Written: July 06, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Craig Cornish
*****************
My path was unkempt, with cracked and bent signs
The once-azure sky turned gray, and my muse faded
Cursed seraphs hovered under lifeless skies, weeping.
In the mahonia mist of nestled truths and lost couplets in periwinkle poetry
I shoved in a cacophonous frenzy, confused—
Vade mecum was fetid with an epiphany of deceit
Silence echoed dread, and each scab was a guess
Iridescent smears of fervent deceit,
and Cupid's canopy engulfed the cetacean sonnets
A mocking wind bade shattering moans,
having learned to flaunt their tethered words
With my russet roots, I'm not a flashy flower,
but, I felt awful pain from distant love acronyms.
What if the cloudburst refrain bears no scars?
Or phosphene verses adorned with blue poppies,
might leave glowing traces on midnight shores?
I walked for miles to find that starting stanza.
Yet, despite such raucous, cataclysmic pain,
An earthquake faltered the stratus sky—
Not all who veer from the path must shatter
Obsessed, some must comply with the jostle of life.
long days and nights upon this blue
my best attempts to speak with you
and still my studies can’t construe
the basics of your tongue
but oh the songs you’ve sung!
we humans think we’re grand design
but what I’ve learned from language, thine
it’s light years more complex than mine
and twice as convoluted
the syntax, deeply rooted
no one dear song is e’er the same
you weave a tale with just your name
and in my heart, ignite this flame
to learn cetacean speech
and all your words can teach
your songs shake sweet the dark abyss
there’s not one note I care to miss
oh teach me of your jargon’s kiss
and all you know of earth
its secrets and it’s worth
forgive my species, tres naive
what we do best is kill and thieve
but there are some who still believe
that we can do some good
oh help us, if you would …
your wondrous language … could.
* This is a form I created called ‘Cinqopet’. *
when paired
pilot whales
choose one mate for life
a monogamous linkage
survivors will beach themselves when their mate dies
long days and nights upon this blue
my best attempts to speak with you
and still my studies can’t construe
the basics of your tongue
but oh the songs you’ve sung!
we humans think we’re grand design
but what I’ve learned from language, thine
it’s light years more complex than mine
and twice as convoluted
the syntax, deeply rooted
no one dear song is e’er the same
you weave a tale with just your name
and in my heart, ignite this flame
to learn cetacean speech
and all your words can teach
your songs shake sweet the dark abyss
there’s not one note I care to miss
oh teach me of your jargon’s kiss
and all you know of earth
its secrets and its worth
forgive my species, tres naive
what we do best is kill and thieve
but there are some who still believe
that we can do some good
oh help us, if you would …
your wondrous language … could.
Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden, January 12, 2024
( this is a rhyme form I created called “CINQOPET” - if you would like to know the requirements please Soup Mail me )
Is bad kangaroo stew
a marsupial goo?
Is a pachyderm’s junk
in an elephant’s trunk?
Does a prim spoon-billed stork
use a knife and a fork?
Is whale splash in the ocean
a cetacean commotion?
’Twas Jonah the Lord God did teach,
When orders he opted to breach.
God’s porpoise not thwarted,
Escape was aborted,
With Jonah spit up on the beach.
If the fish had refused God right then,
Having tasted the flavor of men,
An immoral cetacean
That fell from creation,
Or a case of Original Fin?
'Starfish!' said I, 'thing of a moray eel.'
Be it black ocean space;
Or in the breathing coral seas;
Back into my memories squiding;
To warn me about the sea turtle;
The cetacean coral reef crabbing;
Sharks and piranhas kidnapping;
I heard a tentacled, seagoing inking;
I wrote a story with the octopus pen;
I was a harbour porpoise and you a tuna sandwich;
The brokered bottlenose whale blossoming;
The sphinx moth singeing;
Only this and a sturgeon;
In there stepped a shovel nose 'whale shark';
In there stepped a 'lake trout.';
Dolphins lookout;
To warn me about the bluefin;
The foul flatfish forging;
All my soul within me gorging;
In there stepped a coral sea cucumber;
I have dreamed of the spadefish;
An echo murmured back the word, 'channel catfish!';
The brook trout smiled;
I felt compelled to sniff the squid;
Smells like fish;
It was squish;
Take thy bluegill from out my heart;
Embrace the wish;
Starfish
6/20/20
WRITTEN WORDS BY James Edward Lee Sr. 2020©
The boundless ocean of imagination,
as salty as the lymph inside your brain,
became a breeding field of the cetacean
ideas... I'm afraid, you'd plagued in vain
by merciless insomnia, the poet:
they have a water lifestyle at this time,
but soon they'll turn into the birds, you know it,
("you know it" is the Robert Browning's rhyme*).
They will grow up, peck out the poet's liver,
caw, clang, cluck, quack, crow, tweet, cheep, chirp and then
they spread their wings and leave the caregiver
alone with his insomnia again.
Get used, the poet, to the fact that they,
no matter clipping wings, to fly away.
* "The Glove" by Robert Browning.
Narwhal of the sea
Cetacean be
Ivory Share with me
Unicorn we see
Twenty foot oh whee
Spiral tusk I’ll be
You enlighten me
Narwhal of the sea
"Ha! You silly old cetacean ..." cried Fat Seal on his berg ...
"There's NO such thing as climate change!"
"Of course there isn't," Orca agreed ...
"You're SO much smarter than those other seals" (long since headed north)
"So why aren't you chasing them, silly fool?!?" Fat Seal asked
"Well, to be honest, I'm a bit lazy", replied Orca, smiling ...
But patient, he mused to himself ... eyeing the shrinking ice.
Hear the song of humpback whales
Gathering in Hawaiian waters,
Gathering for Cetacean opera,
Male exclusive grand recital;
On the brink of epic journey
To Alaska’s icy waters.
Off the West coast of Alaska
Shoals of herring feed off plankton.
Humpbacks fresh from far Hawaii
Gather at their leader’s signal.
Thus begins the “A-team’s” mission,
Brilliant modus operandi.
Giants of the Arctic ocean,
Diving ever deeper, deeper.
Round and round the bubbles spiral
To the surface of the ocean.
Net of bubbles in a circle
Traps the shoal of startled herring.
Mouths a-gaping, rise together,
Burst the surface, prey engulfing.
What a maelstrom – whales and herring;
Seagulls join the feeding frenzy,
Till, at last, all satiated,
Calm returns to freezing waters.
Discect the cetacean on the table
Intercept the axon if you are able
Detect the carcass beneath the table
Protect the deadbeats, as they are unable.
Seven Senators Stood Singing (p)salms!
Shrimp stuffed pie crust often alarms!
consideration only harms!
Boris Yeltzin with upraised Arms!