Two yachts and a pleasure steamer
Caught in the offing amidst a squall
The squall blew in suddenly
Catching the sailors off guard
Standing off to avoid wrecking
on a lee shore, they battle big waves
The waves are ultramarine blue
Starved of light by the red-tinged clouds
And yellow sunset light beyond the clouds
Trumpets the coming of nightfall danger
They weren’t expecting danger on this Sunday sail
Sailors struggle, passengers huddle on the steamer
Pray for those in peril on the sea
Two yachts and a pleasure steamer…
© Andrew Wilson, 2024
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Melissa Lemay in Poetics invites us to write an Ekphrastic poem selecting from a number of paintings (unidentified as yet) before revealing who the artist was and something about his career. Emil Nolde, it turns out, was an ardent Nazi who attempted to climb the ladder of art success at a time when the tide was turning against his expressionist style in favour of the insipid efforts to which all propaganda are likely to produce.
Melissa asks us whether, upon learning about Emil Nolde’s unpleasant politics, we feel differently about his art.
I think a man’s politics are separate from his art unless he is using his art as propaganda and then as I say above, the quality will suffer because it doesn’t come from the heart.
Nevertheless, I can think of people, still alive today, whose work and life I don’t want to support because their politics are abhorrent. Emil Nolde no longer needs our support and I feel no different about the work – only the man…
is the steamer to the far left of the two yachts? (trying to see what you see). love your poem! and ditto on your view of Nolde.
There’s a faint shape to the right – it almost looks like a submarine but I used artistic licence…
What a wonderful ekphrastic, Andrew. We were caught in a squall once but since it was a large vessel, it wasn’t that bad.
I am not enamoured with his work and he did use his art for his politics, so…
I agree, it is is difficult to support artists whose politics or actions are abhorrent.
Thanks Punam, I vdid love the strong colours and action in this painting.
I love how clearly you ‘saw’ the image, it was my second favorite work of art of Nolde’s. Oh, I have been caught in a squall in a sailboat on Lake Superior, horrific enough to keep me on my knees, unable to stand. Enough to force the emptying of my stomach. It was an horrific experience. And finally it ended. However, it took quite some time for the bodily aftermath to disappear. Cheers, I slept thru Saturday morn and sorry I missed the dVerse poets.
Thanks Helen, sailing is one of those activities that creates plenty of stories…
You are liking the duplex form lately I see. Two yachts and a pleasure steamer… should have made them catamarans!😅
Through reading everyone’s responses, I am still not convinced we are totally separate from our art.
I do love the Duplex – it’s like a relay race where each stanza passes the baton on to the next but then the next stanza takes the meaning off in a new direction – so it’s super inventive and drives at speed…
Like many of the others, I’ve been at sea (the Gulf of Mexico, and I do mean MEXICO) during a squall, and it was on a sailboat. Whew!!! I was only ten years old and have never been as scared since. I love this line,
“And yellow sunset light beyond the clouds
Trumpets the coming of nightfall danger”
… it reflects the calm before the storm and how unexpectedly things change at sea.
I love the duplex form, too, and think you have used it really well.
Thanks Kim, my near shipwreck in a sailing dinghy was on a sunny day in the Mediterranean and it was the residual swell after a storm which nearly did for me – spilling the wind from the sails so that I could not escape a current heading me to a cliff… Sunny or stormy, the sea can be scary!
Great poem, Andrew!
Yvette M Calleiro 🙂
http://yvettemcalleiro.blogspot.com
Thanks Yvette!