Eyes Of A Sailor

 

 

 

 

 

Eyes Of A Sailor

(a 55)

 

 My eyes grow rheumy

swimming in moonblur

but witnessing still

light's cut, color's fill,

shadow's indigo blot.

Light the blade, color the cloth,

blue shadow stitching together what's lost.

Old cells' ramparts

falling unfixed; 

wind pulls their dust,

time washes waves

over mitochondrial graves,

but memory sails its unsinkable boat

holding afloat

my far-sighted ghost.

 

 

July 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for earthweal's

Open Link #129

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: The Boatman, and Boat of the Mermaid, © Sabin Balasa  Fair Use

Home With The Diatoms

 

 

 

 

Home With The Diatoms

 

 

When I was a child

before sleep we prayed

for love to be shown, for safety to stay,

starved children in Korea to be saved.

Then the light would go off.

I'd put my real bed

of conches and nautilus twists

under the toss of the night's waves.

Regal on the seafloor

shells poked their bubbling heads

up out of snow-sand. Aquarelle fins and

gold-grey eye-globes blinked around me,

all greeted with a princess flip

of my green-scaled tail.

Reclined with coelacanths,

eyes blueing in my head,

all my mother-cut hair grown

long as a squid's arm,

I waited to swim into sleep,

watching the shadows of

far-above gulls mottle the green ceiling,

alone yet blanketed in

life watching over me, drowsing

to the epochs' stereopticon flash.

When we met in the deluge

you called in a lost language

for that nightspell to rise, to link us,

to sink us completely

in diatoms, wave after wave,

kissing underwater, not afraid to breathe

not afraid to drown, kelp-hair

in the undertow fanned and fluttered

summoned by a sea-fire of peace

to make ashes of fear.

 

March 2022

posted for earthweal's weekly challenge:

Shelter

Process note: "..Diatoms are unicellular [microalgae]: they occur either as solitary cells or in colonies, which can take the shape of ribbons, fans, zigzags, or stars..Living diatoms make up a significant portion of the Earth's biomass: they generate about 20 to 50 percent of the oxygen produced on the planet each year,  take in over 6.7 billion metric tons of silicon each year from the waters in which they live, and constitute nearly half of the organic material found in the oceans..."~wikipedia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: The Bright Liquid, © Edmond Dulac    Fair Use

Pink Shell With Sea Weed, 1937  © Georgia O'Keefe    Fair Use

Fish Out Of Water

Fish Out Of Water

I put a

fish on a stick

into the fire

before it could stink

asked for a drink

of wine, of regret

of sailor well met

to eat with me by the side of the fire

blue charcoaled desire

with a fork three-tined,

pulling off the fine

bones  

 the fragrant meat

of the white mind

~January 2014

55 flaky morsels of protein and salt for     the g-man

Yeah, yeah, I had another dream...hey, I can't afford a shrink, so I write. What can I say?

Optional Musical Accompaniment

Top Image: Water, Guiseppe Arcimboldo, oil, 1566, public domain via wikipaintings.org
Footer: Pisces, by Kolomon Moser, 1904, public domain via wikipaintings.org

In The Shark Tank

In the Shark Tank

In the shark tank

the herring has no chance.

His numberless school can only

fracture and sacrifice

those who are slow,

who butt their heads

against the glass reefs,

careen in panic into teeth,

swallowed into darkness

digested and deboned.

You need greased gills,

acres of waves and a following sea

to outrun a shark.

~October 2012

55 red herrings for   the g-man

Had to post an old one I had in reserve. Late to the party again, too.

Image: Sharks of Suburbia, by Michael Sowa

All Copyright belongs to the copyright holders.

viawikipaintings.org

Medea

Medea

In her cold bed by the Black Sea's shore

the niece of Circe stirred and felt

her fate, rushing over the wine-red waves.

She slept no more.

The world was still wet in its placental caul

new and vast as the unbordered sky

when she its deep daughter dressed herself

and came to the hall.

The Thief of the Fleece stood proud as the sun

all sweet smiles in a home she must leave

as Eros bid. Her eyes blinked once

and so it was done.

All that tale of love and death

of blood and flight, that was yet to come 
took form there then behind her eyes 

in a final breath.

She beat for him the killing ox,

the drake's quickened teeth. The dragon itself

she charmed  to sleep so the Fleece rode to Greece

between the oar-locks.

They sailed in a darkness rigid and blue,

flickered by death. She cast her spells,

she learned to kill, to make him king

for a year or two.

She poisoned, scried, and hexed to shore,

bore two strong sons to the Argonaut thief,

knowing he’d leave her as thieves always do  

for a princess whore.

The weapon children she drew from their sheath,

the boys he loved and left behind. 
Their blood was hers as it dripped from the knife. 
Their hair lay soft

as a golden fleece.

originally posted May 2011 at one Stop Poetry

 

 

reposted for Friday Picture Prompt at Real Toads 

No time this weekend for anything fresh, but I couldn't let that picture pass by and it really reminded me of this poem, rather a quintessential anti-fairy tale, so apologies to anyone who's already read it; I did revise it slightly.

Jazz Age

Jazz Age

Take it from the steal

take it from the street

take it from the speakeasy

the deck tossed under his feet,

swaying drunken flower in his

flannel bags, fedora, 
pipestem clenched,
teeth grating, another
Fitzgerald whored to
the Post. Glass raised,
posed amidships
she's an indigo nonsense,
a mad moondanced Zelda
traveling in night, losing life 
gin-draped in felt folds,
white wealth of self, 
pointed toe
broken starfish arms.

Drop it in the deep
drop it in the well
drop it in your sleep
hard to say when he fell,
drank the last bottle
smoked the last fag
wrote the last script,
oozed over the side
without making Paris, Riviera,
Antibes, never reading
Papa’s last laugh
just a sink and sigh 
in the peace blue 
sea, looking up going down
at the dancing starfish
in her tulle shroud gown
wings barely showing 
in the dark.

September 2011

Posted for    Poetics   at dVerse Poets Pub

Loosely inspired by the Fitzgeralds and some fragments of dream