A squirrel has the capacity
To reclaim nuts from memory.
But they can't make
Peanut Butter
To smear themselves,
Or their nuts,
Like animals
For ***.

The Bottlenose
Is self-aware,
We noted in
His glassy stare;
When put before
A carnival mirror,
So covex, concave,
Too complex,
We also note
A confusing quiver;
The water's not
What makes him shiver.

Pigs are said to be
As smart as me
When I was three.
Now I'm four.

A chimp can nail
Two boards together,
To make
A cross;
We pray they
Don't redress
Their loss.

Whale song is said
To carry on
Beneath the blue
For 1 00 miles.
Its got a beat.
Do they
Do the ****,
Or slow
Whale dance.

Crows, you know,
Have studied us
For 10 000 years.
They're iconic,
Mythic tricksters
Cawing knowingly
Above our ears.
So much so
For 10 000 years.
10 000 more
Should we rot
So long.

.                                I.

The sand is perfect ripples undulating to the bay,
as the 6:00 A.M sun flashes open a sulfur-eye,
yawns and apologizes for its January warmth.
She emerges her tent, much as she has entered the world,
naked, but filled with wonder and an attitude.
The glassy water winks her an invitation,
morning's blank canvas beach
etched only by random footprints of seabirds.
Taking advantage of the serenity,
haltingly slipping between the waves,
her skin bristles, subsumes cool ocean freshness,
surfboard bobs obediently at her side.

                            II.

On this planet we have friends, who
pose no questions and pass no criticisms,
who the more they trust, the less
we can afford to make a mistake.

                            III.

Like a pat of butter skimming a hot pan,
she lolls blissfully on the board, soaking up scenery,
heedless to the approach from the rear,
yet, sensing she is being watched.
Dorsal fins break the water's surrounding skin,
as a pod of bottlenoses dance and play,
pretend to be oblivious, as she floats within their sights.
Their presence startles, still, she quietly observes their folly,
willing them to come ever closer ...
Her outstretched hand beckons them to
circle with puppy-like curiosity.

                            IV.

Arguably, the perfect couple is a mother and child;
babies do more to females than make them mothers,
they bond them in a sisterhood of knowing recognition,
to which others need not apply.

                          V.

Coriolis swirl of scarred dolphin bodies evades inquiring fingertips,
eye of the alpha-female fixed intently on the floating visitor,
who in turn looks back in shared wonder ---
between two mothers of the Earth, a psychic trust is formed.
The bottlenose rolls a streamlined fusiform body,
revealing  a smaller version of her own,
tucked safely against her white underbelly.
The sun was racing Apollo's arc, as they silently
slipped beneath the plane and were gone.
She knows they've been fending off shark attack,
wishes for a way to fend off trawlers with gill nets.
A singled tear rolls down her cheek,
trickles off the board to merge with salty blue beneath,
reaching compassionately for her sister in the sea.

The scrimshaw of the air, the long whales-tooth of sunlight
Etched with seafarer’s care and his great wantonness for the sea,
A kiss as light as the bottlenose dolphin cresting from the water,
Then night undressed and falling down like sliding beads of watery stars
From the wet coriaceous porpoise skin and a tail of silver fire.

they fell from a tolleycroft trawler
(about a mile off the gary dock)
tossed in a bottlenose gulf stream
partially pasted on ruk and crustacean
belly ******* ragged
fender bent rolling
drifting on krill chop
past o' malleys
down juan de fuca
rubbing grain
into the gun barrel sea

twisted benjamins
nipped by the hungry swell
blunt on a wayward log
deep in the gutty storm
slack jaw, skinned
medling
over phosphorescence
and grayling
and cold erratic flow
(oh those seedy finman!)

driftwood gorge
at celebration light
sun carts rise
to the homecoming
(**** that nuisance moon!)
crimson tide
and contraband
strung on the greyhound
intervention essentials
with menacing roots

these crackers lack
all disposition
and tact
an enemy mask
lies deep within
blinded rodmen
on a shoreline retreat
where the franklin bills
are spinning

Lay thy dream in the heat of a swans pose
Tickle thy scent to a babies toes
Press thy taste on a breath of white fire
Wilt as wonder in a willows shire

Chase thy hunger to the lions eye
Flesh thy essence to an eagles mind
Spill thy will to a buzz in hive
Bottlenose swim in an ocean dive

Waffle-like prints in the sand,
maple syrup sun pours across the land,
sunrise beach bulldozed clean,
sandhill dunes growing green.

Opalescent sheen of mother of pearl,
old oyster shells spin and whirl,
the waves come in with a slap,
seagull wings beat and flap.

Sand dollars here, but no change,
the crab runs sideways it's quite strange,
bottlenose dolphin swims right by,
the sun climbs higher in the sky.

Jelly fish, opaque blue balloon,
sandpipers squeak out a tune,
colored clams exposed with every wave,
they dig in fast like crawling in a grave.

No longer alone as the day begins,
kites now fly in the onshore wind,
parents and children, with frisbees and nets,
picnics to come and skin surfing I'll bet.

In Cooks, Rarotonga
An oasis protected by coral reefs
in the vast blue ocean.
Open, outstanding, yet not everyone
can approach
Only those few who know the drill.

In Manawatāwhi,
Demoiselle,
Maomao —
are names given to fishes
And Bottlenose dolphins play.

Even the strongest cannot endure the storm
The mourning mother
never sees his son again
Lying alone on the shallow white sand
He becomes a piece of nature’s artefact.

And the sorrow of loss
is only remembered
by those who echoed.

Never summon the evil whales forth
lest they hunger for a salt’s ******
or seek to ravage their ship.

They cry out havoc, scream tempest
to the ocean and sky
so the illhveli hear not their name.

Their harpooned blubber
boils neither to heaven nor hell
but vanishes only inside the soul.

They fear only the steypireydurs
the Great Blue Behemoths,
the protectors of sailors and crafts.

The salts’ wives smell the devil in their remnants
and to keep the fury at bay they call
their men honeyed names clothed in peace.

The mates consign this sweetness
to the void, a sea of faceless women
to be left alone in their slumbers.  

At dawn, they  return
to the great wide green ocean
that hungers for their flesh.

They chum cowshed, yarrows, ash,
throw plowshares, axes and pots creating
a sacred din outside the incarnadine circles.

Cat Whales would come forth
with their devil-angel flukes
half in sun and watery dark.

They mewl alongside,
resting in the craft’s wake,
diving when the waters darkened  

And the roar of Bull Whales spouting loudly  
through their blowholes would scare
the distant  cattle to stampede the waters.

The Ox Whales, swimming
faster than hand and mind,
would devour the calves

Leaving only nibbles
for the belugas that trailed
behind in white silence.  

Bottlenose Dolphins after herding
the Ox Whales beyond the spray
would jump straight high

out of the water
exposing the sun and mountains
appearing underneath them.  

In the rest between breaths
a Taumur awaited beneath their crafts
for the opportunity to break them apart.

On the glint of the horizon a Ling Whale
drifting like a mirage of barnacles
waited to maroon them on her hide.

Today, the Great Blue Behemoth
heard their anguish and would gently
guide them back to their sandy, rocky home.  

In their unsteady slumbers
they would hitch a ride
on the back of a Heatherback

And dive with it
to the ocean’s floor until
their last bubbles floated up.

Around them all the dorsal waves
of the Sword Whale splashed them
while she sliced them in two.

Far away, the Narwhale sniffed
their blood in the water and
waited her turn to eat.

Lay dream to the heat of a swans pose
a tickled scent to the babies toes
press taste to the breath of a red white fire
a wilt to the wonder on a willows shire

Chase hunger lame to the lions eye
fleshed to the essence of an eagles fly
spit soul to the buzz on heave of hive
a bottlenose swim to an oceans dive

Oh, King, live
for ever, et cetera, and so on,

so it goes, Vonnegut biome restored.

We got past the Norwegian Rats,
while believing ourselves something
like Lemmings, led to know we know
- selah, axial, slowwwwing brake
I was also beguiled, I know, I can
beguile, I saw what Jacob saw,
tricksters prosper on lies/right.
uses and ex-uses sold
for your souls focus, tune in to noise,
turn into the soluble state we share in mind.
Think, feel, pointy
ah,
something, for sure, I know I
am not such a creature and, sure as hell,

I took the dive. To this day, I believe,
I was allowed.
Only the bravest lemmings sometimes
take a great notion, and jump into the ocean…
clinging to a spider sail, while riding a raft
of rats fled from Hamelin.

To improve in so many ways,
the twisted web we weave, on final
-edit
The lots were cast into the lap, and I won.
I am the kid that escaped to Ein Gedi,
with all the secret recipes
for incense and libation.

This idea has swallowed all my mental
fragments, since about 1973,
and put them all folded neatly, into my
legendary bag of tricks…

you see my means of attracting my own attention,
yours if you think you are lost
in this
time, this seeming ever after
any point is made,
we watch if drift into eternity,

this goes to the bottom and it never comes back,
but
riverwise we know, floods come, and floods go,
but old man river, river of no return, tunes
to align with an oriental fisher trick
- in many futures this is 2023
we can witness with drones today, dolphin wisdom,
we, the augmented with smart phones,
since we were born,
we youtubian oddities…
attention to lifes details payers,
what is me seeing you see me worth?

We can watch Bottlenose Dolphins spin mudnets around
schools of fish in the shallows at land's edges,
then “Clear water has no fish” bubbles as a thought,
whistle listen qīng shuǐ wú yú
- think of the engineers intuition
see the escapees flee the unseeable truth,
in the mystery life holds as
clouds of unknowing growing
to entertain our ever learning brain
-man does not live by corn or fish alone,

do the math, what are the odds,
wanna bet we can catch dinner on the fly.

We learn to fish from fish. We learn to reason,

from something else,.