As the water table rises you seep upward
a chilly ghost levitating
fluid limbs spread as the sun heats your body
water pools in finger lakes.
Etching ripples in their wake
water-striders wander the four directions of your surface
grass-kelp undulates, diving beetles plumb
in the hollows of your headwaters.
Lotus roots take hold and deepen
you rise slowly on north-facing feet
white petals burst through your visage
and a broad smile cracks your mud-encrusted face.
Ghost of earth future, risen.
Aug 27, 2014
Aug 27, 2014 at 11:18 AM UTC
I. Neptune’s Theater
A rock spins through the universal tumbler
and its warm blue pools calcify
as turquoise Neptune in his cloudy blue bath bath
builds a lace castle with his fingertips
Sculpts a submerged eden of crimson and emerald
where painted parrots chat up cardinals
butterfly and angel fry sway with wave pulse
and foliated coral fingers beckon from arched windows.
Neptune’s children are flat and bright, spined and notched
free yet entangled in lace mesh ecosystem
beneath an array of bioluminescent stars
as a gangly pretender watches and blows bubbles.
II. Sapien Siege
The hot acidic hand of death grasps
the mesh rends and tangles
the ecosystem shattered
reef’s loosed children scream beneath planet’s stars.
Butterflies impaled
cyanide-swooning damsels
mesh-tangled angels hauled heavenward
coral to potash, corpses to coal.
The pretender to the throne blinks
rubs blurry lenses,
kicks plastic fins
and moves on to the next show
Unseeing and unaware
of the luminous filament in his wake.
Self-appointed divinity,
deus ex machina.
*******************************************************************************************
Ann says: All of the animal and human characters in this poem (except Neptune and The Pretender) are named after coral reef fish. Coral reefs, one of the most diverse ecosystems, are expected to be largely extinct within one human generation. Deus ex machina is Latin for “God from the machine.”
Copyright 2013 by Ann Marcaida.
Jan 23, 2013
Jan 23, 2013 at 3:43 PM UTC
I buried them in a shallow grave
outside the sunroom where their cage hung
rain washed their bones into a deep earth cellar
Where I descend by night with my lone candle
to find them fixed in strata, yet not fixed
scaled claws striking Jurassic dragonflies
*My shadow flickers and dissolves
as I sit at the sunroom desk
Tiny scaled claws strike my head
Pinioned dervishes scold:
My suit of black and white feathers
my smooth hands and my scientist's smirk
my two-finger typing and opposable thumbs
my missing wings and manifesting teeth*
We dinosaurs live on, incantations of ancestral rebirth
templates used, discarded, and used again
as our sphere cycles on, now warming, now cooling
the uniforms change, the costumes evolve
but the sudden-death scrimmage is eternal.
Jul 18, 2012
Jul 18, 2012 at 1:52 PM UTC
I.
Wild fevered summer cat
crouched in night forest
leaf-rustle, ear-swivel
golden eye-gleam, nostril flare
smell trail, chase drumming
hot blood of jugular pulse on tongue
II.
Barest winter, bones spare
as naked trees knock
hungry ghost at door
I crouch, invite you in (“I am not yours”)
eyes warn, my sofa, my fire
recline like buddha, one golden orb
fixed on me
III.
*Cat-mind drifts back
ten thousand years
desert goes for days
sun-blaze on fur, sandpaper tongue
drink from Tigris, cool forgiving
Mate with five heated slit-eyed beauties
consider symbiosis, my ancestors
pile grain into a barn too slow to catch mice
while naked two-legged kittens
play with your children.
Humans will worship yet bury you alive—
our dead won’t be lonely
The mice in the barn will find
Master of Night
that no death nor game is too cruel for you*
IV.
Now, fates joined
after your hunt, before mine
yawn and blink at the sun
bury my face in electric fur
you drape a lazy velvet paw
over me purrs reverberate
All is right in this universal chase
sun-selves, shadow-selves
predator and prey
for life love
and death
Jun 13, 2012
Jun 13, 2012 at 5:41 PM UTC