Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Tuesday poem #617 : Beatriz Hausner : The Music of the Sea

(on a collage by Ludwig Zeller)

 

 

I sat on a cliff by the sea.
I heard and heeded
the deep sounds 

                                    of liquids inside the box
                                    of water. Play, play, play
                                    the strange music of the sea.

 

Oceanus girding earth places
himself closer to the Goddess
receiving in mouth the slow

                                    

                                    misplaced likeness of other seas
                                    fades into waves rising with
                                    large mollusks as greater

 

waters begin illuminating the
night. Crashes of thunder burst out
amid flashes of lightning
the fish

                                    

                                    and the creatures of the world
                                    jump out of the water and rejoice.
                                    A gaping breach
brings inside to

 

outside of water and echo of
strange land animals returned
to the origins of water. In prayer

                                    

                                    is woven the route to the sea of stars
                                    in their eyes: night is day with
                                    inverted milky way contained

 

inside folds of shell surrounding
us. While we delicately strum on string
ridged instruments the polyphony

                                    

                                    of fish and all living things is
                                    resurrected in deep sea: this throat
                                    bails out the masses of salt water

 

these lips surround noise the music
of the waves and their sound rise
like mountains of foam.

 

 

 

 

Beatriz Hausner [photo credit: Maria Vega] has published several poetry collections, including Sew Him Up (2010), Enter the Raccoon (2012), Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart (2020) and She Who Lies Above (2023), as well as many limited edition chapbooks. Hausner’s translations of Spanish American surrealist poets have exerted an important influence on her own writing. Hausner has edited many publications in the past, including three issues of Open Letter, Ellipse magazine, is the poetry Editor of Exile Quarterly and is the Editor of Someone Editions.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

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