Tag: Poetry About the Sea

Alice Teeter: “I sample the sea”

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I sample the sea

I sample the sea for her.
I swirl it around in the glass,
curl it around my mouth,
smack it on my tongue.
The bouquet is briny;
high notes are fish and sand;
aftertaste is cold depths.

I drink the sea for her,
so she won’t have to drink
and she can stay safe as she
looks down from the picture window
of her house lifted high off the ground.
She peers at my small shape
by the water’s edge – sees my feet are wet.

I toast her with the ocean,
lift high the foamy glass,
drain it dry and toss it
into the surf behind me.
She has a glass of golden wine
she raises to her lips,
peers over the rim, but does not drink.

I dive into the ocean for her.
I brave the rip tide, the undertow,
all for her, my clothes drag at me
like mermaids’ hands and slither off.
All she can see now is my naked body
surfacing through the waves
heading away and out to sea.

About the Author: Alice Teeter studied poetry at Eckerd College with Peter Meinke. She graduated with a degree in creative writing/literature. She is a member of Alternate ROOTS, a service organization for artists doing community-based work in the Southeast; a member of the Artist Conference Network, a national coaching community for people doing creative work; and a member of the Atlanta Women’s Poetry Collective. She taught poetry writing at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, from 2011 to 2016. With Lesly Fredman, she leads Improvoetry workshops combining theatrical improvisation with poetry writing.

Image Credit: Leontine von Littrow  “Rocky Seaside” Public domain image courtesy of Artvee

Sterling Warner: “Annas Bay Anglers”

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Annas Bay Anglers

Oyster beds rise
from tidal pools
like spiritual mounds
nurturing creation
creating calcium shell reefs
flashing occasional nacre—
mother of pearl prosperity—
distracting fishermen with its
iridescence before recasting
lines opening their third eye
and crown chakras,
activating,
balancing,
energizing
a dreamscape where meditation
of purpose guides each rainy day
angler’s quest for silver perch,
steelhead,
sturgeon,
& salmon.

About the Author: An award-winning author, poet, and emeritus English Professor, Sterling Warner’s works have appeared many literary magazines, journals, and anthologies including Anti-Heroin Chic, The Galway Review, Lothlórien Poetry Journal, Ekphrastic Review, and Sparks of Calliope. Warner’s poetry/fiction include Rags and Feathers, Without Wheels, ShadowCat, Edges, Memento Mori: A Chapbook Redux, Serpent’s Tooth, Flytraps, Cracks of Light: Pandemic Poetry & Fiction 2019-2022, Halcyon Days: Collected Fibonacci, Abraxas: Poems (2024), and Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories. Presently, Warner writes, hosts/participates in “virtual” poetry readings, turns wood, and enjoys boating and fishing in Washington.

Image Credit: Public domain image originally published in The Naturalist’s Miscellany, or Coloured Figures of Natural Objects. London: printed for Nodder & Co.,1789-1813. Courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library

Jake Sheff: “Crabbing at Nehalem Bay: a virelai”

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Crabbing at Nehalem Bay: a virelai 

After “Douce Dame Jolie” by Guillaume de Machaut  

My will is that your claw should grab
This cat food, that your mind should stab
Its doubts and urge you, like its lab
Rat, into trying something new. 

The tide is closing out my tab…
I swab
The weather’s face and ocean’s too. 
I fill my boat with air and flab
To nab
Some pride and dinner for my boo. 

I’m frightened not when shorelines blab; 
I see the semi-love Les Schwab 
Half-buried under sand. My cab
Is fate; we’re not just driving through! 

My will is that your claw should grab
This cat food, that your mind should stab
Its doubts and urge you, like its lab
Rat, into trying something new. 

The seagulls here all do the dab. 
Ahab
I’m not, but niveous visions do
Call me away from any slab
A schlub 
Could stand on; courage isn’t blue. 

The clam beds sleep beneath Queen Mab
Despite my screams when every ab
I catch is slightly rounded. Drab
My engine’s soul and instinct’s clue. 

My will is that your claw should grab
This cat food, that your mind should stab
Its doubts and urge you, like its lab
Rat, into trying something new. 

Off Hwy 101 facts jab
Prefab
Experiences; they don’t come true
Because the gift of every crab
Is gab:
They rival Athens in a coup! 

But south of Wheeler, night’s hijab
Is not on yet. My buoys scab
The waters so that Dr. Krabbe,
If he was here, would say, “Achoo!” 

My will is that your claw should grab
This cat food, that your mind should stab
Its doubts and urge you, like its lab
Rat, into trying something new.

About the Author: Jake Sheff is a pediatrician and US Air Force veteran. He’s published a full-length collection of formal poetry, “A Kiss to Betray the Universe” (White Violet Press), along with two chapbooks: “Looting Versailles” (Alabaster Leaves Publishing) and “The Rites of Tires” (SurVision).

Image Credit: Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse der Deutschen Tiefsee-Expedition auf dem Dampfer “Valdivia” 1898-1899. bd.6. Atlas Jena,G. Fischer,1902-40. Public domain image courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Alex Z. Salinas: “Overboard”

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Overboard

I dreamt I was pushed over the edge 

Before I was ready to jump

And the surface stung like a jellyfish’s caress 

As I sunk in the pusher’s tears— 

Herman Melville’s agony—

And anchored to my ankle was 

Moby-Dick

And I gurgled the ocean with a fleeting sense of

Poetic justice 

As the cold watery locker

Reclaimed my lungs &

The sun sailed & vanished—

Would it dive in &

Resurface my aching bones?—

How was I to know?

A killer poet (& poet killer) 

Was on the loose

And a line by Renata Adler

Rattled my suffocating mind:

Lonely people see 

Double entendres everywhere—

Would Melville attend my estate sale

And buy my library wholesale?—

How was I to know?

The deep salty palace believes not in

Reinvention

But I don’t pretend to 

Speak for the darkness

Accepting me blindly—

Blithely— 

Which is to say

Here I’m treasured 

Even though I arrived by way of

Sitting on a powder keg—

Then I woke up & choked on my spit.

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About the Author: Alex Z. Salinas is the author of two full-length poetry collections: WARBLES and DREAMT, or The Lingering Phantoms of Equinox. He is also the author of a book of stories, City Lights From the Upside Down. He holds an M.A. in English Literature and Language from St. Mary’s University. He lives in San Antonio, Texas.

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Image Credit: Chase Dimock “Chain-Link Ocean” (2022)

Matthew Wallenstein: “Washington”

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Washington

Low 
tide. Across the bay 
the mountains are blue in moving fog. 
Animal 
corpse
in the brown grass. 
Headless and skinned.
About the size of a dog. Max says 
he thinks it is a deer that went 
In the ocean and drowned, 
washed up on shore. I nod, 
I don’t smile and I don’t mention its flippers.
Around a bend 
on the beach we find another—
skinned, headless. 
Its ribs grey, yellow, bending 
from its pile of body. It smells 
like seawater and rot. 
The flippers are splaying out 
more obviously this time, 
he sees them. 
“Oh,” he says, “it’s a seal, they are seals.”
I don’t let him forget 
that he thought it was a deer 
that went swimming.

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About the Author: Matthew Wallenstein is a writer and tattooer. He lives in the Rust Belt. Much of his work concerns growing up in poor rural New Hampshire, the deportation of his wife, and mental illness, though it also captures every day life.

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Image Credit: Carol M. Highsmith, “A distant shoreline view in a Washington State town fittingly called Long Beach, since it advertises its 28-mile-long Pacific Ocean strand as “the world’s longest beach.” (2018) The Library of Congress