"...I am a man upon the land
I am a silkie on the seaAnd when I'm far and far frae landMy home, it is in Sule Skerrie.."
The Potato Selkie
He came frying to earth
on a feather not feather,
a float of an idea soft
as a potato, begging for form.
I put him to age
in a metal-bound cask to see
what he might eventually be;
something playful
and deadly as vodka,
or a poor-mind's pierogi
to be gnoshed then spat
like sawdust-wurst. I sunk the cask
beneath a wave (New Wave, they say)
and soon saw a man upon dry land
who dreamed of a selkie on the sea,
a million miles from Sule Skerrie
With a slick-metal sheen, he
sang to me in a lilt and croon
like potato mash, shapeshifting
animus to idiot maximus.
In his strangle, only heat and dead air
still and dry, a trembling reflection
a shimmer of no-light, a clockwork cry
as he grabbed for my pen
with his fish-breath mouth,
jumped in the sea
and drowned
again.
June 2023
posted for Poetry Slam at The Singularity Corral
Top Image: The Hand, ©Salvador Dali 1930 Fair Use
Ai generated image sadly failing to be a selkie of any kind but at least forlorn about it.
