Can you explain this poem?

S

Sir Richard

New member
I'll give you a few thoughts on it, but explanation?
It's a happy and sunny poem that turns dark. All the revellers in the sunny sea, carefree and cavorting as they might be, fail to think about the power of the waves and that the storm will sweep them and their little lives away; that's the literal imagery I'd say.
For some underlying stuff we have the bounty and the slendour of the outward appearance at the beginning, and then we're beaten over the head with the fact that this pretty exterior hides "an emptiness in the stomache, a deprivation" that hides in the town, away from the beach. Humanity is false, we're told, and hypocritical, and low.
Last - and it's a doozy, read the lines with "San Sebastian" in, one after the other. How's that? From high to low, from pretty to foul and fat, from light to dark..... ?
And the bathers may well all die. And does the poet/observer care, do you think? Was he sad from the start?
 
A storm Warning

Sneaking in the brambles of our heart
Comes the laughter of ladies swimming’
Vacationing in San Sebastian.

The eyes of the crimson hillsides
Blink forlornly upon every assail
Of the tremulous wind announcing
The carefree noise of the bathers
Cavorting in the beaches of San Sebastian.

In the root of the heart
Tears beat down the flagging spirit,
Reenacting the surf’s primordial attack
Upon the pocked cliffs of San Sebastian.

In the towns of the conscience
Especially in the homes of San Sebastian
An emptiness in the stomach, a deprevation,
A hunger, consumes at love-
Chipping at the rock of humanity-
So that vapors of hate seethe from inland
And the sea off San Sebastian weeps thunderously.
The eye of the heart bleeds
For the fat bathers of San Sebastian
Who fail to read the impending wrath
Of the darkening heavens.
 
I'll give you a few thoughts on it, but explanation?
It's a happy and sunny poem that turns dark. All the revellers in the sunny sea, carefree and cavorting as they might be, fail to think about the power of the waves and that the storm will sweep them and their little lives away; that's the literal imagery I'd say.
For some underlying stuff we have the bounty and the slendour of the outward appearance at the beginning, and then we're beaten over the head with the fact that this pretty exterior hides "an emptiness in the stomache, a deprivation" that hides in the town, away from the beach. Humanity is false, we're told, and hypocritical, and low.
Last - and it's a doozy, read the lines with "San Sebastian" in, one after the other. How's that? From high to low, from pretty to foul and fat, from light to dark..... ?
And the bathers may well all die. And does the poet/observer care, do you think? Was he sad from the start?
 
I'll give you a few thoughts on it, but explanation?
It's a happy and sunny poem that turns dark. All the revellers in the sunny sea, carefree and cavorting as they might be, fail to think about the power of the waves and that the storm will sweep them and their little lives away; that's the literal imagery I'd say.
For some underlying stuff we have the bounty and the slendour of the outward appearance at the beginning, and then we're beaten over the head with the fact that this pretty exterior hides "an emptiness in the stomache, a deprivation" that hides in the town, away from the beach. Humanity is false, we're told, and hypocritical, and low.
Last - and it's a doozy, read the lines with "San Sebastian" in, one after the other. How's that? From high to low, from pretty to foul and fat, from light to dark..... ?
And the bathers may well all die. And does the poet/observer care, do you think? Was he sad from the start?
 
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