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Alexander Klein Dec 2015
once, there were two fish, because i needed them to be happy. but because of their happiness i had to make a change, for happiness cannot last forever. perhaps her little child is lost. it is a boy child maybe. she loves him, whomever he is. i love him too and i dont even know who he is or why i have just now accidentally made him. the mother fish swims through the underworld of the sea searching for the fish baby. maybe she will find him or maybe she never will, she has no way of knowing just like no one will ever read these words. it is ok though, because i have written them. maybe. the mother keeps the story going because she misses her lost little fish. there is an anenome, maybe. no, my mistake, it seems there was not. in a forest of kelp waved some fins that reminded the mother fish of her lonely boy: these treasures are important in the cold depths of the sea. maybe a memory is more important than the flesh, she thinks. she is lonely. once there was happiness. the memory of happiness floats aimless in the sea like her. she has made poor choices in her lonely life but it is important to endure these mistakes, for they showed the poor fish mother (not me) who she really was. i only wrote some words distract myself but now it has become an ocean and fish and the fish are sad though i wanted them to be happy. it is difficult being a fish. and then the fish think 'why am i sad,' and that ‘why’ causes even greater grief and that goes on forever, like the ocean. it is good that i am writing about something big enough to be written about. there i go again making poor choices: this story is supposed to be about the poor little mother fish but i have made a big mess of things by talking about my own problems, so let's not get more distracted here. that is the kind of mistake i will have to live with. 'find my fish,' she says now to someone or to me, so let us all return to that. i would not want to be a mother without her fish. she is mad at me because she thinks i have hidden her fish. i am sorry, i did not mean to hide your fish, but you looked so unhappy being happy and i love you. distractions are the nature of the ocean, any thing can shift at a moment’s notice which makes it difficult to find things that may or may not be lost. there was always a small son at the mother's breast, because love is in the heart. but the mother fish swims on right past her own heart for now, because that should remain the last place she looks. the son must be somewhere. the ocean is vast but every sorrow must somehow come to an end. where can her poor fish be, for he is lost (as i would be) and lonely (as i am). the sea hides her dangers with her beauties so that any might meet a beautiful end if they wish. the mother’s madness might drive her to a beautiful end. she thinks i am not helping her fish, and she thinks i have forgotten her. i’ve discovered that it’s not easy making fish who love each other. there is a so much ocean to traverse. you know what the ocean is like. maybe you are even there now. are you now breathing air or water, or had you forgotten? see how easy it is to become lost? did the mother fish have a son? is there meaning in the search for him, or only when he is found? will i just pick and choose my letters until i am dead? here in the ocean i accidently made i have tried to stay honest, and maintain an honest ocean. the mother is the ocean, and she is searching for herself. is something like that considered an important detail? you might ask me ‘will she find herself?’ and i might reply ‘will you?’ it seems i couldn’t control the flood and now we’re surrounded by these waves that are every question, every answer. when will i be you? when will the fish be found? the mother needs some hope if she is to continue her journey. another memory, maybe, compells her behind a blooming reef. but the memory of her son was not her son. she has so many memories, is one of them her son? has she even lost something, or is she wandering these lonely depths insane? are these words i wrote a shipwreck under which she looms? she knows she had a son, for she knows she has something missing, just as i do. maybe the mother will find her thing, and maybe i will too. the thing is temporary but the maybe is forever and gradually permeates so fully that it is no longer possible to perceive. you are the child of my dreams, if ever you live to read this shallow tidepool. if it has helped you i will be happy, or try. the mother should find her fish, i think. that would make me happy. i have not forgotten that once, long before memory, the mother and her son were one. you and i are one, if you even exist. the ocean is wide to search so at least the mother is keeping busy, but when she has explored it all where else can she look? what else can she try that she has not tried? perhaps she found the answer once and had not recognized it. maybe she will try everything again. or maybe i have lost my way and she has not. she understands her task; what do i know? i only made them. you saw how easy it was. should i never have made them? would they be happier unmade? ‘maybe some fish are happier somewhere, than this lost mother.’ my sister said that and i like to think she is right: far away there are happy fish. i like to think that where they are the notion of hardship is laughable. some of these things that i am making happen to you are not even happening, that is why this is so hard to read, but such are the tribulations of being at the mercy of the tide. it helps me to be a mother fish searching for her fish because i am searching for something to search for. have i found it? curse you neptune for being so perilous! jk though because we are friends. i feel bad when i procrastinate, as if i am keeping the mother from her son. i hope she finds him. am i even able to help her? if i were to say '****, here is your son,' would she be happy? if i prolong her misery, perhaps i can prolong her joy. it's the fricton she craves, i think, for that is what i crave. would it be terrible if i got carried away by my own universe? would the fish find happiness if existence did not exist? i could be evil and take it all away if they would enjoy that nonexistence. i nearly typed their destruction just now, but deleted because the mother fish might have liked it less. would she be happy if i finish this story, or is she happier now with something to search for? when i began i did not know the depths to which my fish might suffer. i am sorry i am not working to find your fish. maybe she thinks i have found him already and i am hiding him from her. maybe she thinks i am unable, even, to complete the simple task of returning her beloved son. just because she went and lost him it is as if i have stolen him from her. her confusion is as wide as the ocean. i’ll trade ‘should the mother find her son’ for a better riddle: should i care if she does? because i do, if only because by making those fish i doomed them to unhappiness. but does the mother care how to spell unhappiness? will extra letters help her understand my meaning? i think i’ll allow her son to be discovered somewhere foolish where she should sooner have thought to look, because if i were to withhold my mother’s son from her she might hate me, i imagine, as i too might hate my author from the reverse position.
Tupelo May 2021
I hate that I love you
I adore everything about you
Your frame, your smile
The way you held me
Its all ashes now
Parted like the sea
A shell of what was
Tidepool memories
Come and go like the tides
currents like conversations
Cori MacNaughton Sep 2015
The winding drive along the sea
I took so many times
to steal away from anarchy
to pacify my mind

The city sirens come undone
before the ocean spray
then down the hill to U.S. 1
and thus begins the day

The Pier receding to the South
Will Rogers to the North
Topanga is the turn we seek
as we are going forth

The starkness of the hills and pines
the rivulet below
as Westward the Pacific shines
beneath the morning glow

The twists and turns I still recall
though roads are better now
no unpaved sections left at all
nor farmland for a cow

No Austin Mini Union Jack
the landmarks too have changed
and I so lost since coming back
I almost feel deranged

The Health Food Store with hitching post
the horses canter past
the countryside I love the most
and visit now at last

But on Mulholland Highway there
surprises lie in wait
there’s razor wire on the fence
and horses at the gate

As giant dishes aiming deep
into a mountain wall
so Orwell’s promise do we keep
applying it to all

But I remember still the day
the hillside turned to fire
the way to turn had burned away
the sky was black with ire

And in a wide spot in the road
in reverence did we stand
a fox, a hare, my dog and I
all watched the burning land

Can nothing make us feel as small
as fire pure and cruel?
to know it as a cunning foe -
to know we’re naught but fuel

But through the smoke a fire truck
led us down on Kanan Dume
toward the cleaner seaward air
away from certain doom

And all at once the trial was o'er
for we had reached the sea
as once Carrillo had before
and now my dog and me

We pass the house of river stone
Moonshadow’s Restaurant
and even Tidepool Gallery
for years my favorite haunt

And back to Santa Monica
on PCH we drive
admiring still the beauty
yet more thankful we’re alive

The winding drive along the sea
I took so many times
to steal away from anarchy
to pacify my mind
I thought I had posted this before, but apparently not: I am posting it now as a native Californian, for all those affected by the terrible wildfires this year and every year, with love, prayer and hopes for the safety of all.

I wrote this poem in January 2001, but it refers to a trip back to California that I took with my then-husband in 1994, and to the two separate wildfires I drove into unknowingly in the late 1970s; the first in Topanga Canyon, and the second in Malibu.  It is the second fire that is described in the poem, and although I traveled with my dog frequently, she wasn't actually with me that day - but the rabbit and fox really were.
Norman Crane Sep 2020
love is the crustacean
who remains after the moon
has pulled away the waters of infatuation
SøułSurvivør Nov 2014
a
tidepool
brought
me
to
an
epiphany
about
how
to
live

i
found

limpet
attatched
to
a
rock

i
tried
to
dislodge
it
from
the
ston­e

the
stone
was
moved
before
i
could
ever
remove
that
limpet

th­at
is
how
we

MUST
CLING
TO
LIFE!


soulsurvivor
Jess Nov 2014
The Air hung tremulous
Waiting with curious expectation
Her mind gliding with Tidepool Dreams
Waves caress the sand - playful.
Teasing.
She listens
To the song of the Sea
The laughing foam becoming giggling mist
The ***** seagull's cry with false grandeur
The weary Wind sighs with a breeze
And Her. In solitude.
Waiting,
*Waiting.
Julia Plante Jul 2016
your warped limbs
dance under the sway of your breath
your notched fingers
wind around the minerals of your toes
you are light
and your capillary rivers
pulse with nothing grander than life

you are an everlasting cycle of rebirth
your heart is heavy
and although you tremble
benevolence remains in your eaves

mother,
you are taken for granted
but your tidepool eyes
and mossy complexion
are the work of nothing less
than the waves of the cosmos
Caroline Shank Mar 2020
The movements
and tides of my visceral
life endure as I am forced
forward.  

Prone to the changes
of daylight's only task,
I open to the sun as a turtle
opens to the tidepool.

The future is a wash as
it morphs from my bellied
stature. The past is
a life splayed by the nights
of your flesh. I roll with the
memory of
your voice.  

I linger on your
shore.


Caroline Shank
SøułSurvivør May 2017
"The ocean is a desert
with its life underground
and a perfect disguise
above..." Dewey Bunnell

On a horse with
no name I rode
bare-backed in
the purple sage...
***** Pipe cacti
played the melodies
of Mexico.

Swaying sea grasses
were skirts for the
range fences...
broken and rusty.
To be avoided,
my parents warned...
Tetanus... lock-jaw.
Other things to be
aware of...
don't swim too far
from the beach...
don't stay too long
in the sun...

I was happy at the
tide pools... aqua and
pristine. Sea slugs...
far from slug-like.
Flat and purplish
with frilly edges,
undulating dancers.
Picked up and dropped
over and over.
Baby octopi... an
entire tidepool
drenched in purple
ink in its desperate
bid for freedom...
Sea Urchins...
"Their spines can
****..." my parents
warned. It was
fascinating how
they attached
themselves to
the rocks...
Almost as firmly
as the limpets...

We had
Hermit Crab races
Ate food disallowed
at home... swam
out to where water
was ultramarine...
jumped over the
barbed-wire...

with our arms

hugging

the

sun...*


SøułSurvivør
(C) 5/21/2017
My family took a trip down to Mexico. We stayed at a ranch, camping on the beach. It was totally private, the beach untouched. Our first experience with total freedom... my fondest memory of childhood.

I tried to sleep just now... no go. Guess I'll stay up and be a nightowl for a while! Lol!
Wack Tastic Nov 2012
Listen to my mind wander,
Silhouetted footsteps
Echo through the doorway,
Smoke exhumes the body,
The trial is about to begin,
Carnivalesque a mockery,
The laughing ends with reality,
Seeing for the first time,
That the wandering footsteps,
Innocent intent,
Caused ripples in the tidepool,
Wings flapping,
Utter chaos,
Order within the universe,
Faithful to the fear.
My heart stings like it's been enveloped by wasps.
Or maybe I swallowed a ball bearing
and a magnet now summons it through the flesh on my chest.

My breath is a tidepool.
Fills up, froths over, but never quite empties.
My company are displaced, rooming in ill-fitting homes.

It's like I mourn for you
even as I hold you tight, and inhale the memory of my dreams.
No one said it was gonna be easy.
Astraea Apr 2016
A dream is a wish your heart makes...
Vivid colors forcing deeply-buried secrets
Drifting up after drowning in a murky lake

I dream dreams that swirl with longing
A tidepool of hope to one day come true
Wish upon a star...*
A star too burdened with wishes to keep soaring

My heart yearns for reconcilation
Of precious friends long lost
The love and loss profoundly felt
Yet my star offers no consolation

A warm embrace so snug and tight
Arms encircling me in its safety net
The love so strong that my heart swells
Left in the embers of my dying star's light

The wishes kept in my heart
Well and truly locked
Only released when the walls come down
But achingly sweet dreams do depart
Not all dreams are as pretty as they seem
Third Eye Candy Mar 2020
sitting in the chair by the window. very tweed.
tamping a pipe that’s just a pipe. orange rind
for a sun. heavy lids dazed by dim delusions.
swimming in a sea of profound sitting. urchin
in a tidepool of earnest journals and pressed
flowers.

the kind of flowers that never forget to stay.

— The End —