Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Couple (Poem)

Couple

The sea coughs
up hooks the fisher
takes home.

The wife swallows
one barb, wears another
in each ear.

Night pours a shade
of ink between them,
blackening his mouth,

and hers. Moss fills in
the spaces in their bed
where flowers refuse

to bloom, cushions give
and take. At sea next
day, he cleans his tongue

in the brine of conchs.
She spirals and empties
the echoes in her heart.

© 2012 Maureen E. Doallas
____________________________

I'd love to see someone render this in paint or animation.

This month, the theme at TweetSpeakPoetry and Every Day Poems is surrealism. Today's poem is my offering on that theme. I've written several others that you'll find in the Comments section of these posts: 

✦ "Cortege" in the comments section of Casting a Line for Surrealist Poetry (November 12)

✦ "Dressed to Kill" in the comments section of November Surrealism: The Treachery of Images (November 12)

✦ "The Dilemma of Dolls" in the comments section of November Surrealism Poetry Prompt (November 5)

Anyone may participate in these prompts. Please join us! The themes change monthly.

7 comments:

Louise Gallagher said...

Oooohhhh.. wow.... this is deep. like the sea.

beautiful.

Laurie Kolp said...

Wow... love this!!

Brian Miller said...

snap...a bit surreal but follow able...the moss in the places was evocative...as was the ending...the scraping of his tongue and her...

hedgewitch said...

I was going to say the images in this poem were quite surreal, but I see that would be redundant. I especially like the juxtaposition of sharp, convoluted, soft, salty, mossy, man/woman, beast, hook, sea, all mixed into something greater than the sum of parts. Really one of my favorites of yours, Maureen.

Unknown said...

Gorgeous images, you obviously know the sea quite well!

Anonymous said...

A very cool poem - I actually find the cushions trying to mediate very poignant! k.

Anonymous said...

wow...deep like dark blue sea indeed..really adore the imagery in your verse..tight and stark~