My first observation of Derek’s poem, “The Pilgrimage of a Sunday Surfer”, was his use of free verse, which caused me to re-read the poem a few times. The whole poem has a dark feeling to it from the third line which reads: “In a black sea/Ghost of a smile/ on pale lips” (*/indicating a break in the free verse).
It took me a few read throughs to grasp and understand the underlying meaning of the poem. Initially, I thought he was using a metaphor to describe sailing onto a new, unchartered land. However, the more I re-read the lines, the more I saw a questioning of faith in his metaphors. For example, the line which reads, “His young eyes/ climb up the chain link/ altar” resonates to the young Catholic who still sees church as a burden on their Sunday freedom, rather than a liberating religious experience.
This notion is reiterated in the line that reads “ooo Lord/ beside/ me/ shouted in/ anger and/ not in vain”. He is not simply stating the “Lord’s name in vain” as a child so often does, but rather, has a resentment towards the dark feeling that he is being forced upon the cross by his father rather than his own will.
The metaphor of the black shores is brought up again in the last few lines, where Derek takes on a different rhythm than the rest of the poem. The metaphor here, while well written, is one that stumped me. I re-read it and tried analyzing it to the point where I realized I had strapped the poem to a chair and beaten it, rather than trying to feel what the words were saying.
“The black shores/of a new/continent/wonder what/lice spirits/haunt in it.” I started picturing the new continent to be a new church, “lice spirits” being a metaphor for the lost souls bouncing around the church looking for answers in faith that maybe they won’t find, the way a wondering spirit or ghost wonders the earth without closure.
All in all I definitely lost myself in the imagery and world Derek painted within the free verse form he used capturing the thoughts of a dark mind in question of something that was once beautiful, but now dead to him.
– Chris Wilcox