Lone leatherback cruises up from the deep, pausing on the fragile reef

to feast ancient eyes upon the show, a bright parade laid out below

butterfly couples paired for life, graceful angels in black and white stripe

brilliant clowns and their toxic lovers, a plodding gang of giant groupers

puffers bob like comic balloons, humble gobies on every menu

beaked parrotfish grinding the coral down, in the ears a constant sound

cowfish blowing puckered kisses, sea stars catching fishy wishes

white-tipped, hammerhead, tiger sharks, triggerfish mean bite worse than their bark

untamed unicorns too wild to ride, dogfish snapping, biting alongside

coral trout color-shifting fools, attracting ladies in dull-hued schools

**** headed wrasse rumbling through, thick lips mumbling go get a room

sea horses nod in labyrinth caves, razor-toothed eels lying in wait

if tentacled embrace should be your fate, nudibranchs will light the way

to a place of bliss, none of this can exist, without the builders

coral and algae bewildered, the ways of man egotistical

rising ocean temperatures, carbon emissions, and el Niño

victim of abundant greed, say goodbye to the Great Barrier Reef

so massive is this magical place, one can see it from outer space

astronauts witness its demise, ninety-percent barren, bleached bone white.

below the eyelid-waves,
another iridescence grows.
currents blur the view in pentacles of light
to rhythms of the waning breath
--warping what an artist's vision yields,
the canvas of the mind stretched taut
in hues to coalesce the old and new,
absorb the intertidal volumes
with keener intake,
firmest diaphram to lift the pressure out
and sink into pelagic origins finally,
imbue myself poseidonal,
renew the birth of "love"

i am soaking with it,
open mouthed my cry is swallowed by the sea
i am a kracken echinoidea
******* up the floor
of life exchanging me with joy--
of jellyfish and snail,
burrowed shrimp, eyeful gobies,
clowns in their anemones--
my spires swirling clouds of green
to carpet spotted sky with verdant wake
and springing there,
from crest to crest,
a body undulating foam, it rolls voluptuous to swell
the bioluminescent instant... taken in the vast, full span of time...
to see her born here,
'mid dolphin song and symbol crash of tide
protuberance of shore awash in seeming pleasure of the rhythmic act--
alive the goddess comes, into her flesh--
to widen eyes,
re-establish channels to the heart
as if an aperture of cloud
were opening again,
to end an ancient overcast
and usher down to earth
the lance of starlight that would reach beyond the wrecks of ocean depth...

so too her visage strikes the darker corners of the heart
illumes all buried hopes
of bottom dwelling wretchedness,
and draws the tide above the line,
littoral tresses falling,
steep in pools calcareous and algal
worlds remaking worlds within the contours sexing there
imagined limestone in your many perfect forms,
marble softness swimming in my eyes
awaken appetites of newfound youth again.
the ochre lines that stripe along your curves
let hidden ripeness waft across my passion-eye
and with the grassy dunes i lie, doze in wrack at once--
as arches of my sight are pierced with rays of inner sun
my seabreath muse purveys, inhaled;
i would see you as you are entirely,
disperse myself into aesthetic mist,
become the spray on coastal loam
a sundog floating in and out of forms
become your mullusk lust;
sipuncula embrace of benthic dust
and slip along the textures
of your progenation's flood--
emerge as one and many lives
becoming me, this vision
in your suds, your divination's scree
--the salty rooting of the coastal trees,
the sand, the wave and moon
upon the dancing kelp forestal out at sea...
shining in the winking foam and symbiota sand.
crevice and the length of dyads simulating one,
phallus, *****, and none--
egg and **** bed..
diatoms  flourishing  again...
in you i am the ****** my own gestation obviates
i am effluxion of all lives in balance
on an ever-swaying crestline of irruptive suds--
diaphanous array upon your porous *****'s heave
weaving in and out, continuing to blur
in riven sight and empty heart to fill
the blood containing rapid urgency
to feed, to taste and seek its nourish-all
when after having given up the possibilities of love
and having worn the incompleteness raw,
the obverse affirmation cracks the sky...
at last they burst surreal into the now
and lacking practice courting glory
stumble over habits long attuned to falsities unveiled
and drawn into your undertow,
all cravings wrung into the novelty of merging without end--
arrive, horizonal, and echo from the dawn of being more than one




.