Pops (SUNY Maritime)
American haiku in the style of Jack Kerouac
7/21 (Sunrise)
🌊 🌊 🌊
Sun, just risen, peaks
under northern arm-sprawl
of the Throg’s Neck
🌊
From even dawn, the
stream is steady flowing
cars and trucks
🌊 🌊
But the glossy green of
sound sits—soaks,
unmoving
🌊 🌊 🌊
7/22 (Sunset)
🌊 🌊 🌊
Above the highest deck,
spread and force filled wings
don’t flap, but glide.
🌊 🌊
Gull on sea’s breath:
soiled but pure,
coasting
🌊
A hope of mine:
he’d slide—which
calmly he defies.
🌊 🌊
Not fast or slow, and so
the murky bird grazes
at gentle breeze speed.
🌊 🌊 🌊
7/23
Humid air syrup sticking
like supple sap on
tree bark
🌊 🌊
radiation, like saw,
cutting into
wooden skin
🌊
brightness sears as
teeth of serration—
grinding
🌊 🌊
sweat drops are
tears for the
end
About the Creator
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More stories from Joe Nasta | Seattle foodie poet and writers in Poets and other communities.
seascapes
Note: I began writing this poem while working as a Marine Engineer on the R/V Marcus G. Langseth. My favorite rituals onboard all involved staring at the ocean: out the porthole of my cabin, from the treadmill in the gym over the port side, on the stern ramp as close as I could get to the propellors, from the highest point on the ship at night under the only two constellations I know.
By Joe Nasta | Seattle foodie poet5 years ago in Poets
Foot Bindings
I asked my grandmother how she knew she'd fallen in love. I am not sure I ever did love him, she said. This was before I met my husband. I was naive, a naked spring, a raw nerve of a thing. That cannot ever be me, I knew. Sadness swept in gently like a Moscow thaw. It is no simple thing, looking into a woman's vast soul and seeing its foot bindings. Now, in Italy divorced with my skin singed off, when I say I don't love him mean: I have succeeded at feeling nothing most days and it mostly works. Do you want the comfort of Nothing? Do you want Nothing, too? Be warned: you'll never be free, even when you are nothing. Here is what doesn't work: Accepting the stages of grief. Talking about it. Sitting with the feeling. Missing him—no, the person you were when you believed in death do us part. Writing poetry. That, too. When I say I don't love him I mean: I feel capsized in an endless, starved tide. What sometimes works: selective memory. You must forget ripe tomatoes and his beard and feeling perfectly sheltered in a big blue world. Forget coffee in bed, laughter watching TV, blowing out the candles on the birthday cake and the quiet all-encompassing knowledge that you are chosen. Remember only how love turned to a banal everyday survival act, a trapeze act unsure whether he will catch you, how the warmth stagnated and became sour, remember the foot bindings and remember the resentment boiling in your veins as you stick it out for the kids. Six-hour Netflix binges help, too. A man's fingers tracing your spine. Frozen pizza at 2 a.m. Random trips to the museum just to stand near things that last a while. The realization that crying won’t change anything. Seeing that life is just a dream, and refusing to participate in your own suffering. Bite your fist. Walk on eggshells around joy. When I say I don't love him, I mean he didn’t break my heart, he just stopped touching it and it forgot how to beat right.
By Ella Bogdanova5 days ago in Poets
The Lesions of Devotion
Every day I set myself down on the freshly cut lawn and strip myself bare. I take my guitar and finger the frets and pick at the strings, listening for dissonance. My life is dissonance. I twist the tuning pegs until each string sounds bright. Then I kneel, calves pointing behind me, kneecaps facing forward. All exposed to the breeze. I close my eyes and play the melody.
By Paul Stewart7 days ago in Fiction
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