Lost At Sea
The moon mocks a sailor
on the surface, bobbing and breeching.
Boiling in darkness
the sweet arch of coral
clings with its bones to the breast of a giant,
crumbling to a legend
in its poison bath.
The antic fishes
with their calico colors
paint fading murals in a
melting palace, then rise grey
in their bloat to bleach clouded tides.
The sun's spear drives home
through a broken shield
splits the skin of the ice
so it roams without purpose,
a white wolf with Fenrir's breath
that moving southward slowly starves.
that moving southward slowly starves.
In this wreckage and wrack that's the prize for destroyers
who sold all their flowers to dance in an oil slick
and all the world had
for the price of
for the price of
a mess of pottage, is there one soul left
who can make a new day?
~July 2017
For Brendan's changing earth
Images: Untitled marinescape, by Zdislaw Beksinski Fair Use
Edward G Robinson watches a film of flowers before death, from the 1973 movie Soylent Green
Public domain
Process note: "A mess of pottage is something immediately
attractive but of little value taken foolishly and carelessly in exchange for
something more distant and perhaps less tangible but immensely more valuable.
The phrase alludes to Esau's sale of his birthright for a meal ("mess")
of lentil stew ("pottage") in Genesis 25:29-34 and connotes
shortsightedness and misplaced priorities..."~wikipedia
While a few enjoy the short term gain from exchanging their birthright for a mess of pottage, countless others on this planet have had it stolen from them by this filthy bargain. No brave new world to speak of, I fear. No soul to save the day.
ReplyDeleteEach stanza turns something natural into something corrupted or defiled. I despair of any turning of the figurative tide in these matters anymore. Rising to power is particularly suited for those who don't give a damn for much else besides the acquisition of same, and the money and phony prestige that go with it.
ReplyDeleteSo three hundred years from now someone on the eventual shore of this sea and pulls out a bottle inside which, cork removed, there is extracted this poem, by way of explanation of just what could have precipitated so willingly and blindly their Hadean norm. To me the message in the bottle would be clear: we saw it, we saw it, we saw it, and said:
ReplyDeleteIn this wreckage and wrack that's the prize for destroyers
who sold all their flowers to dance in an oil slick
and all the world had
for the price of
a mess of pottage, is there one soul left
who can make a new day?
-- And figure that, sensing no one monied or important enough to care, forbid poetry in the name of pottage. It think there's ample coin here to pay the ferryman. Great stuff, and thanks for pouring in this bucket of burning oil. Really. We need to write by those lights.
Devastating poem and question, Joy. I agree with Brendan. This poem packs power. Thanks for writing it.
ReplyDeleteI love that you brought out Fenrir... Ragnarök or pale riders... it's all the same, it's there around the corner. Love the voice of your poem.
ReplyDeleteThe weight of these words sit heavy on the soul and yet there is within the darkness a question that wakes up a voice in me. I do not nor have I ever believed there is one such soul but I have always hoped that collectively such a soul could be birthed.Maybe not hoped. More dreamed.
ReplyDeleteThere is a question. Well composed.
ReplyDeleteThere are too many "messes of pottages' going on in this world of ours. Sad. Thank you for highlighting it. And for expanding my general knowledge, did not know the term 'mess of pottages'. Until now *grin*
ReplyDeletemostly I am silent these days, because of what you have observed, I see too.
ReplyDeletethat, and crazy work hours- pushing on a string, just to get by...
Thanks for reading, M.--I know only too well the condition you describe--never feel you have to read unless reading helps. I find writing to be very iffy and sporadic atm--but over the last few years I've been blessed with many periods of frenzied composition, so I don't complain now when all things seem to be blistering and dying in the hellfire.
ReplyDeletewhen I do find a few minutes, I always look to your blog, Joy ~
Delete