"If You Want To Know What Sea Is..."

This poem is written as a single long sentence. Note: it refers to a storm and not to a gale. Anybody who knows the Beaufort Scale knows they are two very different things (at sea in a small boat it's the difference between terrifying and horrifically terrifying). Unfortunately, in their infantile efforts to be "relevant" the Met Office and others appear to treat the words interchangeably - searching for "the human angle" rather than simply giving the facts.

   For those who like such things I've given an "also-ran" ending at the bottom.

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If you want to know what sea is
   You’ll come to far Penwith,
Where the land makes up four portions

   And the sea always a fifth;

Look north, look south, look west,
   Even south-east a’ways,
From high ground the sea’s all-present
   Like a plain of wind-roughed baize;
In fine times its blue’s kohl-deep,
   In rain it’s grey as lead,
In cloud it’s a fishpaste green,
   The colour of flesh long dead;
But down on beach or in bay,
   That’s the place to be
When a storm ten hell sweeps in,
   Upending the pliant sea:
Ah, it’s dark as a devil’s cave,
   And the clouds stream like smoke from a pan,
The wind screeches in a top-speed rush,
   Punching stronger than a man;
Crouch behind rock or wall,
   Bulleted by the frenzied rain,
Cautiously peer round an edge
   At sight of the sane gone insane:
Huge flint-faced rollers rear,
   Lashed with cords of spume,
Upended by the granite shore
   They explode in a maelstromed plume;
The beach becomes a sump,
   Waist-deep, of raging brine,
With a backwash strong to drag men
   To a death where the fish will dine;
Cape Cornwall’s drenched in rack,
   And offshore the Brisons rock
As combers erupt with a crump
   Felt inland like a shivered shock;
Mousehole’s gone black under hail,
   Its harbour wall near breached
As creamers chainsaw its rampart
   With a thunder that’s chaos speeched;
And across Mounts Bay, Porthleven,
   Smack in the path of the storm,
Shoulders against its pummelling
   And the wind’s rasp like a shawm;
Here two thousand-miled breakers,
   Delegged by the offshore shoals,
Surge like clouds of frogspawn
   Dousing the town in its scrolls;
At sea, like kaleidoscoped beads,
   The trawlers plunge on their sides,
Staggered by the spray-pouring swells
   As they roar in their wind- bansheed strides:
What survival, what hope, is likely,
   Clubbed by such screaming power,
Even granite fissures and falls
   Battered year, day and hour;
And yet, a day or two later,
   Though lively with a storm-dregs swell,
The sea’s the blue of scabious,
   The wind a chuckling bell;
But, stranger, all’s deceptive,
   Like a mantis that’s poised to strike,
If you come to Penwith for prettiness
   You may find what you do not like:
Yes, there’s seaside ices and playgrounds,
   But also at the twist of a wrist
Death – harsh, relentless, final,
   When the sea hammers its fist:
It’s a killer in Our Lady’s blue cloaking,
   A dun-faced footpad, a bawd,
Which in a few hours tooth-bared fury
   Will add your life to its hoard.

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© June 2021

Alternative Ending

After line 60 in the drafts I excised a passage which I felt went into too much detail when the poem should be concluding; but since I quite like some of the detail I give it here together with its own ending.

And yet, a day or two later,
   Though lively with a storm-dregs swell,
The sea’s the blue of scabious,
   The wind a chuckling bell;
And once the swell has flattened
   All’s calm with a deep-seat peace;
The sun braises the air like broth,
   The sea shows barely a crease;
On the soft sands of Porthcurno
   And the wide strand of Whitesand Bay
Bare-bodied bathers like seals
   Roll in the waves’ flop and sway;
Sky and sea are eggshelled blue,
   Faint-wisped with mare’s-tail flecks,
The wind with its punkah swings,
   Hushing on sun-hot necks –
A glimpse of stasis, of oneness,
   Of meld between nature and man,
Sea and wind like stretching cats
   Teasing the shores’ long span:
And storm or calm are twins

   Known daily in fact and myth;
You must bear the one with the other

   If you come to far Penwith.