Monday, 22 February 2016

Ode to a large tuna in a market

Here,   
among the market vegetables, 
this torpedo 
from the ocean   
depths,   
a missile   
that swam, 
now   
lying in front of me 
dead. 

Surrounded 
by the earth's green froth   
—these lettuces, 
bunches of carrots— 
only you   
lived through 
the sea's truth, survived 
the unknown, the 
unfathomable 
darkness, the depths   
of the sea, 
the great   
abyss, 
le grand abîme,
only you:   
varnished 
black-pitched   
witness 
to that deepest night. 

Only you: 
dark bullet 
barreled   
from the depths, 
carrying   
only   
your   
one wound, 
but resurgent, 
always renewed, 
locked into the current, 
fins fletched 
like wings 
in the torrent, 
in the coursing 
of 
the 
underwater 
dark, 
like a grieving arrow, 
sea-javelin, a nerveless   
oiled harpoon. 

Dead 
in front of me, 
catafalqued king 
of my own ocean; 
once   
sappy as a sprung fir 
in the green turmoil, 
once seed 
to sea-quake, 
tidal wave, now 
simply 
dead remains; 
in the whole market 
yours   
was the only shape left 
with purpose or direction 
in this   
jumbled ruin 
of nature; 
you are   
a solitary man of war 
among these frail vegetables, 
your flanks and prow 
black   
and slippery 
as if you were still 
a well-oiled ship of the wind, 
the only 
true 
machine 
of the sea: unflawed, 
undefiled,   
navigating now 
the waters of death.

2,3,4 stanza analyses 

The example's symbolizes the tuna's speed
torpedo from the ocean depths, a missle that swam, like a grieving arrow,
sea-javelin, a nerveless oiled harpoon, barreled from the depths, 

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