- Contributing Authors
- various
A collection of cephalopod-themed poetry submitted to TONMO.
Pell-mell, they swish and brush and sweep
Tumbling in one promiscuous heap.
Until you wonder by what token
They 'scape with all their tentacles unbroken.
Bold, reckless, cunning, cool, or sly
What won't they try?
Tis an epitome of life
Without its shades of cares and strife;
Each has its private joke and cracks it
Regardless how the other takes it.
And there's the point--squids take rough jokes
More pleasantly than lesser flukes
Not heeding what's said or done
So they can have their fill of fun.
-- Dominick Tracy, April 18, 2002
Poem: Pirouette of the Octopus
Dear tonmo,
Ever since the PBS Nature program, The Octopus Show, I have been fascinated by them. Soon after the program ended, I wrote this poem.
Lisa Bergemann
Your arms outstretch-
A radiant star bursting in the ocean.
A gymnast in waters-
Such elegance and power!
Your mysterious intelligence
Excites the curiosity.
From the deepest oceans to the shallowest streams
I know your dances I always will see.
If only all could know
Your beauty, strength, and mind
And see the works of God's hands in you
Right before their very eyes.
-- Lisa Bergemann, 2001
Poem: The Squid
The diaphanous squid darting
so fast even the shark can't approach.
Its propulsion system, jet-like water streams, never
allows anyone, anything near.
Like dust specks in the air they evade
touching
except
once
on the penultimate day of their lives.
Clinging, male, female, their tentacles
searching to touch, to place, sperm with egg.
Copulating, couples, threesomes, foursomes, by the billions,
a fog of squid above the ocean floor.
And the shark, and the porpoise, swordfish and salmon streak
with funnel-like mouths through the squid cloud.
The clumping squid in their frenzy seek even
to touch, to mate with, their predators.
The nuptial night ended, lying like snowdrifts
upon the ocean bottom, males spent, dead; and females
struggle to eject their egg capsules, then
their function completed, join their mates.
Saprophytes converge
in a day, in two, the bottom
barren again except
speckling the sand waiting,
the eggs.
-- Richard Fein
artwork by Nancy King
Poem: After Squid School Pell-mell, they swish and brush and sweep
Tumbling in one promiscuous heap.
Until you wonder by what token
They 'scape with all their tentacles unbroken.
Bold, reckless, cunning, cool, or sly
What won't they try?
Tis an epitome of life
Without its shades of cares and strife;
Each has its private joke and cracks it
Regardless how the other takes it.
And there's the point--squids take rough jokes
More pleasantly than lesser flukes
Not heeding what's said or done
So they can have their fill of fun.
-- Dominick Tracy, April 18, 2002
Poem: Pirouette of the Octopus
Dear tonmo,
Ever since the PBS Nature program, The Octopus Show, I have been fascinated by them. Soon after the program ended, I wrote this poem.
Lisa Bergemann
Your arms outstretch-
A radiant star bursting in the ocean.
A gymnast in waters-
Such elegance and power!
Your mysterious intelligence
Excites the curiosity.
From the deepest oceans to the shallowest streams
I know your dances I always will see.
If only all could know
Your beauty, strength, and mind
And see the works of God's hands in you
Right before their very eyes.
-- Lisa Bergemann, 2001
Poem: The Squid
The diaphanous squid darting
so fast even the shark can't approach.
Its propulsion system, jet-like water streams, never
allows anyone, anything near.
Like dust specks in the air they evade
touching
except
once
on the penultimate day of their lives.
Clinging, male, female, their tentacles
searching to touch, to place, sperm with egg.
Copulating, couples, threesomes, foursomes, by the billions,
a fog of squid above the ocean floor.
And the shark, and the porpoise, swordfish and salmon streak
with funnel-like mouths through the squid cloud.
The clumping squid in their frenzy seek even
to touch, to mate with, their predators.
The nuptial night ended, lying like snowdrifts
upon the ocean bottom, males spent, dead; and females
struggle to eject their egg capsules, then
their function completed, join their mates.
Saprophytes converge
in a day, in two, the bottom
barren again except
speckling the sand waiting,
the eggs.
-- Richard Fein
- Original publish date
- Mar 4, 2003
