Ocean Life
Octopi and cousin squid
Cetaceans roam free
Echinoderms with many arms
And lest we forget the spiraled
Nautili, wonderous creatures
Living lives in an alien world,
Instead of polluting more we need to
Fix the damage already done so
Every creature can survive
Far below the arguments of gulls,
beneath the commerce of waves,
there stands a library built of coral and silence.
Its shelves contain no books.
Instead, each volume is a memory
the world misplaced.
The first laugh of a child
whose name has long dissolved from stone.
The fragrance of an orchard
uprooted before photography.
The final dream of a sailor
who mistook the moon for a harbor.
Patient octopi tend the collection,
dusting absence from forgotten years.
No visitors arrive.
Yet every century,
a whale pauses beside the entrance,
sings a note older than history,
and another memory returns home.
Meanwhile, we above
continue calling ourselves the custodians of knowledge,
unaware how much wisdom
the ocean keeps from our reach.
lively lumbering lions
meandering muscular mammoths
nightfall’s notorious newts
oscillating ornery octopi
playful plushy platypus
quintessential quibbling quail
responsibly respecting restless reptiles
There once was a little boy,
Whose imagination would not rest --
Cursed or blessed?~ was difficult to say.
Some journeys were only fantastic-play:
Sliding down waves, shaking tentacles
With friendly octopi – but there were those, also
Instructive, like the flying fish, who could not fly --
Sort of on the surface, would just lie~ and cry. Try as
He often did; not one scale would elevate...even
Garnered Gale’s windy' berate. Proud of her churning,
Dislodging force – with that little fish, like whipping an
Expired fish-horse.
Then a trumpet, from an angel on high:
Opened in the sky, a bright, sunny eye. No sense to
Tear, little brother – one added drip to an ocean, cannot
Not change a dip, for more of the same slop – one more salty drop will
not lift aloft a repetitious, soggy flop. Realize, from the top, a new world to see –
Now, will yourself some real wings...as did the crab his legs, and go for eternity!
You may consider it extremely odd
I’m so easily influenced by a cephalopod
Eight arms, three hearts, blue blood, nine brains
All unique, yet something else remains
The most important fact on which to think?
Cephalopods, like poets, possess special ink
Oh Octopi
Oh Octopi up in the sky
I wonder why you are so high
Don’t mean to pry but please reply
I have to try to reason why
Why are you shy? Why can you fly?
Please tell me why and do not lie
We're Octopi. On us you spy?
Imply we're shy? Imply we lie?
Don't wonder why we’re in the sky
Do not defy and do not pry
Do not decry — That’s our reply
Quickly comply! We do not lie
Oh my, oh my, I'll never pry
I'll not decry nor you defy
I will comply, on me rely
Oh, Octopi up in the sky
You do not lie! So high you fly!
To you I bid adieu — Bye-bye!
Octopuses have a REM-like sleep.
Just like you and I, and dogs!
Their eyes gyrate wildly from side to side.
They twitch and intertwine their eight long legs.
Their suckers glitch the grip.
The colors on their bodies do a disco dance on steroids.
'Tis a cephalopod puppy dream trip.
What do these dreaming octopuses dream about, I wonder?
My dog's REM puppy dreams are very similar.
Their bodies twitch, they wag their tails wildly,
Their paws feign walking and jumping.
They whimper, snore and emit little barking noises.
What do these dreaming dogs dream about, I wonder?
Does this imply octopi and dogs are conscious?
Or even the birds, bees, bugs and bacteria?
Are we truly alone in our consciousness?
Yesterday I found a worm in my apple.
Well, half a worm.
C’mon life, take the gloves off.
You’re better than that.
I like to think we’re still friends, though.
Well, at least there are no hard feelings on my part.
I don’t need blindness to open my eyes.
I never believed you need disadvantage or
disability to achieve enlightenment.
Stephen Hawkings got nuthin' on me.
Except, maybe a degree or two.
And some gills.
My feet still make that squishy, splashing sound,
at the beach, by the sea of poetry,
where I find myself.
So what if my fingers and toes are
without webbing,
So what if I still breathe air.
I will one day swim
with the Octopi and Mermaids.
I will one day rise to get my air.
This is the promise God made to me
the day I was born.
Over pelagic reefs,
oscillating waters
obfuscate sunken fetes.
Octopi tango while
oarfish flash titian fins.
Opulent paradise:
oblivious to us.
4/5/21 - written for Kim Merryman's "Pleiades O" poetry contest - 1st place
The Octopi Jars
by Michael R. Burch
Long-vacant eyes
now lodged in clear glass,
a-swim with pale arms
as delicate as angels'...
you are beyond all hope
of salvage now...
and yet I would pause,
no fear!,
to once touch
your arcane beaks...
I, more alien than you
to this imprismed world,
notice, most of all,
the scratches on the inside surfaces
of your hermetic cells...
and I remember documentaries
of albino Houdinis
slipping like wraiths
over the walls of shipboard aquariums,
slipping down decks'
brine-lubricated planks,
spilling jubilantly into the dark sea,
parachuting through clouds of pallid ammonia...
and I know now in life you were unlike me:
your imprisonment was never voluntary.
Originally published by Triplopia and The Poetic Musings of Sam Hudson. Keywords/Tags: Octopus, Octopi, Medusa, Sea Angel, Angel, Angels, Nature, Sea, Ocean, Aquarium, Aliens, Imprisonment, Prison, Boat, Ship, Ships, Shipwreck, Animal
sea life havens
red grouper swim
octopi hide
…coral playgrounds
Mariana
world’s deepest trench
first sightings made
…unknown species
* The Mariana Trench or Marianas Trench is located in the western Pacific Ocean about 200 kilometres (124 mi) east of the Mariana Islands; it is the deepest natural trench in the world. It is a crescent-shaped trough in the Earth's crust averaging about 2,550 km (1,580 mi) long and 69 km (43 mi) wide.
Written September 6, 2019
For Charles Messina’s Charlie-Quadku Poetry Contest
Miniature Bats with big blinky eyes batting butterscotch kisses
Baby belly flop Frogs that happily hop and squiggling Lilliputian Octopi
Tiny hats on Teensy Teddy Bears casting star bright wishes
Squeezable short-legged Dinky Dogs that are eating Pie-In-The-Sky
Lil' Bitty Butterflies that spread their wings like a whizzing carnival ride
Pocket Size Pixies dusting Boxcar Buggies with carts that whirl and glide
Baby Grins that play hide and seek with every Peek-A-Boo Lullaby
To my chagrin and giggles, heavenly hearts fly off to Lollipop Skies
The itsiest-bitsiest, mini-infinitestimal treasure that is never seen as it is
magically small
Is the giddiness and joy of cuteness that brings so much happiness to us all!
July 17, 2019
Miniverse Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Nina Parmenter
Silence settles to sleep.
It carries me on wings of dream-
to fall to mystic seas, where
gallant cry
from ocean guides,
combine with
pacifying tide and-
octopi pocket down
in sandy waters, underground.
Shelled and crusteacous dive from
mirths of solid surface-
to ride the claps of
lapsing waves-over
the swaying beds of
coral made.
There, tiny schools in buoyant pull-
spool together, wading through.
As midnight casts its mirrored ball, across
the ocean's surface wall,
spirits gowned
with gathered night-
speak dreamwords in mystic flight.
All things must be brought into this world, one way or another.
Humans, cats, and octopi too.
Unadorned, unembellished plant pot,
Holds the key to a new life.
Tendrils filled with hope, reaching up and up and up again.
A lamp, now antique, still has that magic.
It brings life of its own into the world, a light in the dark.
A pen, flowing with ideas, waiting to be compiled.
Built upon a foundation of crisp paper,
Sturdy as ever, though it is frail.
One way or another, all things must be brought into this world.
If fifteen pigeons circle a chimney it is no time to light fires. It would be very very dangerous indeed. Feather fires flake flames finale. And a sweep of soot is not an avenue of mature beading. Antelopes occasionally make great butter in large urns. But quantities of flashing serpents is not a quarterback or an orange quantum theory. Danger of losing numbers then. Outnumbered are outstanding and occasionally octagonal oceanographic octopi sing in caves to the tunes of the tidally adjusted clam who arrive with plates of curries at a prawn ballroom. Hahahaha Bloomington Abbey hahahaha derogatorily did differently. Hahahaha *** existentialism z
If fifteen pigeons circle a chimney it is no time to light fires. It would be very very dangerous indeed. Feather fires flake flames finale. And a sweep of soot is not an avenue of mature beading. Antelopes occasionally make great butter in large urns. But quantities of flashing serpents is not a quarterback or an orange quantum theory. Danger of losing numbers then. Outnumbered are outstanding and occasionally octagonal oceanographic octopi sing in caves to the tunes of the tidally adjusted clam who arrive with plates of curries at a prawn ballroom. Hahahaha Bloomington Abbey hahahaha derogatorily did differently. Hahahaha *** existentialism z
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