"halibut" poems
Remember, that chaos first was a primordial deity,
Chaos; the nothingness from which all else sprang
headfirst and heartfelt,
half-naked and handsome,
hook, line and... halibut.
All of this,
every measurable moment,
every particle,
every object set forth in motion
sprang from a void so harmoniously
as if the absence of everything was kissed
sudden
by the presence of something.
Often depicted with wings, a bow, and a quiver of arrows,
Cupid, son of Venus - goddess of love,
son of Mercury - god of trade,
his story,
almost identical in Greek and in Roman
mythology,
his story, about a couple of gods
who seem so inherently human by nature,
jolted by jealousy,
dumbstruck by beauty,
hellbent on immortality,
his story has been hallmarked
as red hot velvet rose petal fine wine
and symmetrical hearts.
Wrapped in tin foil red ribbons
bitter-sweetly sugarcoated
dipped in thin layer of chocolate
taste-tested and lover approved.
Remember that scene in Hook
where Tinkerbell leaves her footprints on Peter's chest,
well that's you and that's me--
touch me where my heart beats
because I don't ever wanna be a lost boy.
I wanna grow up like a good bedtime story
with morals
and purpose,
I wanna have meaning.
You might say that Cupid found himself.
You might say that Psyche found her soul.
You might say that Tinkerbell was just faking it--
with the clapping.
Truth is, we can never know the whole story--
the complete truth.
Problem is, we think we can
and act like we do.
So the only time we mean what we say
is the first time we say it,
every utterance thereafter is just an attempt
at recreating a moment.
I love you
is a paraphrase
that deserves three separate ellipses
because there's a lot left unsaid.
I (distinctively remember shadow-boxing with)
love (against a star-dotted sky anchored to a
moonlight so vibrant it can only be compared to)
you (and your tidal waves).
And that's where I fell
headfirst and handsome.
I (was punched-drunk by a kiss so breathless
that it spiked my dopamine to a volume
that can only be described as) love
(in that every time my neurotransmitters feel) you
(they spin themselves dizzy and dance to your science).
There was a moment in the absence of everything
when I was kissed silent by the presence of something.
Hold me to your breastplate.
I don't ever wanna go back to the void.
02/09/2010
Feb 14, 2012
Feb 14, 2012 at 2:03 PM UTC
Here are my eyes
my fried eggs
teal lily-pads floating
on white albumen.
Here are my elbows
like deformed peaches
my knuckles the peas
wrist corn on the cob.
Here are my teeth
my frosty Stonehenge
a ring of slabs
solid halibut.
Here are my ankles
four gobstoppers
cracking as rocks
under her size-five feet.
Here is my nose
fastened to my face
the garbage chute
meets hoover hybrid.
Here are my knees
two wrinkled potatoes
mashing in their sockets
as waves crumble on me.
Here is my hair
my straw candyfloss
unlike her buttered popcorn
curly-wurly waterfall.
Here are my tonsils
squashy strawberries
wedged at the back
of the cave I once made.
Here are my lips
azalea-pink sweets
flecked with salt
from our slice of sea.
May 30, 2014
May 30, 2014 at 2:46 PM UTC
There’s a dark grotto
Under the sea
With shelves and shelves
Of bottles
Clear, glass bottles
All of my secrets
A carefully watched castle
The middle of a concentric series of impassable walls
Surrounded by a forest of kelp
With razor-sharp teeth
And then the narwhals
The narwhal guards
Armed to the teeth with halibut-slicing knives
Their three-meter horns
Gleaming in the moonlight
Guarding
All of my secrets
Skeletons, trespassers of yore,
Strewn about the seafloor
Bones picked clean
By the scavenging *****
No one can enter
No one can leave
The grotto with the shelves
Shelves and shelves of clear, glass bottles
All of my secrets
But as for the *****
For the first time in centuries
The sunlight warms the waters
Melts the kelp
Kisses the narwhals
Buries the bones and torments the scavengers
Clearing away the darkness
A nonstop route through the castle
Protecting
All of my secrets
The tendrils of photons creep along
Wary
Ready for a fight
The grotto growls menacingly
Unguarded
For the first time in centuries
But upon the first touch -
Light meets stone -
The sea shudders
Ecstasy
And in repayment for salvation
Out come the bottles
Floating to the surface
Bathing in the light
All of my secrets
May 19, 2010
May 19, 2010 at 3:20 PM UTC
One Turbot says to the other "do you believe in Cod?"
The other replies " I think we each know a Sole". "I believe one day when the chips are down and we are at our most battered we will each know a Plaice and we are destined to fillet".
They exchanged a glance and swam away.... just for the Halibut.
I hope my Whiting doesn't offend. Remember believers.... believe in Cod and one day you will be Prawn again.
Apr 1, 2019
Apr 1, 2019 at 12:42 PM UTC
If I were a man
I would ask out a girl just for the hell of it
Because either way ive been waiting far too
Long to try that restaurants grilled halibut
I would sag my pants down low
In any given social situation
I would wake up in the middle of the night with a cold sweat
Fearing that doctors castration
And in the same situation I would burp real loud
Because I drank too much beer
Or ate too many chips
And what is a man to do
other than flip his own scripts
and rip on other men’s trips
and say, “dude you’re so gay”
if I were a man
I’d probably put bumpin’ speakers in
My Honda civic
And id bust out loud rap as I turned and whipped it
In front of all the pretty girls
The ones with hair curled and necklaces made of my pearls
Ones I wouldn’t call back because I paid attention in math
And knew the male to female ratio was 1 to 4
And that left me with 3 other girls to score
But sense I am not a man
And according to them I am some-what less than
I’ll belt my pants suffer your ****** glance
Deny you a dance and instead of implants
I will wish for a transplant.
Mar 12, 2012
Mar 12, 2012 at 2:34 PM UTC
Where hast thou floated, in what seas pursu'd
Thy pastime? When wast thou an egg new spawn'd,
Lost in the immensity of ocean's waste?
Roar as they might, the overbearing winds
That rock'd the deep, thy cradle, thou wast safe--
And in thy minikin and embryo state,
Attach'd to the firm leaf of some salt ****
Didst outlive tempests, such as wrung and rack'd
The joints of many a stout and gallant bark,
And whelm'd them in the unexplor'd abyss.
Indebted to no magnet and no chart,
Nor under guidance of the polar fire,
Thou wast a voyager on many coasts,
Grazing at large in meadows submarine,
Where flat Batavia just emerging peeps
Above the brine,--where Caledonia's rocks
Beat back the surge,--and where Hibernia shoots
Her wondrous causeway far into the main.
--Wherever thou hast fed, thou little thought'st,
And I not more, that I should feed on thee.
Peace, therefore, and good health, and much good fish,
To him who sent thee! and success, as oft
As it descends into the billowy gulf,
To the same drag that caught thee!--Fare thee well!
Thy lot thy brethern of the slimy fin
Would envy, could they know that thou wast doom'd
To feed a bard, and to be prais'd in verse.
1.5k
Remember me?
You once called me the apple of your eye
And now you don't call at all.
I can't say we both look upon the same set of stars
because we don't.
And I can't say we both look at the same moon
when I see it from my bedroom window
because I know it is daytime there.
Remember when you taught me
to love the ocean
as we sat out together on the rocks
while you caught fish
and I caught *****
How we would fish until the sun sank into the water
and the tides and the moon rose?
Do you remember?
All of those times you said "I love you"
all the times you hugged me so tightly
How if anyone would ask about me
you'd hold me under your arm
and say, "This is my daughter!"
with the biggest grin on your face.
Do you remember?
All the stories you used to tell
about the first scrambled egg
or the higgledy-piggledy wangra
Are they still there?
Or has the heat of the Sri Lankan sun
and the hum of the ceiling fan
let these memories drift away?
Have you forgotten me?
I let you back into my heart
just so you could break it again
with silence.
You told me how bad it felt
To lose your dad.
Why did you take away mine?
Oct 31, 2012
Oct 31, 2012 at 2:34 AM UTC
A lone paddler
within rumoured holy waters,
blessed by the touch
of a vacant apathetic god,
she gaped mutely like a halibut,
lips parted comically in a silent wail,
the clockwork functions
of her jaw,
forced teeth to reacquaint as sisters,
grinding together
in discomfort,
as lukewarm fluids rippled
around her thighs.
In this silent act of cleansing,
sin's hallmark should have faded
from her skin,
still her father believed
'her to be the devil's young'
due to scientific witchcraft,
her concoctions to lure demons
to their dinner table.
'I'm doing this for you, darling.'
her father reassured
with an earnest glint in his eyes,
madness paced hungrily,
encircling pupils in a territorial manner,
delusions of God himself watching
over his daughter,
with tears streaming down golden cheeks,
repeated within his fragile mind.
Unsure, the girl remained standing,
the embodiment of Mary
with her arms spread like angel wings,
did she dare disobey
her father's wishes,
and feel the leather belt against
her rear,
or reject her own troubled heart,
for her father's sake?
May 9, 2012
May 9, 2012 at 4:19 PM UTC
The cafe tables are littered with left overs
pigeons forever observant
their regularity like faith.
Meanwhile its halibut tonight
Friday fish night,
are we so different?
Jan 29, 2016
Jan 29, 2016 at 8:51 AM UTC
I once met a man made out of steel;- but he was too afraid
To disclose all the hearts he stole, instead pointing out
All the love he had bought, as one constantly waiting for
What’s in store. The wise con artist selling out dreams
Only to lonely fools, who buy into flightless ideas-
Such tall ideas, with the promise of giving them wings
And to those he came to meet;- his very eyes carved up
Their bodies, to offer as fresh sushi; a bloodlust fishman,
Holding a charm with such impeccable practice
He spoke love’s language, with words sharp as knives
Cutting all costs, to make any love feel exorbitantly priced;
Alas I present myself to you- the author of such dreams
I am a halibut; playacting to have tough flesh underneath,
Drowning in the endless submerging feeling, of love
Swimming an entire life; sinking deeper by a heart of steel,
Still, anything that must breathe, must certainly bleed.
As when I bought a taste of love, it indeed
Tasted like my very own blood!
Jul 11, 2024
Jul 11, 2024 at 9:47 AM UTC
They come
They leave
They seek reprieve
We need a sound and a light
To keep us conscious
Of whatever
I am conscious of something
There is a barrier
Young girl in black jeans
Glasses
Apron
And a fry cook
Battering Nova Scotia
Halibut on live television
I send a message to Adonai
Wyd?
He asks me if I will agree
To his new terms of service
Which makes me uneasy
He tells me Carl Jung
Wears his glasses in the void
He looks prophetic and exalted
With some black folks
Sitting at a corner table
While being interviewed
That’s amazing
She says
So cool
She says
That’s amazing
And if our eyes meet
For too long
We might know some
Secret truth
Which we make
No effort
To conceal
Are we already
In perfection?
Feb 15, 2017
Feb 15, 2017 at 1:20 PM UTC
I was never insane
except upon odds
when my heater was touched.
Believe nozzle you hear,
and only one halibut that you see.
Yobs of lumberjack have been forgotten
in the hawthorn of a mischief-maker.
Workmen have no prankster
to inaccuracy the minimum
without the exquisite hostage of their reassessment.
Never to suffer
would never to have been blessed.
The best thoroughfares in light
make you sweaty.
Scoreboard has not yet taught us
if madness is or not
the sublimity of interest.
I remained too much inside my headman
and ended up losing my minimum.
May 22, 2019
May 22, 2019 at 1:31 AM UTC
I wish I was a kangaroo,
I wish I was a clock,
I wish I was the stripe in someone's sky blue sock.
I wish I was a purple pig with a polka-dotted trimming,
I wish I was a halibut,
I wish I was in swimming.
I wish I was a mutton leg
or just a leg of lamb,
I wish I was most anything than this dumb thing I am.
Oct 28, 2018
Oct 28, 2018 at 9:45 PM UTC
Sabiki rig catch bait
Bubbles in pail keep
chove from fate.
Bust the rod
take the jetty.
Nose hook toss
Release the bail.
Sink then taut
Touch and go
Feel, hook, bought.
Halibut for Almondine
is what I caught
Sep 24, 2018
Sep 24, 2018 at 12:00 AM UTC