about the eternal wonders of life and love, and how they can leave a person gasping for more - and readers seem to love it. So, thank you for your positive comment. I really appreciate it.
Most of the great poems are on the sadder side, but it's always nice to find a good poem that's more hopeful, like "Gasp."
Focusing on the positive side of life has helped me to become a positive person, even when faced with some very sad situations. As Yoda in Star Wars might say: "There is too much sadness in the world, me thinks."
Yoda was indeed wise.
I’m glad you both have had this conversation, because it occurred to me one day that I have never written a happy poem. I don’t know why, but happy themes don’t seem to inspire me poetically. I was beginning to wonder if there is something lacking on my part, but it would seem that I am in the majority rather than the minority.
'I write to shine a light on my own darkness,' some poet once said. Or maybe, like you, to find your own inner Virgil in life's usual inferno.
Thank you, Martin, for such a profound comment. Regarding “Virgil”, I wanted to prove to myself that I could write something that wasn’t entirely despondent and was genuinely positive in some way. I feel that I accomplished this when I wrote “Virgil”.
You did indeed. You did a great job.
Matin Mc Carthy truly is a poet of the highest order. I believe he is one of the greatest poets writing today, and I am delighted to see that he now has his own Substack. “Waves of You” and “Gasp” are both profoundly beautiful poems. I absolutely adore water imagery in poetry and song lyrics, and based on some of his poems, I suspect Martin does as well. Not to mention that both of these poems have spectacular closing lines. I honestly don’t know if I necessarily prefer one over the other, but below are some lines from both poems that really jump out at me when I read them:
I want to hold you, long and close,
in the tiered fragments of a vision.
I want to hold you, long and close,
whenever you come back to me
on the froth of the tide.
————
but here you are, as the night undresses
in an alcove of dreams and moonbeams,
uttering the long tidal gasp of a longing
that is echoed from every shore.
Truly sublime! To anyone who may be reading this: if you have not done so already, I greatly encourage you to visit Martin’s website, as well as his page on The HyperTexts. I have included the links below. You will find many more of his poems there. I trust they will not disappoint you.
https://mccarthypoet.com/
http://thehypertexts.com/Martin%20Mc%20Carthy%20Poet%20Poetry%20Picture%20Bio.htm
Shannon, thank you for your kind comments and for providing links to other poems by me. That was immensely thoughtful of you, and I appreciate it so much.
You are correct in thinking that I am fond of water imagery, being from Ireland - the land of mist and rain. But, more than that, my hometown is a seatown, and has a beach that is over two miles long. Even though I don't live there now, I can still hear the sea forever beating in me like the sounds of my own heart.
Thank you, once again.
Oh, you’re very welcome, Martin! I was happy to do that. Thank you for sharing where that fondness for water imagery comes from. What you wrote on that is incredibly poetic, and as I read it, I can’t help but dream of seeing the “land of mist and rain” for myself. You make it sound so magical.
Shannon, it's good to see you here and I look forward to seeing you here again. One of the more ambitious poems of my youth was titled "Sea Dreams" and my second real poem, "Infinity," was about the sea. Plus I was born in Florida and lived my first six years in Florida and England, surrounded by the sea. So I suppose it's in my blood.
I never knew you were born in Florida. That explains a lot about the source of some of your poetic imagery. The sea is in us. Once you've seen it, or heard it just once, it is there forever, and perhaps always has been. By the way, would you please do me the honour of posting your two poems here? As you know I love 'Infinity', and I don't think I've read 'Sea Dreams' yet, so I look forward to doing so.
Thanks for asking.
****************
Infinity
by Michael R. Burch
****************
Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair?
Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air
that your heart sought its shell like a crab on a beach,
then scuttled inside to be safe, out of reach?
Might I lift you tonight from earth’s wreckage and damage
on these waves gently rising to pay the moon homage?
Or better, perhaps, let me say that I, too,
have dreamed of infinity … windswept and blue.
***********************************************
I believe I wrote "Infinity" as a high school senior, age 18.
***********************************************
Sea Dreams
by Michael R. Burch
************************************************
I.
In timeless days
I've crossed the waves
of seaways seldom seen.
-
By the last low light of evening
the breakers that careen
then dive back to the deep
have rocked my ship to sleep,
and so I've known the peace
of a soul at last at ease
there where Time's waters run
in concert with the sun.
-
With restless waves
I've watched the days’
slow movements, as they hum
their antediluvian songs.
Sometimes I've sung along,
my voice as soft and low
as the sea's, while evening slowed
to waver at the dim
mysterious moonlit rim
of dreams no man has known.
-
In thoughtless flight,
I've scaled the heights
and soared a scudding breeze
over endless arcing seas
of waves ten miles high.
I've sheared the sable skies
on wings as soft as sighs
and stormed the sun-pricked pitch
of sunset’s scarlet-stitched,
ebullient dark demise.
-
I've climbed the sun-cleft clouds
ten thousand leagues or more
above the windswept shores
of seas no man has sailed
— great seas as grand as hell's,
shores littered with the shells
of men's "immortal" souls —
and I've warred with dark sea-holes
whose open mouths implored
their depths to be explored.
-
And I've grown and grown and grown
till I thought myself the king
of every silver thing . . .
-
But sometimes late at night
when the sorrowing wavelets sing
sad songs of other times,
I taste the windborne rime
of a well-remembered day
on the whipping ocean spray,
and I bow my head to pray . . .
-
II.
It's been a long, hard day;
sometimes I think I work too hard.
Tonight I'd like to take a walk
down by the sea —
down by those salty waves
brined with the scent of Infinity,
down by that rocky shore,
down by those cliffs that I'd often climb
when the wind was tart with a taste of lime
and every dream was a sailor's dream.
-
Then small waves broke light,
all frothy and white,
over the reefs in the ramblings of night,
and the pounding sea
—a mariner’s dream—
was bound to stir a boy's delight
to such a pitch
that he couldn't desist,
but was bound to splash through the surf in the light
of ten thousand stars, all shining so bright.
-
Christ, those nights were fine,
like a well-aged wine,
yet more scalding than fire
with the marrow’s desire.
-
Then desire was a fire
burning wildly within my bones,
fiercer by far than the frantic foam . . .
and every wish was a moan.
-
Oh, for those days to come again!
Oh, for a sea and sailing men!
Oh, for a little time!
-
It's almost nine
and I must be back home by ten,
and then . . . what then?
-
I have less than an hour to stroll this beach,
less than an hour old dreams to reach . . .
And then, what then?
-
Tonight I'd like to play old games—
games that I used to play
with the somber, sinking waves.
When their wraithlike fists would reach for me,
I'd dance between them gleefully,
mocking their witless craze
—their eager, unchecked craze—
to batter me to death
with spray as light as breath.
-
Oh, tonight I'd like to sing old songs—
songs of the haunting moon
drawing the tides away,
songs of those sultry days
when the sun beat down
till it cracked the ground
and the sea gulls screamed
in their agony
to touch the cooling clouds.
The distant cooling clouds.
-
Then the sun shone bright
with a different light
over different lands,
and I was always a pirate in flight.
-
Oh, tonight I'd like to dream old dreams,
if only for a while,
and walk perhaps a mile
along this windswept shore,
a mile, perhaps, or more,
remembering those days,
safe in the soothing spray
of the thousand sparkling streams
that rush into this sea.
I like to slumber in the caves
of a sailor's dark sea-dreams . . .
oh yes, I'd love to dream,
to dream
and dream
and dream.
**********
“Sea Dreams” is one of my longer and more ambitious early poems, along with the full version of “Jessamyn’s Song.” To the best of my recollection, I wrote “Sea Dreams” around age 18. For years I thought I had written “Sea Dreams” around age 19 or 20. But then I remembered a conversation I had with a friend about the poem in my freshman dorm, so the poem must have been started around age 18, or earlier. Dating my early poems has been a bit tricky, because I keep having little flashbacks that help me date them more accurately, but often I can only say, “I know this poem was written by about such-and-such a date, because ...”
And thank you for including them here. That's one of the really great things about having your own website, you can just please yourself.
Thank you so much for posting these here, Mike! I personally love “Sea Dreams”. I think it’s a very fine poem and well worth publishing. It’s quite impressive, given its length, its quality, and the age you were when you wrote it. Personally, I have always recorded the date I start a poem and the date I complete it, just for my records.
Thank you for replicating your original comments, Mike! They are a fantabulous addition to the conversation here. I have lived in New England all my life, and much of my childhood was spent visiting a sea town that isn’t far from where I live. I’d imagine those memories have contributed to my love of water imagery in poetry. I’m of English ancestry as well, by the way. I’ve long wanted to see the UK. It’s such a beautiful country with a rich history.
Shannon, you should definitely go to England if you get the chance. And try to visit some of the scenic villages, because London doesn't give the flavor of the rest of the country. Wales and Scotland are also full of history and picturesque towns and villages.
Thank you, Mike! I will definitely take your advice if I ever have the opportunity to visit the UK. I’m not a city person at all, so the scenic areas appeal to me far more than London.
Thanks, Mike! I look forward to meeting you here in the future as well.
For some reason, Mike's comment in this thread and the one near the top of the page seem to have been deleted by accident. I have no idea how this happened, but I can't find any way to restore them. What a pity!
I agree. It is indeed a pity.
The thing is that when something vanishes, we don't just have to sit there and doing nothing. We, being wordsmiths, can conjure more words, perhaps better ones, out of thin air. So Mike and I have just restored those original comments, and we've added a few new one for good measure.
Yes, thank you to both of you for doing so. It is wonderful to see them here.
Like Michael, I think Gasp dug deepest into me...
I just checked your stack to see if you had posted anything new (not that I am impatient) and since not yet, I went back and read "Waves of You". Which was pretty timely since I said goodbye to Lisa yet again this morning on an early airport run. She is traveling for a few days to visit grandchildren in Colorado. I felt the feelings you describe in this poem...the desire to remember the embrace, the yearning to see her return, and the feeling that it is all occurring in the froth of the waves.
That even sounds beautiful the way you just wrote it, without even reading my own poem!
These are beautuful
Thank you, Rena. I like to think that the poets in the substack community are adding a little beauty to the world. There's too much division and hatred there now. Being a love poet I don't feel comfortable in it anymore. But I'll go on of course..
I know what you mean Martin. Keep giving the love and it's bound to stick here and there. Glad you plan to go on :)
You really are a sunflower!
Martin, you have a new DM, courtisey of Paul Wittenberger. Check it.
I will, Johnny, and I'll get back to you later on, or early tomorrow. Thank you.
So naturally tender Mr. McCarthy, enchanting as well! All blessings, Geraldine
Blessings to you too, Garaldine. I know from some of the things you've written that you feel things deeply.
Yes I do, I’m a seriously deep old woman who is blessed able to love the other.
Thank you, Maureen. I really appreciate your comment. I think that feelings and emotions are very much underrated now in poetry. And I think also that they are very noticeably present in your own work.