I Wonder What It Feels Like To Be Drowned? Poem by Robert Graves

I Wonder What It Feels Like To Be Drowned?

Rating: 3.4


Look at my knees,
That island rising from the steamy seas!
The candles a tall lightship; my two hands
Are boats and barges anchored to the sands,
With mighty cliffs all round;
They’re full of wine and riches from far lands….
I wonder what it feels like to be drowned?

I can make caves,
By lifting up the island and huge waves
And storms, and then with head and ears well under
Blow bubbles with a monstrous roar like thunder,
A bull-of-Bashan sound.
The seas run high and the boats split asunder….
I wonder what it feels like to be drowned?

The thin soap slips
And slithers like a shark under the ships.
My toes are on the soap-dish—that’s the effect
Of my huge storms; an iron steamer’s wrecked.
The soap slides round and round;
He’s biting the old sailors, I expect….
I wonder what it feels like to be drowned?

Friday, January 3, 2003
Topic(s) of this poem: storms
COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Michael Walker 01 September 2019

It would be most unpleasant to be drowned. It nearly happened to me as a child. All too often ' an iron steamer's wrecked'.

0 0 Reply
Edward Kofi Louis 30 October 2015

Wrecked! And, to be drowned. A sad note of the sailors. Nice work.

0 1 Reply
Robert Graves

Robert Graves

London / England
Close
Error Success