Jonah

A Poem about the Seas

In days that were mountains
and blue oceans open
and sun like restoring light
gold on the tombs

I wore grass on my feet
and He was my grandeur
And then, when I fought Him
I fell to the darker

In calm and in roaring
the storm was enfolding
in forests of dulse
I stole to the sand

I slanted like sun rays
of long and low colour
And shoals of quick speakers
were loud as the thunder.
While I was sand dying
as dark as Osiris
A great blue allotment
of galloping life.

And inside the whale
in rivers like skin
I loved Him I knew Him
blue black and unhome

The time when I fought Him
I foundered in Whale.
and liquid corroded
I rose from the bone.

I foundered in Whale
as blue as my sin
as amber as musk
I sunk me to Him.

I sunk me to him
as dull as my bone
as constant as city
as callous as home.

::::

Today in the cities
with fire encased
with sun strung like webbing
and wind clammed like wire.

I wear time on my feet
and my soul is as a taut
And then, when I fight Him
I fall in the cold.

To visit the sailors
I dive off the shore
And I came to the ocean
where blue black things roar.

I've grown with the years
or at least my ship.
no straws to draw
only steel to equip.
Am I as massive
as grail and as granite
am I as greedy
as life upon death?
And when I reach whale
The whale is nothing
and I am as large
as my head on a plate.

To see what will happen
in dawn concrete days
I dive off the shore
and I rest on my ways
and all that I've made
in a frenzy of what
covers the ocean
in all that it's not.
covers the ocean
and dulls its own pulse
as large as my frenzy
as large as my health.

For sure when my answer
is not as it should be
and all my enhancements
are not as they could be
when I see the sea
I just see my own eyes
and the gods of divison
are gods of my size.
and I speak a word
and the tiny things shudder
and I make my mark
and the smallest things falter.
I grieve for the day
when the salt of the sea
was the thing that reminded
of my god to me.
now the salt of the sea
is the thing that reminds us
of what we accomplish
with nothing behind us
as wide as a whale
we score through the oceans
accomplishment feeble
and poisons of potions.
the belly, the centre,
the spiral, the dance,
is clogging?
is beating?
was only a trance?
when the years were older
than you or than me.
And now they are younger
than all we can see.
forgive us
remind us
now who speaks to who?
It once was my mission
to city the sin.
And now I say
what?
Bones are clean.
Look within.
My tongue was of ashes
my skin was of sackcloth
no reason, no rhyme, when the mammals are here
on plates and in potions
in death, not in oceans.
So live, breed or weep.
If you tremble,
Invent it
And stay
To defend it
A space made of blubber
of reincarnation
An amber of certain
A God that restored.