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When the ocean fled
we were left with many dead
fish.

That Wednesday (Thursday in Japan)
when the seas just up and ran
the fishermen in fallen hulls
had one or two good raking days
of harvest. Bloated gulls
were everywhere and gorged
on mundane bass and trout
and monstrous, deep trench horrors
eye-stalks poking out
of yellow, running beaks.

What had been the beach
was now just sandy path between
two dirt worlds
no spray, no salt, no scene
but earthy, constant fixity.

And you won't sing for me.

------
______________________________________________

Check out Andy's blog on subjects creative at: TinkerX
Please do drop by. Comments tolerated. Abuse welcome.
TinkerX: Creative Flux for the Age of Content.


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Comments

The following comments are for "Dry"
by andyhavens

Dry
One hell of a fine poem, Andy.

( Posted by: gomarsoap [Member] On: September 8, 2007 )

Salmon I Am
Andy,

I guess this is a sort of "not if you were the last man on earth" kind of thing, but as a retrospective.

Don't think there are trout in the sea, exactly, though, except for the rainbow, which, if gone to sea, is called a steelhead. I'm not a marine biologist; could be wrong.

Enjoyed the images greatly.

~ John

( Posted by: Flonigus [Member] On: September 9, 2007 )

All the fish in the sea
Perch, perhaps?

( Posted by: Flonigus [Member] On: September 9, 2007 )

dry
There's something to be said about driving from New York to Paris.

Joking aside, I'm glad the mermaids were not gathered up into rakefuls of fish. Even if they were dry of song...

"constant fixity" is great! It both rolls off the tongue and catches in the throat when spoken aloud.

Would make a good voice-over intro to yet another Apocalyptic movie. (They do well at the box office) Tom Hanks? Will Smith? Nicole Kidman?

So true that a seagull will eat anything, even a "deep trench" monster which is probably inedible...

Thanks for the highly original thinking that went into this.

Nice to see you posting again.

Lucie

( Posted by: windchime [Member] On: September 9, 2007 )

read this
with a sense of morbid curiosity and horrified fascination... then I read it again... and again...

I like the "Dry" of the title because it's such an understatement for the horrors revealed here...

I like how the ocean "fled" too... I've got Muses that do that too, leaving one bereft of beauty or inspiration, just a lot of dead fish...

admired the intensity of this, felt more at home here than in "Passing", not sure if I should be worried about that ;) good to read you again.

( Posted by: AuldMiseryGuts [Member] On: September 9, 2007 )

In Xanadu where fish lack wings
Dropped in for some food-for-thought and enjoyed this muchly. If Coleridge had lived today (and pared down his penchant for prolixity a bit) he might have written something similar? A parable for the changing climate, re-imagined in reverse with the tsunami turned backwards and a different sort of natural disaster left behind? The poem does indeed read like a very succinct script for a disaster movie... but I don't like disaster movies, and I did like this.

( Posted by: MobiusSoul [Member] On: September 14, 2007 )





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