"orcas" poems
The finest singer in the sea
I heard upon this morn
And in that strange sonorous tone
A universe was born
The low melodic wailing touched
And roused me from my sleep
As the humpback lithe and languid
Made a turn and sounded deep
And as my mind awakes it turns
To whales large and small
To the snowy white beluga
The canary of them all
The clicking bursts of ***** whales
And the California grey
The fin whale speaks across the sea
To those a world away
The short and longfinned pilot whales
With whistles quite complex
The striking graceful orcas
Speak in different dialects
But it is the great blue whale
That makes the loudest cry
Though it is far too rare today
With such an awful why
But on this wondrous morning I
Am filled with joyous glee
That God has given life to whales
And gave to them the sea
Cori MacNaughton
24Oct2000
Jun 11, 2015
Jun 11, 2015 at 2:20 PM UTC
The light pollution
from the lives of little people
in the big city
reflects off the lowriding clouds,
the same way my knees reflect
in the little puddles
from the big rains.
It hurts my eyes to look up
without sunglasses,
hurts my lips to think of tasting
the subway oil that
drip
drip
drips
I speculate at the transformers,
part automatic, part people
in their pre-ripped jeans,
learning to get their Ns
to drive themselves away,
yarn trailing from their sweaters
like parade float streamers.
Citizens run so fast
to catch the early train home,
freefalling down the stairs
breathing in the exhales
of the other racer’s exhaust.
Marking their triumphs
with participation ribbons.
The pacific pants at toes,
a puppy that only occasionally misbehaves.
Impatient for attention,
waves wagging back and forth,
up the imitation river,
past the downtown.
Kicking the sea wall with it's gravity boots.
The geese are on hiatus
until they can take back the city.
Making the drains overflow,
creating their own habitat,
they’ll strut their haughty markings,
distinguished from orcas,
away from any saline nonsense.
Were we to retrain the population
to turn blind eyes,
we’d be much more efficient,
stop wasting time contending
to society’s obsession
with documenting itself.
But then, what would we do all day?
Creating light pollution
must give immediate gratification.
Once all the lights are turned off,
the influence won’t continue,
creating a lack of permanence,
making our need to be remembered
seem trivial indeed.
Nov 11, 2013
Nov 11, 2013 at 1:57 AM UTC
Orcas in Puget Sound
Along the road, abandoned wild apple trees bend
with their heavy loads, dusty skirts of blackberry bushes
purpling fingers, piercing flesh
mouths ringed with berry juice, vampires all.
Along San Juan Island salmon leap clear
out of the briny water, just yards ahead of their predators,
Orcas, dorsal fins curving shiny black, sluicing and slicing
the surface like sharpened knives
They have bred with one another for 10,000 years
trolled these waters through famine, earthquakes, world wars
through shifting continents, glacial avalanches,
through the extinction of whole civilizations.
Standing on a cliff, my daughter and I
watch the Orcas churning the water - studies in grace
the largest gem on the necklace of a great food chain
and when we sleep we too chase
the great King Salmon of our deepest dreams,
the fathers we lost, the currents that bear along children
Translucent jellyfish, palm sized, breath below
sideways exhale, convulsive inhale
umbrellas opening and closing a thousand years or more
sliding through forests of brown kelp where mollusks cling
We have clung like this to one another, with my body
thrown over hers for protection and her exhaling away from me
If Mama Orca keeps her young close, so will I
If there are salmon to chase and harbor seals to command, so we will
Arcing in the late August sky
slapping and parting the surface, over and over
the whales, lords of the Sound, swim in our brains as we sleep
sparkle against blackening waters
You are of my body from my body cleaving there for 10,000 years
Whatever quarrels there are on land vaporize
In the presence of these creatures,
arcing against all that is temporal, vicious, small,
studies in power and grace
The tide pulls out, skimming across rocks and oysters in their muddy beds
But this need to care for you remains as big as an Orca
your appetite for adventure as voracious
and I watch you, my child, disappearing with summer
into high school, into womanhood, into
the salty, light-dappled ocean
Jul 15, 2012
Jul 15, 2012 at 4:15 PM UTC
I want to be more active
And not spew about all my feelings
I'm done pitying myself,
I just need to trust God,
Anyways here's an ending bucket list
Because I won't write back in a while:
Free swim with whales and sharks
See a lion pride
Shark cage diving
Sky dive
Ski a double black diamond
Climb a mountain
Film a tornado
Learn to surf
Learn to snowboard
Learn to scuba dive
See a wild wolf pack
See a wild brown bear
Hang glide
Paraglide
Cliff dive
Ride Route 66
Camp in complete wilderness of Yellowstone for week
Hike mount Haleakala, Hawaii, and photograph night sky
Visit equafina springs FL (again)
Camp on a beach (not crowded) with friends
Kiss in the rain
Go tree tent camping in smoky mountains
Own bonsai tree for many years
Own horses
Dye my hair (once)
Camp on my own private sail boat w friends
Write a book (actually commit, doesn't have to be good or published)
Own theses dogs: Newfie, husky, Akita
Live in Alaska
Live in the Yukon
Live in Colorado
Climb the grand Tetons and pray
Live without a cell phone
See Unimak pass Alaska and film orcas
Milk a cow
Nov 4, 2014
Nov 4, 2014 at 11:08 AM UTC
*did i tell you about that orca (killer whale)
that killed a killer white (shark)?
yeah, flipped him on the stomach
inducing a conscious sleeping position
of the shark, belly up... the ****** orca
drowned the shark.*
dear daffodils counting to only sixteen
springs, why blossom why bloom so soon?
lemmy was part of something better
than his solo project... no one really talks
'bout his solo crazy train antics,
so why talk lemmy why talk ozzy os' burn
and simply dismiss hawkwind & black sabbath?
oh -
*na kraju nocy i u progu dnia
kogut na dachu pieje
w głowie sie kręci
da na da na da
gorączka znów szaleje.*
given all that, imagine a seal on a drift of ice,
a stowaway of a berg,
then imagine why, it's seeking a monastery,
there are four orcas beneath the mirror surface
of the water, in formation, like horses
to the gallop of a wind's flute eolides,
and they're moving in, dipping with tail
fin exertion of some reflex spasm -
and the mini tsunami created suddenly
tilts the seal's monastery and the seal plops
into the depths... where it's only an old
cloth rag soon to be mince.
p.s. i denounce the polish diacritical mark
over o to make u (ó) as not diacritical at all...
it's an aesthetic mark, and yes, it does look pretty.
Jan 8, 2016
Jan 8, 2016 at 5:47 AM UTC
tepid waters do not lie
gale is to cyclone
as rain to thundercloud
no amount of counter-spin
will make them anything other
than atmospheric unrest
El Niño, La Niña
how to read
the unsettled waters
upwelling from the deep
what should feed us
leaves us starving, weak
orcas encircle their kin
emaciated mother, tiny calf
dying from ocean’s lack
while we look on and moan
all the power to change
if we only cared to own it
Dec 14, 2016
Dec 14, 2016 at 9:46 AM UTC
Trinidad and Tobagonians
Haitians
Egyptians
Mexicans
English
Liechtensteins
Turkish
Italians
Norwegians
Germans
Portuguese
Omanians
Tromelin Islanders
Orcas Islanders
French
African-Americans
Maldives
Ecuadorians
Romanians
Ice Landers
Chinese
Argentinas
Feb 15, 2016
Feb 15, 2016 at 4:55 PM UTC
Thunderstorms are an obsession
But, I'm afraid of lightning
I eat too much, but I'm thin?
Grizzly bears are beautiful
Orcas are even better
Drawing is a way to express myself
I'm constantly wishing I could sing
Still crushing on a teacher
I'm having problems seeing my future
What's so wrong with **** dad?
Bob Marley is a role model
New bible, new look on things
Give me all the puppies
Consider myself a hippie,
But not the stereotype
Men and women are both nice
Never had a relationship
I am partly asexual
Competitiveness is a weakness
Loving life, most of the time
Sep 5, 2014
Sep 5, 2014 at 12:40 PM UTC
I'm trying so hard to just keep swimming,
but more often than not, the Orcas visit me.
I'm more so floating, similar to the Velella
I keep going until I can't take anymore,
then end up washed up with the shore.
Oct 23, 2017
Oct 23, 2017 at 12:37 AM UTC
[... I can feel its humble goodness. It's in the pinky shadows that only come out when there's sun. And in the rustling of dry, decaying leaves-- a moment of airy respite 'till they pass through to what's next in their slow lives.]
I see sunshine encapsulated in
The rungs of time's branches--
And I am grateful
For the significance that
Temporary things know.
Oh dramatic beings, today
Let's be eased.
Feel the humming of
Sun striking Earth--
It is the most loving blow.
Remember the orcas and
The petals of spring yet to be.
Of our friends and their laughter...
Remember the roots that
Traverse beneath you and me,
And that constant
Slip of the tide...
Our memories are constant--
Indeed you can remember
What you have yet to see.
Dip your skin in this
Day's glory, and wear it so
For as long as it fits.
Apr 26, 2017
Apr 26, 2017 at 3:17 PM UTC
heat seeps through the walls
all is calm
Orcas patrol the sea
just down the road
one neighbour dives for coal
spilt out the many wrecks
I wouldn't be him
for all the coal in China
May 30, 2014
May 30, 2014 at 9:11 AM UTC
Sitting on a rock, sweatpants and sneakers
Long hair, skinny, looking out, wind blows
Fir tree needles scratch the back of my neck,
Eyes locked on to a pod of whales, orcas
Breathing fast because I ran to get there
Close my eyes and let the wind toss my hair,
It's cold, and the air smells like lavender
And I pull my knees to my chest, smiling
Oct 20, 2015
Oct 20, 2015 at 9:37 AM UTC
The ancient Pacific
Bellows.
Engenders.
Wind streamed waves.
Liquid Silver.
Whip and sidle.
Time eternal.
Man,
Too,
Bellows.
Engenders...
The Ocean...
Plundered.
Cod to gold.
Brazen and bold.
Pirate treasure.
***** Whale oil.
The best and worst ~
Of wild nature.
Give or Take
Thriving or Surviving.
Life or death.
Which came first?
Strings of Kelp or Nets of String?
Swordfish or Harpoons?
Archipelagos or Man Marooned
Nature or humanity?
The vessel or the sea?
The Humpback or the oil lamp?
Happiness or Sorrow?
Yesterday or Tomorrow?
A Moment in time.
Time eternal.
All of history.
Standing still.
Man and ocean co-exist.
Nessie.
Loch Ness.
Survival of the Fittest.
Paradise.
Revolution.
Theory of Evolution.
Why do Whales sing?
Why do Octopus need ink?
Why do Dolphins Echolocate?
To communicate.
Does the ocean know?
Mass larceny of the Hydroscape.
The ocean *****
Orcas in Captivity.
Global warming.
Pollution.
Sea levels rise.
Why does the deep blue oblige?
Solve the equation.
The mystery of the sea.
The ocean dies.
Like the coelacanth.
To pass extinct.
When I do the math.
In this wise ~
I theorize.
The deep unknown.
Understands.
Thus,
Perhaps.
Waves and tides ~
Do not recede in undertow.
No!
Waves and tides push forth to shore ~
Desperate to escape.
Man's impact on the sea.
To go extinct.
Like the Coelacanth.
To live again.
When
Man succumbs to...
Natural Selection.
Nature's revolution.
Feb 10, 2018
Feb 10, 2018 at 8:33 AM UTC
when I was sixteen the only
three things
on my mind were : alcohol , Charlie
and a boat
to have a boat and swim away
be lost
surrounded by water
drinking with orcas
still
thinking of
Charlie
Nov 13, 2020
Nov 13, 2020 at 4:10 PM UTC
The great planes roll past,
airport windows.
Their tall fantails
like the dorsal fins of giant orcas.
Oct 21, 2021
Oct 21, 2021 at 11:21 AM UTC
When you sleep
Do you dream drumbeats?
The elite pulse that defeats the silence of summer night heat?
Do your rêves
Glide in conscious streams or lakes
Where orcas dive deep like poets for undiscovered words?
Does your silent tongue speak volumes
Like hearts in mics?
Does your dream sing you goodnight?
Jan 1, 2019
Jan 1, 2019 at 12:59 AM UTC