Dancing with Crabs
Little crabling bastard
what makes you think
you matter
you matter
a million like you
hatched a day
for the chef to batter.
You chase what you can’t have;
you get what you won’t own,
a tin can for a hat
a scuttle down the sand
sideways slow alone
to lose what you never had.
you know that you’re
half crazy
half crazy
to want what women have
to love what makes you mad;
to dance, a hermit crab
in a white parade of swans.
Little baby crabling
ballet's not for crustaceans.
So borrow from the oyster
loneliness the pearl
that adorns any station.
Last Day of November
2011, revised August 2023
posted for Lonely Town
Header Photo: Black Eyed Hermit Crab by Dan Hershman on flick'r
Footer Photo: Swan Lake by Bella Lago on flick'r
Both shared under Creative Commons 2.0 Generic License
Wonderful, Hedge. You took me right into the reality of baby crabs.......such a dangerous world for them, as well as us. I loved considering the life of such a small being, part of such an overwhelming whole.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting way to read the poem, Sherry, tho not what I had in mind. Thanks for stopping by.
DeleteThis makes me hurt, for you, for myself, snd for everyone who feels set apart or denied. As Morrissey sang, “I am human and I need to belong, just like everybody else does.” The payoff at the end seems not enough; such separation from what one wants and needs simply as a living, feeling being is enough sometimes to make one want to scream, hit something in frustration, or… write poetry. In “Chelsea Hotel” our Leonard sings, “Well never mind; we are ugly but we have the music.” Perhaps that is your pearl in the poem. Still, I would wish so much more for all of us outsiders. As Tristessa tells Kerouac, “I would rather gave the happy man than all the sad poems.” Then again, I think the world needs our brand of durable beauty. (Oh and… damn the swans, as one of my iwn tags says.)
ReplyDeleteThis is Shay
DeleteThank you, Shay. Your comment is doubly appreciated as I know your computer is down and you are laboring with an unfamiliar device not really meant for the purpose. Thanks also for getting it, and for your Cohen and Kerouac quotes, which are spot on. You are missed. Hope things are up and running again soon.
ReplyDeletePoor dancing hermit, unappreciated but for the mettle of its unslippered flesh, one of so many tossed blithely in a distant pot. The Cohen quote from Shay's so apt, art is a terrible beauty spawned from (never to) ugliness. The speaker's voice is half drunk jeering mama, half playground taunt, the lonely measure no art succeeds in its ambition "to want what women have / to love what makes you mad; / to dance, a hermit crab / in a white parade of swans." But a hermit crab's gotta doff that tin hat once again, dancing past the swans. A fine revival for the challenge, more sterling and scuttle-footed than the original. Makes me want to resurrect and hammer a crab poem I wrote back in '03.
ReplyDeleteThanks, B. I was enjoying a bit of a (self) pity party when I originally wrote this, but it's one of my few old ones that I felt I could improve for the prompt. I'd love to see your resurrected crab. Thanks again for keeping me engaged with the world of words.
ReplyDeleteHi Joy!! How lovely to read you again! I hope you've been well :-) This poem's so funny! It makes me think you've got some beef with crabs :-D I've always found it fascinating that they walk sideways. Your first line cracks me up :-D
ReplyDeleteSunra, it's good to see you, but you have misread the poem. It's not meant to be funny, it's not about crabs, and the message is about the prompt, which was loneliness. Thanks for stopping by, however. BTW, the voice is the voice of my mother--and I *am* a bastard.
DeleteHi Joy! Sorry about that, I hope I didn't offend, your opening line caught me off-guard. Reading it again with the prompt in mind, it's poignant a.f. Thank you for the explanation!
DeleteWell that opening stanza packs a punch, holding up its wee bastard for a battering. Dark and weighty stuff and a tin cat hat to wear down the road to boot. Maybe Oystering was the only option left available in the end?
ReplyDeleteThanks, Paul. Yes, it can be, though now I do strive to find things and people outside of it.
DeleteAs both mother and daughter I found the unseen-ness of this poem heartbreaking and recogniseable.
ReplyDelete