After the painting by Théodore Géricault. View the painting in high quality here.
It has been quiet in here of late
so I stare at this painting alone.
So quiet my memories are stark.
That ghastly death of hope
when someone cut the tow line –
the raft’s movement a sick sudden lurch
backwards, quite distinct from the other heave
of waves.
That concentrated desperation condensed here in paint,
dark like the salt brine we drank but knew we should not,
and our too dark urine.
Look at the torsos, the strong limbs,
like shipwrecked Greeks or Romans
sculpted in a ghastly mass.
It wasn’t really like that –
but then again it was in some ways.
He captures something of it, young Géricault,
seeing as he was not there.
The full sail, the sometime leaden skies,
the waves, eternal waves.
The last remains of our crew still adrift,
all desperate. Some deeper in despair.
Near dead, crazed, near dead.
And an African lookout raised up at the bow,
reaching out for a mercy that came so late.
It was just planks, sawn wood,
some twine, some tar,
between us and certain death.
And death of course came through.
I stare at this and taste the salt again,
the metal tang in blood.
My foetid teeth, a dry thirst
and shame.
We did not leave port as bad people.
Just average, making a living, lusty,
bound for Senegal in good faith.
Perhaps it was bad luck
that our ship was named Medusa,
a quite unholy name looking back,
raising either a Gorgon
with it’s hatred of mortal man,
or those jellyfish that sting profoundly,
best left down deep in my opinion.
We did not sign up for that
intense despair, an endless dose of death.
Some of the crew were real friends to me,
before we were cut adrift.
Now look at me, alone in the Louvre.
Regarding the raft again.
I am glad he painted it, and glad he painted it so big.
Some of them were heroes, to me,
then and now.
As for me, I miss the smell of the sea.
This air conditioning dries my sea dog sinuses.
I always was lucky, but
now I bear a leaden guilt to boot,
alone all day and night.
Not because I was there;
more because I am still here.
Still thirsty, and waiting,
in a more civil sort of hell, I fear.
A version of this poem appeared on Twitter in 2020 @LitSciHub.
