Saturday, November 12, 2016

Sunrise with Sea Monsters

by Nick Thran 


To be drawn to a certain quality of abstraction.
The shape-shifting stains

on a monster’s teeth,
the miasmic wash
of a monster’s breath. To consider

monsters who emerged
at the crest of the wave
or in the valley that followed the wave

or at the crest of the wave
after that. The clock
next to the log

has sunk. The log
has sunk. The sun on deck is less
a summer’s morn’

and more like a diagnosis.

Had we chased them far enough from shore?
Were good ones lost?
Is to love this smeared image
a morbid love?

Why cast two eyes
on a sunrise like this?

Because otherwise only
a monster does. 


Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Sunrise with Sea Monsters

by Ally Fleming


It sputters, then it surges; 
ocean enconched then at- 
ankle, rising, ripping want, 
a whip-wave night, stars 

my squall-scattered teeth. 
Lear-blind, scale-palmed 
monster me, roaring we 'til 
morning groans horizon: 

the yellow smoke that rubs 
its back against that rubs 
against the yellow fog the 
smoke that comes and goes 

The lustre of red wreckage 
queasing, gored gorgeous: 
sea-glint glut of pitching 
eyes and eyes and eyes.