_WHITE.png)
25 Oct 2022
Rae
Howells
New
Moon
Nov 8th
She paints the wave
Oct 9th
After Maggi Hambling’s
Wave Returning
water comes in
drenches her bristle brush feet
salts her sketchpad steeps it
the sea the sea
blue like turpentine the sea
rushing around her frantic until she wants to get inside it
be it
breathe the toss slush roar over and over again
shake the walls violent with it
in come the waves different every day different every minute
every morning sits in the opening eyelid of sunrise
poised on her pencil’s axis with the wave clenched tightly
to the tip
she finds her heart washed up in the intertidal margin
muscle salted in a surrender of seaweed cigarettes scallops
that split second different waves different every day
like falling in love with something over and over
engulfed
the wave the wave talking talking talking talking
sometimes polite sometimes roaring sometimes the
thick beastdrip howling on the brushtip
blue black grey green white red
a roar in her oily bones
the seashell of her skull
she rocks on gallery floorboards
as they buck and roll eyes naked
the walls shiver shatter disperse
remembering each particular curve of each particular wave
all her lovers in a series of portraits
grieving setpieces never to be repeated
painting the way they sound scream sing
a gash of paint
like that moment you crack open and fall in love
rush and break and plummet and wings and over and over
listening listening listening listening
to the gull’s voice
different every day different every minute
time scouring the beach of her face
the wave the wave the wave all her lovers
on the end of her brush
drowning
Behind the poem...
Maggi Hambling’s Wave Returning is a product of her obsession with waves – not ‘the sea’ as a generic mass, but capturing portraits of individual waves. The oil paintings she produced became an exhibition, and the movement she captured in her work resulted in one gallery attendant becoming so seasick she requested to be moved to another room. Hambling also set out to paint ‘the sound of the sea’ in her work. As a synaesthete, I found this idea of senses merging enormously appealling – it's what I try to do in my poetry.
