The Dull Woman Wonders What It Would be Like to be an Ocean
O blatantly bold body
Delicately plumed party crasher
Hurling a fashion of flux and billow
Flaunting every beautiful blue nuance
O eccentric gatekeeper
Hoarder of mermaids
Hard-fondled bones
Fins and doubloons
The shrouded dark
O prima donna performer
Busker bewitcher ballerina
Seductress of surf
All sandcastles and giggles
The artist’s white whale
O infinite music maker
A lilt a lick a lullaby
Drumfunk your thrashing waves
Softly chamber your ripples
Pink noise me to sleep
But when I wake I’m only
A wisp a wick a woolgatherer
Some dune’s frail shadow
Musing a distant shore
The sun warming
My deeps and shallows
The moon silently
Swaying my tides
32 thoughts on "The Dull Woman Wonders What It Would be Like to be an Ocean"
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I’m a sucker for a good sea poem, but I love the musicality here and the playful, chewy language!
“chewy language” – love that phrase! Thanks!
Yes I echo jasmines sentiment.
” O infinite music maker
A lilt a lick a lullaby
Drumfunk your thrashing waves
Softly chamber your ripples
Pink noise me to sleep ”
Is my favorite but not by much. The whole thing is music.
Thank you, Coleman. That means a lot!
So many great sounds and images here, but “Drumfunk your thrashing waves” has to be my favorite line
Yes, Shaun! I lusted over drumfunk. I knew I had to find a place for it, even if I had to write a whole new poem!
The language here is delicious on the tongue.
A gorgeous, ancient sea song
🙂
Yo ho, Joseph. Thank you!
gorgeous, gorgeous poem, Sylvia; wish I could find such another side of me!
Thank you, Gaby! You are a woman of many, many wonderful sides!
I feel like I’ve been on a rollicking sea voyage. What fun and what creative language!
Thank you, Nancy! Hope I didn’t make you seasick!
Lovely, and so musical. Enjoyed every line of it.
Thank you so much, Bill! Congratulations again on your chapbook posting!
I love “some dune’s frail shadow musing a distant shore.” Good work!
Thank you, Victoria. Good to read your poems again this year!
Now this is poetry
every bit
The sweetest thing I have heard today! Thank you!
Delightful, Sylvia! Drumfunk! Yes!
I’m struck by the movement from dream self to real/physical self—the latter just as dreamy in its way. We are all shadows.
Thank you, Kevin! My world stopped when I saw that word!
A word lovers delight. I love it all, down the last two lines where the speaker still moves: “The moon silently/
Swaying my tides.”
This is such beautiful language that I had to read it aloud to myself.
I could feel the waves splashing over me, a mythical sea of secrets and yearnings. Keep being a hoarder of mermaids.
I must read this again.
a tribute to sound!
I particularly enjoyed how you opened three consecutive stanzas personifying the ocean with such different characteristics. It really highlights the ocean’s dynamic nature and its ability to inspire awe and wonder.
4*
I’m loving this Dull Woman movement.
Gorgeous poem.
Love:
Drumfunk your thrashing waves
What a great word: drumfunk
This poem is a charcuterie of delicious words
and full of whimsy!
Waaaay down the list, here to add my “brava” again for a wonderous poem – a great concept and of course the language is fantasticly (hmmm, computer doesn’t like that word – too bad) imaginative!
Love the language in this piece! Such freedom!
Definitely smell the ocean in this piece!
Your cadence and alliteration lend so much to this poem!
Eye-balling it gives me inspiration to attempt a template — the 4 “O” stanzas, the “But” and “The Sun”.
Can’t touch what you’ve accomplished here. In awe!