POETRY JAM - SOLITUDE/LONELINESS

“Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.” - May Sarton

Poetry Jam this week has set the theme of Loneliness/Solitude as a prompt for poetic outpourings.

Some people find themselves alone and immediately search for companionship, failing to differentiate between the two strikingly different faces of being alone: The self sufficiency of solitude and the gnawing pain of loneliness. It is a terrible thing when we have no choice in the matter – when we start by enjoying our solitude, but then as it turns into loneliness, we have no recourse to companionship…
Here is my offering:

The Castaway’s Island

the shipwreck
the survivor
–cruel sea!–
the laughing witch
the blue-green island
the ever moving waves
the hypnotising murmurs

the castaway
the solitudes
–gentle sea!–
the kind, lucid days
the island a prison of gold
the sunsets gilded yellow
the twilights violent violet

the shipwreck
the memories
–dark crystal sea!–
the impassive lizard
the island of a ghostly love
the palms battered by the wind
night awakening the shadows

The castaway:
A lonely death…
–Cruel, endless sea!–
Bleached bones on golden sands;
The island solitary, pitiless, self-serving
While on the horizon, deriding hope,
White sails of a ship appear.