PICKINGS
Poetry from NHI publications
| THE WOUNDED OCEAN |
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| for Sylvia Plath |
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I lived in a cave for 30 days and 30 nights on an island rolled free from a sleeping giant's hand. No other pulse just the wet slide of crabs as my mind sworded through many shadows. I thought of my father — too much the Prussian officer. I thought of my mother — too much the pauper... and I dreamt of a glass girl that the wind had blown over. I listened to the broken ocean — full of dirt and rubber and crucifixes. I watched the lights of a timid ship begging for pier and land on an ungiving horizon and I lost the fight for sleep, squirming in the wet-shadowed darkness. Each night I listened to the negro ocean rattle its chains, each night I listened to the fishsweat ocean rattle its sheets like shack tin. each night I listened to the white and feverish ocean begging to die. The ocean wallowed like a pig, begging to die, but the moon gnawed at its spine with a hunger never satisfied, pounding its fists like a drunkard at a table, yelling for more. As the ocean fell to its knees like a washerwoman and scrubbed at the rocks till they gleamed like marble, till the gluttonous moon was drunk with laughter... At last I could stand it no longer. I lifted a heavy and murderous rock to the heavens and brought it down against the ocean's beautiful turquoise head but the ocean would not die. In sadness and fury the ocean ran through the village looking for Mercy and her sword but the ocean could never find that murderous saviour. Seeing the ocean's torment the clouds ran across the sky dripping their betrayal and the moon cackled its bony laughter... and each night the ocean wallows like a pig, begging to die. and each night the ocean throws itself against beautiful razors. but it cannot die. and the stars in the sky bleat their heathen electricity... |
| PETER BAKOWSKI |
| from New Hope International Vol.13 #3 Next poem Previous poem |
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