Laocoön
Andover, MA
2022, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
After the shoreline fell, an impending
white fills mountains, desperate
to meet the sky. Who knew
the clear glassy sea could be
so white, could together be so blank but so crowded and dense.
A sun hiding behind thick blankets—
the wave is about to thunder war on earth, striking
the Trojans’ wooden womb; its bellow
a bomb echoing to the furthest waters—reaching
a city so clean, so busy, so perfect, so full, it could
burst at any moment, my city.
In the schoolyard, in this country, swans wander
back to shore once they’re done. So graceful, it makes me dizzy.
But no, look closer, they’re Neptune’s serpents, writhing in coils like the
aftermath
of storming sea, their eyes shot with blood—
my frantic hands fading into fog like Laocoön. Poor
doomed fool: is this country a gift, a curse, or a trick?
He was once a worshiper. Now, he is betrayed
by his god, swarmed. His body, once
dipped in black venom, writes
its own return—to his god, to the sea, as I wonder
whether to return to my own city, betrayed. His son
rising & setting while the ocean sinks in & out like breath, waiting for him to return.
I want to go and I want
to stay. I tell myself, my blue is not
the blue of the ocean, but the blue
burning of the seething heat.
Reflection
Reflection
Through this poem, I aimed to bring my passion for raising awareness of extreme oceanic events and natural disasters into conversation with both the interests and preoccupations that define my daily life—namely, my strong interest in Greek mythology and conflicting emotions regarding my native city of Seoul. Taking inspiration from the famous Greek myth, Laocoön’s death in the poem is a representation of natural disasters through the wrath of Neptune, the ancient god of the ocean, a result of humans’ irresponsible actions. Through the contrast between the calm and the storm, further emphasized by the repeated color white of sea foam and the intense fog, I establish a sense of tension and anxiety as I find myself distant from Seoul, South Korea, due to climate change and extreme air pollution. By ending the poem with blue imagery that overlaps with not only the literal ocean but also the figurative “blue / burning of the seething heat,” a way of representing the ardent passion, sense of empowerment, and strong hope in the climate movement, I invite the audience themselves to continue actively contributing to fighting against climate change.