Nobody Quotes

“This is one kind of water when it hangs over him
a man is a nobody underneath a big wave
his loneliness expands his hair floats out like seaweed
and when he surfaces his head full of green water
sitting alone on his raft in the middle of death
then it is wide it is a wide field of horrible upheavals
there are fish in it there are shearwaters searching
and sometimes in these gulfs a goddess
who used to be human now she is yellow-eyed
sometimes she shrieks heavy-winged with laughterless laughter
and lands on his raft shaking the underworld off
poor man she says poor man it's obvious
you can sniff it everywhere the shabby weirdness
of the sea-god leaning intimately over
and turning his shadows against you
poor morsel of cork you bob about
throwaway in all this what is it grief grief grief
but this grief is so old its matter has lost its mind
blinks blinks and sees nothing
howls howls and hears nothing”
― Alice Oswald, Nobody