Sea Battle, by Thelma Laycock

Improvisation 31 (Sea Battle), by Wassily Kandinsky (Russia) 1913

​Sea Battle

There was a moment
after the sinking of the boat
when there was silence as
we reached the bottom of the sea

there was a moment
when the storm gave us back the sky
and the clouds sent down gifts,
cerulean, blue-green, ice-blue,
crimson, purple, gold, indigo,
and men became like singing seals
claiming the ocean for themselves

we sang in that moment
and the sound held fast against the light
tiered with the water's turquoise
men floated up like single flowers
while synaesthetic angels
plucked music, orange, lemon,
tastes at the edge of honey

when the storm came again
I was alone with the self
in the dark ocean of my soul
wretched, but rising still

Thelma Laycock

Thelma Laycock has been published in various magazines and anthologies.  Her  two poetry collections published are A Persistence of Colour (2011) and A Difference in Direction (2015) (both Indigo Dreams Publishing), plus, a series of interlinked short stories, Connecting North, (Stairwell Books, 2019).  Some of her work has been translated into Hebrew, Romanian, Italian, French, and Welsh.