POEM: Lamprey

An outtake from a new project of mine. Too dark for the overall tone.

LAMPREY
Mordacia mordax

By Steven Withrow

Once, in brackish deep,
Mother Eel told her children
A scary story.

From the first our species slept,
Undisturbed, from dawn to dusk.

The young listeners
Wriggled in their shallow caves,
Jawless mouths open.

Waking in darkness, we fled
Our chambers in search of blood.

As she took a breath,
Mother's audience shivered
With sudden hunger.

Silent and sly as sea-grass,
We latched on passing mackerel.

None dared interrupt—
Their nightmarish attention
Could not be broken.

Ah, we feasted, and we fed,
And fish learned to curse our name.

Mother Eel rose up,
Her body a twisted tube,
And showed her ringed teeth.

But we were never monsters,
Only skillful parasites.

All at once her brood
Burst out of their catacombs,
A horde of leeches.

Follow me now, my elvers,
For though they fear you,

You were born
To drink your fill.

A face only a mother could love.


©2009 by Steven Withrow

POEM: Letter from Fox

An older poem, but I thought I'd bring this forward for those who haven't read it:


Dear Child:

I am not that fox you dreamt of
when sleep slipped you to the woods,

nor am I that troublesome trickster
dropped riddles like windfall apples.

I assure you I was never
(at least no one remembers)

counting bluebells in the shadow
of a stand of needled pines

when hounds walloping thunder,
bent men with trumpet voices

spurring on eyeless horses,
sussed me to the meadow.

I insist now it was simply
moon's unmasking sheen,

street lamp's falling beam
that blazed me like a flame,

allowing you to glimpse me
as I stopped upon your stoop,

and incandescence turned me
shades of something smoldering,

smoke-hues of your fears,
from red fur of my haunches

to burnt ends of my ears.



©2009 Steven Withrow

SKETCH: Stars

White spiders of light,
luminous plasmarachnids
in night’s high corners,
spinnerets silking sightless
winds, comet-collecting strings.

©2009 by Steven Withrow
[That's a tanka, a Japanese verse form related to the haiku, for anyone who was wondering.]

POEM: Goliath Grouper

An outtake from a recent project of mine -- a limerick.



GOLIATH GROUPER
Epinephelus itajara

There once was a creature named Grouper
Whose mouth was incredibly super.
She swallowed a turtle
That busted her girdle
And left her bedazed in a stupor.





©2009 by Steven Withrow

POEM: Gratias

My second poem for David L. Harrison's November poetry contest:

GRATIAS
By Steven Withrow

Mother of merci
beaucoup
and grazie mille
and muchas gracias.

Estranged relation
of vielen dank
and mange takk,
among many others.

You grace—you gratify
my philologist’s heart
with your Latinate
morphology.

Gratias,
Gratias,
Gratias tibi ago,
Thank you so.

Illustrators Show at R. Michelson Galleries

Check out Lesley's great new post about our wonderful trip to Northampton last weekend!

POEM: Rockhoppers

This is my second poem for David L. Harrison's monthly poem contest. November's word is "thanks."



ROCKHOPPERS
By Steven Withrow

Under the right whale bones
breaching the blue ceiling
of the New England Aquarium,
a waddle of rockhopper penguins,
tufted punks from the South Pole,
skrawks in a raucous chorus
as a feeder wades in wetsuited,
floating a bucket of tiny fish
for their lunch. And Marin,
who is four, watches them
through the low glass partition
with an aquarist’s rigor,
her mirrored mouth mimicking each grab
and gulp of open orange beak. She
presses against me, daughter
of my grateful heart, and asks,
“Why don’t they say thank you?”
I tell her, “I don’t know.
Penguins can’t speak like we do.”
But inside I think of how
they drop from rock to rock,
clumsy on their bird-feet,
until one, and then another, slips
without a splash into the cool pool
that passes here for home,
their cold and southern sea.
I name them Water-glider,
Tidal-feather, Torpedo,
and Swims-as-peregrine-falcons-fly.
We trace their loops and interlaces
and laugh as a pudgy male
pops his bottle-body up
onto the lip of a slick stone slab,
upending an unsuspecting hen,
before barging in line
for a chance at seconds.
After, Marin tugs my hand,
her patience for penguins at its end,
and we wander toward tanks
that hold cuttlefish, anemones,
lampreys, leafy sea dragons
practicing camouflage
among the fluorescent fronds.
Behind us, the hoppers chatter on,
clap their wings against their sides.
I want to turn and applaud,
but Marin has spied some mollusk shells,
and we give thanks to them.







© 2009 by Steven Withrow