Inside Leviathan
But actually I didn’t take you far,
not far enough. I started to dream
we were clothed,
trying to make love. That time we crossed
the bridge at night, the lights white moths
to my myopic eyes, shimmering in aureoles
of blurred flutter,
I saw me push you off. I should
have pushed you
into something wetter, to that archaic
world
where knife-edge reds form, gleam
and tune the keyboards
of apartments to cathedrals, where globes
quicken to probes,
poignards that seem to pierce
the dark surface they ride on, that black
horse
latitude of luminescent jellyfish, where
bitter
sardine, small fry, those turned to dragons
by the press
of reflective scales, the dugong mermaids swim, all
plankton inside leviathan.
Categories: Water
I am washed away hearing your work Nikki! I’ve long thought that misunderstandings of issues of scale are what have led individuals and perhaps most of the human race astray. Not arrogance (as mentioned in your work further above) – wait, perhaps hubris is an issue of scale! Greed certainly, must be a form of illiteracy regarding scale. To take this further – is love something that can be measured? Love feels (and acts) big and small at the same time. Poetry like yours and Rilke’s seem to take its measure. I’ll bet you’ve written on that!