"angelfish" poems
Drunken pirates sloshing along
a martini sea, looking for papers to roll some angelfish ****
Then on to Giza to gaze in amazement before we tackle
the Gates of Hell and raze it.
Swashbuckling demons we branded our feet. A duel with
the devil we had to concede
before sailing back up to our Martini sea.
Aug 7, 2018
Aug 7, 2018 at 3:25 PM UTC
Caressing my face,
Bubbles rush to greet me
Tickling like a sweet spring sigh.
This is only the first.
I am still half
A visitor. Stuck in suspension
Between this world and mine.
Slowly I pass
Through the threshold.
My air-sick ears adjust
To the sounds of the sea.
I stare down
At the small colony
On the sea floor,
My landing gear is down.
Customs arrives.
A grey, French Angelfish
Of the most industrious kind.
But he isn’t obtrusive.
As he flits in and out
Checking my bubbles
Ensuring I am not bringing
Any more air than I should.
No doubt he will stay near
Most of my stay
I have finally arrived,
The coral city stretches before me.
I catch the current trolley
And it whisks me past
Rocky storefronts and coral motels.
Lobster shopkeeps
Rush out of dark
Stores and stand in the street
Giant claws raised
Toward me in supplication.
Beckoning me to come
And browse his wares
While a fish I don’t know
Is busy cleaning homes and stores.
They must’ve dropped out of the school
Which passes by
The pupils in matching uniforms
Of flashing silver and black.
Clown fish wave
To me from their Lawns
Of sea anemone
Before darting back inside.
Here is the kind of place
Where I could put down roots.
Live out an idyllic life
Living in a coral townhouse.
But for me to stay
Would be severely fatal.
I’m just a visitor
And my visa is about to expire.
I look back one more time
As my head breaks the surface.
The sun stings, I blink.
Jun 3, 2013
Jun 3, 2013 at 2:07 PM UTC
We're creatures of
dusk. Creatures of dawn
with our skin embedded
with snowflakes.
Your face perfected
so you don't melt
deep in your core
under all the pressure.
There are crows
with necks as broken
as all of your promises
lying in your collar bones.
Secrets kept in your lungs.
Taking up so much space
and rotting so completely
the doctors have called
them tumors.
I fell in love with a knight
who collects kisses
and shared beds with our
kind.
My ways of excitement
got old. So he went in
search of your ice covered
lungs, skin being eaten alive
like his.
You weren't ensnared on his
sharp teeth like I was.
He chewed me up,
but on the attempt to spit
me out my hood got caught
on his canine teeth.
I got lost in the woods.
Found the carcass of
a fox while he got lost in
your purple hair and your
firework display burned
into his memory.
It started off me disliking you.
Then your French Angelfish
looks that caught his attention
attracted mine.
With your whispers in my
ear, finger twisted bridges,
connecting a world I never
thought would of existed.
Planting seeds on my lips,
watering them with your
spit, I can't stay away.
I burn like a wildfire
and you pop like a fire *******
Dusk and dawn
being two different worlds tied
together like our tongues.
My knight has a noose around
my neck as I jump off
a cliff for you.
But for right now we
exist like a Mayan civilization.
Knowledge never touching
the present, but brushing it.
So great it's been forbidden.
But us creatures you see,
our blood runs backwards
and our eyes dilate at the
scent of danger.
Adrenaline, our ******
IV's pumping it into our
artery's.
We've never been the kind
for reading warning signs.
We sway on tight ropes
giggling at our lost balance.
Forbidden isn't in our vocabulary,
our two different worlds touch.
A supernova in the twilight.
We are an astronomers dream.
Take me to Mars.
I'll teach you how to moan
"Astrid" so that Pluto can hear
the echo of dawn and dusk
colliding like the whole nation felt
the twin towers falling.
Jun 13, 2015
Jun 13, 2015 at 5:20 PM UTC
The waves are dredged along. Under the constant gaze
of the shimmering top floor moon.
Down to each second to each hour.
But, you are the angel fish, floating
free
beneath the cover of these tides.
Your shoals guide, the humble anglers
home
a silver blonde amongst the bigwigs,
The local red army, clothed in Cex shirts,
not needing an October symphony,
but now I sing your praises.
The bag you gave, though I had no 5 pence to spare,
lightened my load as much as any camel
along the silk road.
My journey is eased,
by your projected hope that my railcard,
will be renewed in future,
for your faith gives promises the
weight
of Gold.
You allow me to watch the guided heroes in explosive flames,
despite my smuggling
of Jelly babies under a hoodie.
For the shimmer in
Your
eyes, I will leave no litter,
for those with the blonde glittered scales,
From cold night, let the sun rule,
And the sea shall shimmer too.
Sep 9, 2018
Sep 9, 2018 at 1:03 PM UTC
Her long fins are wings as they flow in the soft current
Her shining scales are the sun
She swims gracefully through the crystal water
Her magnificent, magical, teal spots on her top fin are glowing blue stars in the artificial sunlight
She is an angelfish
Dec 8, 2013
Dec 8, 2013 at 7:52 PM UTC
Sweet heart
we have bad luck.
Always like a
drummers hands
alternating the
attention to a new
infatuation.
But sweetheart
We have bad luck
like waves in the ocean,
I'm trying to pull
you into my current
but you're
much more focused on the
french angelfish
than my bones
and see through skin.
Baby we have
bad luck.
You've shrunk
and I feel your
collar bone dig into
my cheek when you
hug me,
and maybe you're
trying to fit
into my view
because you've
grown so distant
I can hardly see you.
Your silence isn't
making me forget
you, it just makes
your existence ring
in my ears.
I want to feel
your hand slip
past my waist
and feel my
soft skin
as I come undone
under your fingertips
and soft lips
against my
bruised neck.
I want to
explore your
deserts and
the only thing
I have to drink
is your spit
and your sweat.
Visit every niche
of your body
leaving kisses
on each scar
and staying there
for weeks
Hungry for more
and the only thing
I have to eat
is your skin,
and trust me,
I will devour you
until you moan my name.
I could live off just your
touch,
just your love,
but you've been starving
me recently
and leaving me feeling like
a puddle.
Baby we have
bad luck,
So I'll just have
to survive from
feasting my eyes
on you.
Jan 24, 2015
Jan 24, 2015 at 7:55 PM UTC
She is there at the water’s edge
Most any day she can wheedle and whine her mother to the water,
From the intermittent teasing warmth of late March
And all through the languid North Country summer
Until such time she is there,
Mitten-clad and scarf-wrapped like some miniature Tut,
Bracing against January’s razor-blade winds in those last few days
Until the few gurgling rills and streamlets are nothing but ice
All the way up to the big river in Ogdensburg.
She scrambles down to the bridge abutment
Hard by the Riverside Cemetery
Dropping a Popsicle-stick craft
(Its sails snips of cloth or bits of green-bar paper,
Its cargo a message stapled into a sandwich bag)
Into the river, sent on its way
With a brief and whispered benediction.
Most times, the craft founders almost immediately,
Taken under by a sudden gust of wind or large stick
Perhaps a carelessly tossed forty-ounce Hamm’s empty,
But on occasion the boat will stay upright and precariously totter along
Until it slips out of sight past the bend near the hospital,
And she claps her hands, convinced that yet another one
Is on its way to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the great blue ocean.
An onlooker might cluck and shake his head,
And tell her that such a toy
Would never make it outside the village limits,
Certainly never past the big bridge on Route 58 at Elmdale
Or the one further on up past Pope Mills,
Let alone to the Seaway,
But he might check himself, perhaps sensing
That there had been disenchantment
For one life already,
So he might instead make gentle inquiries
As to what messages are carried in the plastic baggies.
She would (her voice all mock-sterness though the eyes betray her)
Answer simply That is between me and the angelfish.
Jan 6, 2017
Jan 6, 2017 at 1:22 PM UTC
It's another late night
when rain strokes the yard
into gore-blue slate strakes.
Beyond the almond-thin window
a car hurtles into a red away
at the same time
as your face pushes
through the plum-colored
angelfish orchids
right to my blanket eye
as I wake from a dream
about snow in Dublin.
A moon bathes in Judas rain,
in dense yellow shadow;
although I am so alone -
I have never been so alone -
I feel your presence
in this strange convergence
of a flower's face, and
the memory of motherless snow.
Apr 13, 2021
Apr 13, 2021 at 9:12 PM UTC
type of angelfish
found most in the coral reefs
have no scales, frogfish
Oct 3, 2021
Oct 3, 2021 at 7:25 PM UTC
You called me a masterpiece,
A piece of art in coral reefs,
Me, swimming through this darkened sea
With eyes of blue and tears of green;
And when you saw the one you'd see,
You'd call him a masterpiece,
But I was never meant to be,
And you were such a masterpiece
To me.
Jun 16, 2018
Jun 16, 2018 at 12:26 AM UTC