Gotta do it...love poetry.

[Keeva]

This morning no sound but the loud
breathing of the sea. Suppose that under
all that salt water lived the god
that humans have spent ten thousand years
trawling the heavens for.
We caught the wrong metaphor.
Real space is wet and underneath,
the church of shark and whale and cod.
The noise of those vast lungs
exhaling: the plain chanting of monkfish choirs.
Heaven’s not up but down, and hell
is to evaporate in air. Salvation,
to drown and breathe
forever with the sea.
—*Bill Holm from “The Chain Letter of the Soul: New & Selected Poems”.

[Keeva]

Would love to hear fish poems others have enjoyed...or created.

[Rue]

Very nice! And very AC appropriate!

This isn't my favourite...I'll see if I can find it...but one I quite like:

AT THE AQUARIUM

Max Eastman (1883-1969)

SERENE the silver fishes glide,
Stern-lipped, and pale, and wonder-eyed!
As through the aged deeps of ocean,
They glide with wan and wavy motion!
They have no pathway where they go,
They flow like water to and fro.
They watch with never winking eyes,
They watch with staring, cold surprise,
The level people in the air,
The people peering, peering there:
Who wander also to and fro,
And know not why or where they go,
Yet have a wonder in their eyes,
Sometimes a pale and cold surprise.

[Rue]

...one more...again, not my favourite poem...but this is one by my all-time favourite poet...

THE FISH

by Ogden Nash (1931)

"The fish, when he's exposed to air,
Displays no trace of savoir faire,
But in the sea regains his balance
And exploits all his manly talent.
The chastest of the vertebrates,
He never even sees his mates,
But when they've finished, he appears
And O.K.'s all their bright ideas."

[Cory Catfish]

By Cory Catfish

Swarms of cories fill thee pools,
Shoals of neons glide along
Surpassing in number our puny schools,
Singing and gliding with a quiet song.

This is the Amazon
Oh the river of glory
This is the Amazon
Where every fish began its story

Our tanks lie hidden in dwellings
Harboring graces of the deep
No matter how big a tank is
Greater in size we will seek

Those are our fish tanks
Perched upon a block
And in those tanks lie schools
Which in size the tetras mock.

[Cory Catfish]

With flashes of red and dazzling show,
Whisking around the swords they go.
They dart,they dash, with their kind they may banter

Then they rest for a day all in a row


They may sound like knights or a man of swift nature
But they are fish, fish of a rather low stature.

[mermaidwannabe]

MERMAID VERDICT

Little ladies of the sea,
do you not or do you be?
It's something that I know within:
You're now, and you have always been.

(This is now a permanent part of my signature.)

[mermaidwannabe]

Sultry siren met her man,
great Neptune, and the woo began.
Thrashing in the mermaid caves
created global tidal waves.
Now, tiny merbabes splash about,
their parents beaming, in and out --
parents proud beyond a doubt!

[Trillianne]

Did you find the Limerick thread?

[Keeva]

No possible way! This is so great. Here I return after a few days and there is shared poetry to be had. Thanks! And also for the link to limericks...

I will have to start writing one myself, but wanted to start a place to collect favorites...

Is this a good place for it, or should Cliff, (Cliff, are you up there?) move it to a more appropriate place?