Dirge of the Sea
Flushing, NY
2016, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
Ruin
|
Great vain Titanic, Epitome of foolish hubris! But pray; pity thy shameful countenance When plastic parasites drift… Fear the diffuse, devouring net For from fore to aft Shame it pines |
O’ Enchanted Atlantis,
Elusive city; divinely grand! A beast; the gyre swallowed the luminescence Sifting, disintegrating shadow… Shards of infinitesimal polymers Over fallen ivory vestige Buried cold now |
Silence
Do hear the calls! Echoes loud, sonorous
Cries collective choir of krill; onyx eyes
Murmur minnows glowing amber rises
Praying slippery silver diamond perch
Majestic jade turtles mourning by moans
Sapphire whales lament slow broken knells
Listen, for they plead! The plastic poison leaks!
Sink souls where no angels tread in the coal
Ashes for every dying beat of gem
Plastic choked pulses; toxin runs the veins
Filling goblets from quiet becks unfresh
Ah! It commences! Eternal silence.
The Last Tide
Lapping at feet
Ebullient frothy foam; pristine salt
Sifting sand through craggy crevasses
The sea rears! Crashes upon sand! And quickly retreats!
Depositing remnants of time
O! the excitement! When it rises like lofty leviathan
Swallow, tumble, crumble
The divine edifice into minerals
Clawing at feet
Such charnel waters; unholy
Bay ambushed by black breaker, driving jettison
Dumping sins thought cast away
Never do deign! For fear of descent, gross degradation
Ritual, sacrifice, punishment
The masking of malingering malady
Dark lilies levitate o’er rags putrid
Wet thy feet
Submerge and feel; hopeless dregs
Noxious nausea seizes the nose, wheezes of disgust
Heavily hauled, netting ocean offal
Cursed decadence! Gravity of the guiltless!
Yet in marshy smog, gloom of human in shade…
Rustic rue rolls over ghostly winds
Moonlight helps the heartache.
By the Brink
Periwinkle faeries
Powder-sprinkled sour snowberries,
Glacial giants splinter to smoky flints
Cold-shoulders crush weeping seals, wailing whales
Because we are sitting; but they, by the brink
Streamlining through thin ice sheets
Leaving cruise residue, consequential wreckage
Glasses tinkling, chandelier lights scintillating
Arctic icy breath
Enough.
Flaky frazil warns us away
Fulgurous frostbite breaks fulmination
Hoarfrost spears hail down
Listen to me.
The sick spirits and lost souls
Northern lights shimmer halos
Dark firmament, brooding trouble
The sinister cistern
The sixth corona
Atlantic Tyrants
The thick serpentine frame
Hollow eyes, jagged teeth
The Great White
Undertaking as the cruel sea tyrant
The finger with which we point wrongly
Let go
The plastic does not go away
It swirls, churns in sea and stomach
We are… the Atlantic tyrants
A calm but curious demeanor
Silently wafting over the sea floor
Wary specter
Mysterious in solitude
But inside out
Perhaps… introverted
A robust predator
Clever navigator
Cold aura
Warm blood
Reflection
Reflection
My anthology is focused on plastic pollution and how we as humans seem to desire to distance ourselves from our mess instead of fixing it. I want to emphasize that the ocean is a beautiful place that we have both purposely and unintentionally neglected to take care of. I feel that few believe they are responsible for ocean pollution. Even so, we cannot simply leave the disintegrating pollutants in the ocean; we all need to care.
Ruin and Silence hint that there is much we do not notice or listen to. There are consequences that we do not like to think about. The Last Tide tells us the beauty of the ocean that we see for now on some beaches. Yet such admiration declines quickly and superficially. In the end, we must clean the ocean with a heavy heart. By the Brink is a unique poem for me. The Arctic Ocean could be another gyre. Now there are six. Atlantic Tyrants is an appreciation for the Great White Shark. The shark is stilled feared in some of our imaginations, and research is scanty… but these cold-looking sharks are very misunderstood.
In all poems, I believe we must not find cleaning the ocean a burden to hold with hatred. This is a dirge and a harbinger. The ocean is ours to take care of.