Asphyxiation
Spoiler
This is for school and its based rather strongly on two poems by Judith Beveridge ' Exsanguination' and 'Crew'. It is, just in case you are having a hard time its about the death of a sailor. Probably the longest poem I have ever written, I used enjambment so the stanzas might seem to be separated strangely. I really need help with this one. Thanks
Jack steering, throws back the engine, blood
black barracuda thrown down
back into the swarming allegiance of crazed fish. Sardines
we can always forgive, flooding their monotonous exposés
into the water . We can forgive him too, a man,
Jack, as he strips off, waist to neck, believe that he could
travel across this merciless latitude
on the sordid visa of salted flesh, the cut
muscles the ripple, then fade into the sound
of crashing symbols. Perhaps he felt safe
amongst the multitude of quivering fish. As his grinding physique
builds, then collapses, he cuts the cod into chunks, all
that gelatinous black blood wobbling like the jowls
of ageing men. Perhaps as he waited
for the storm the die down he might have imagined
an army of sliding salmon slipping
down the contours of his tortured flesh, like
beads of sweat down his curved serpentine back. Jack kept his
eyes on a line of decaying squalls surfing the whitecaps, while the
clouds tugged at each other like bull nosed tugs. At
first he would have only felt the jolt of the storm, the
weight of slimy fish sliding like
sloppy mud across a wet path. At first he only
heard the splash of water, the crash of the storm. He was
found, washed up by the dunes
hardest hit from the pent up stock pile of
thunder and Atlantic rain. So much water had slithered in. There was
no telling him not to open that exacerbated mouth. Men like
him knew their storms; those who bodies
drag away the darting schools of fish from the
ripping teeth of ravenous sharks. Yet,
how long had he spent waving
those mechanical arms, the scales of archerfish coming at him
with the force of a hundred chainsaws. His own
screams silenced by the longitudinal waves of water. But who
could have rode the seas the next day, to cut
up squid, pull them in like just like Jack, knowing that his
screams resonate though that tempestuous medium.
the sea. They farewelled him
with pier side shanties, prays coming in the form of
new regulations branded across their muscles, ripped arrow pierced
hearts, cross bowed skulls against black
flags and mermaid ridden anchors. As the
thunder built up into a column, as
the fish flooded the choleric sea like the
hair on the young man’s head. Legends sprung
on the back of his initials, repeated to the ears of haddock gutters and
hag fish slicers. No one wanted
their nets branded with those black and blue letters, not
even the men who dare fog out in fog
as thick as a stingrays hide, when the wind is a
fiend with a suction mouth and when cloud
is the hue of a squids ink. They know
what had taken him out
on that boat to fish that day. They know the feel
of the weight of the storm on thin mortal bones,
the haul of a catch worth more than a thousand hourglass memories.
They know their storms
They know that stricken, denounced face.
black barracuda thrown down
back into the swarming allegiance of crazed fish. Sardines
we can always forgive, flooding their monotonous exposés
into the water . We can forgive him too, a man,
Jack, as he strips off, waist to neck, believe that he could
travel across this merciless latitude
on the sordid visa of salted flesh, the cut
muscles the ripple, then fade into the sound
of crashing symbols. Perhaps he felt safe
amongst the multitude of quivering fish. As his grinding physique
builds, then collapses, he cuts the cod into chunks, all
that gelatinous black blood wobbling like the jowls
of ageing men. Perhaps as he waited
for the storm the die down he might have imagined
an army of sliding salmon slipping
down the contours of his tortured flesh, like
beads of sweat down his curved serpentine back. Jack kept his
eyes on a line of decaying squalls surfing the whitecaps, while the
clouds tugged at each other like bull nosed tugs. At
first he would have only felt the jolt of the storm, the
weight of slimy fish sliding like
sloppy mud across a wet path. At first he only
heard the splash of water, the crash of the storm. He was
found, washed up by the dunes
hardest hit from the pent up stock pile of
thunder and Atlantic rain. So much water had slithered in. There was
no telling him not to open that exacerbated mouth. Men like
him knew their storms; those who bodies
drag away the darting schools of fish from the
ripping teeth of ravenous sharks. Yet,
how long had he spent waving
those mechanical arms, the scales of archerfish coming at him
with the force of a hundred chainsaws. His own
screams silenced by the longitudinal waves of water. But who
could have rode the seas the next day, to cut
up squid, pull them in like just like Jack, knowing that his
screams resonate though that tempestuous medium.
the sea. They farewelled him
with pier side shanties, prays coming in the form of
new regulations branded across their muscles, ripped arrow pierced
hearts, cross bowed skulls against black
flags and mermaid ridden anchors. As the
thunder built up into a column, as
the fish flooded the choleric sea like the
hair on the young man’s head. Legends sprung
on the back of his initials, repeated to the ears of haddock gutters and
hag fish slicers. No one wanted
their nets branded with those black and blue letters, not
even the men who dare fog out in fog
as thick as a stingrays hide, when the wind is a
fiend with a suction mouth and when cloud
is the hue of a squids ink. They know
what had taken him out
on that boat to fish that day. They know the feel
of the weight of the storm on thin mortal bones,
the haul of a catch worth more than a thousand hourglass memories.
They know their storms
They know that stricken, denounced face.
