Poem of the Day: The Diving Bell

I want to go under the sea in a diving-bell
and return to the surface with ominous wonders to tell.
              I want to be able to say:
              "The base is unstable, it's probably unable
              to weather much weather,
being all hung together by a couple of blond hairs caught
in a fine-toothed comb."

I want to be able to say through a P.A. system,
Authority giving a sonorous tone to the vowels,
            "I'm speaking from Neptune's bowels.
             The sea's floor is nacreous, filmy
with milk in the wind, the light of an overcast morning."

I want to give warning:
               "The pediment of our land is a lady's comb,
                 the basement is moored to the dome
by a pair of blond hairs caught in a delicate
tortoise-shell comb."

I think it's safer to roam
              than to stay in a mortgaged home
                             And so-

I want to go under the sea in a bubble of glass
containing a sofa upholstered in green corduroy
and a girl for practical purposes and a boy
               well-versed in the classics.

I want to be first to go down there where action is slow
              but thought is surprisingly quick.
              It's only a dare-devil's trick,
              the length of a burning wick
              between tu-whit and tu-who!

              Oh, it's pretty and blue
but not at all to be trusted. No matter how deep you go
there's not very much below
               the deceptive shimmer and glow
               which is all for show
of sunken galleons encrusted with barnacles and doubloons,
an undersea tango palace with instant come and go moons…

—Tennessee Williams, “The Diving Bell,” in Florida in Poetry (Pineapple Press, 1995), p. 77.