sea

I saw the sleep that knits

up the raveled lost.

Woke to find your thighs

making those marshmallows in the wake.

and toiled the unseen turbid cost.

Outlived by time itself

static and plastic  strewn

in a gray whales cervix

embroidered moon. Shrink

flinch, wince, quail then flame out , splash!

Forgotten, then remembered,

I've felt the lash; I can swim across it's with

with front scales on

since the sun plays silly games with

the horizon. Today

I stink too bad to be restored

washed up content on some exotic shore.

Reviews

[barleygirl]

Even tho your poem is an unforgettable depiction of the garbage wasteland we humans are making out of our oceans . . . I found myself delving deeper into your message, irresistibly. The garbage-bin seas are just a symptom of the overall human condition, where we are so self-absorbed that we only see our current need (which is usually a "want" -- not really a "need") . . . and to hell with whatever may be downstream from our greed & short-sightedness. There's something/someone downstream from every action we take. Humans act like this is something they've never considered. Your poem feels as full of garbage as what looking at this mess makes me feel (((HUGS))) Fondly, Margie

[h d e rushin]

dearest Margie. and of course your correct. Our interests are uncontrolled and nuanced. So much so that the canticle of "Now let us now depart" has become "Now let us grab and plunder". Thanks so much for your remarks my friend....dana

[Robert Trakofler]

I would wash the stink from me but then I would be wasting water and no matter how hard I scrub the toxins never go away. I get flashes of views all of the time of floating ocean islands of plastic and Danon yogurt cup shells sea dwellings for benthos. Sunlight toxicity beading down on my grandchildren and there's eventually wearing respirators to go to the playground and often I ask myself how will I respond to there questions when they ask me why this happened and the fingers go flailing till i have to point it at myself and I shudder in the shame and go take another shower. brilliant mind Dana

[h d e rushin]

why always does evidence in todays world make us cowards? The seas of the world are filthy. So is my neighborhood. Yet the universe continues to tolerate a moon that glows bright in the ignitable night as well as a decomposing, organic black person trying to survive on the east side of Detroit. Both carefree episodes are without good enough answers my friend. But Thanks for your interesting mind......dana

[Delmar Cooper]

Blame whichever men you will, or their countries, or their natures. It means little now: blame. The Earth will revenge itself upon us and the Earth is incapable of remorse.

[h d e rushin]

the earth is a long phagous rope eating itself from both ends. From the lust of patriarchal-masculine power to the burning down of the Amazon forest. We are all just renters and squatters hiding behind guarded fences, letting our beagles swim in our childrens plastic swimming pools. The more we hide, the easier we are to find...thank you dear brother...dana

[Beccy]

We are seeing the cost now, but remain mostly blind, or perhaps more accurately, blinkered by the immediacy of self. Spraying ourselves with deodorant to disguise the stink as we play our silly, self absorbed games, in the subliminal trust that others will make the sacrifice.

jacob comments there is something rotten, not in Denmark, but in the States. I would agree, but would extend the greediness of snouts in the trough and rotten leadership to much of this fractured world.

He also proposes that the cure is to start over; which is a laudable ambition. But I fear we are perhaps already too far down the road. That we have already lost the order and equilibrium betwixt balance and extremes, and that in doing so, we have become the creators of our own eventual demise.

As Bari Wood so rightly observed; 'truth's a rise of sea, a fall of earth.'

Your poem is equally insightful.

Beccy.

[h d e rushin]

thank you dearest: and I agree. We have become so ruled by corporate(ness), the need to get and have stuff, that our basic needs for shelter and community has been forfeited to the worship of prosperity. Like Phaethon from Greek mythology who drives his fathers sun-chariot through the sky only to loose control and be struck down by the thunderbolt of Zeus. Or fall is coming and not the obvious stock market fall the paper-money pushers are predicting. Egoism and greed will be the ultimate fall of modern civilization; a rise of sea, a fall of earth'. Thank you my friend for your kind remarks. I've missed you terribly....dana

[jacob erin-cilberto]

it's like Jonah inside the Whale and both wash up on shore...
what's that smell? oh, sorry Country Joe and the Fish...
but there is something rotten and it's not in Denmark...i think it is here in the states...
i feel a sea of leaders here...and maybe they all need to be consumed or drowned in a flood so we can start over...Captain Ahab's ambition and ego said he could conquer Moby Dick...the whale had other ideas.
this poem for me is so wonderfully allegorical...you are genius.
j.

[h d e rushin]

thank you dear brother...I see the analogy to Melville's argument about the imbalance of forces, mans or beasts and how we (Ishmael) is driven by revenge, the greatest emotional state there is. Great thinking brother.....dana