Foam Home
Fern Grotto Beach is packed with jiggles
of sand-browned sea foam. I enter
the quivering, head-high wall, dusted
meringue, dirt-browned under a broiler.
Push on until I’m folded in—sea’s heart’s
muffled and last-night’s rain drips
on stones at the yawning cave entrance,
guiding me through the solid white wall
that parts. Inside, everything’s hushed.
Foam bank shivers with the wind, flecks
tumble in. My body’s encased in a thin
layer of it. Air pockets pop and hiss on
my clothes. I can just see the thinning place
I breached—not a door, but a seam.
I’ll thread myself through soon enough,
the sea will re-find its form, then I’ll strip
and throw myself in. But for right now
I’m this soft non-being, an invention
of the sea, wet-slicked and breathing.
Elkhorn Slough Lesson
Warbling neck of the great egret
shunts side to side like a willowy
dancer as it slides something down
its throat: a shaken-out scarf?
a hose that’s been snapped
and the snap travels down
the length, wimpering smaller
‘til it gives out at the tip? Yellow
spike of bill pierces the blue sky
as it lifts its head and gives it
one final shiver that travels down
the length of the body to feather out
its tail. Its digestive process
is a remarkable feat of engineering,
pierced bill to stomach to anus,
one long white tunnel. It excretes
a thin stream of dots, then hoists
itself into the trapeze of the sky.
Chance and Choice
Death takes every run with me, offering
a heart attack my wrist band’s phone numbers
won’t save me from, a crumbling cliff face
I run too close to, hemlock seeds that bob
along this trail looking innocuous as anise
I used to pluck and chew when I ran
in Southern California. Someday I hope I’ll follow
my mom and choose to die, choose death in my own
time when my body ceases to serve me, but
in the meantime I choose life, hold the wire
I step over to get nearer this cliff, strap on
this bracelet that might aid another runner
getting me helicoptered to safety. I choose life.
Run into it, on this rain-sodden morning, greens
shining themselves into being along this trail,
lichen crawling the south side of every trunk,
and in the organic farm fields small white flags
are waving, marking new plants, giving them
a chance. This is my one, and I am taking it.
David Allen Sullivan is becoming the poet laureate of Santa Cruz County, California. He is reading with the current poet laureate, Danusha Lameris, on June 19th at 5 pm, through PhrenZ and Bookshop Santa Cruz. His books include: Strong-Armed Angels, Every Seed of the Pomegranate, a book of co-translation with Abbas Kadhim from the Arabic of Iraqi Adnan Al-Sayegh, Bombs Have Not Breakfasted Yet, and Black Ice. He won the Mary Ballard Chapbook poetry prize for Take Wing, and his book of poems about the year he spent as a Fulbright lecturer in China, Seed Shell Ash, is forthcoming from Salmon Press. Nightjars, a long narrative poem about the friendship between an Iraqi interpreter and a US soldier is searching for a home. The first section won the Golden Walkman aural chapbook award and is available as a podcast. He teaches at Cabrillo College, where he edits the Porter Gulch Review with his students, and lives in Santa Cruz with his family. His poetry website is: https://dasulliv1.wixsite.com/website-1, a modern Chinese co-translation project is at: https://dasulliv1.wixsite.com/website-trans, and he’s searching for a publisher for an anthology of poetry about the paintings of Bosch and Bruegel he edited with his art historian mother who died recently.
Fern Grotto Beach is packed with jiggles
of sand-browned sea foam. I enter
the quivering, head-high wall, dusted
meringue, dirt-browned under a broiler.
Push on until I’m folded in—sea’s heart’s
muffled and last-night’s rain drips
on stones at the yawning cave entrance,
guiding me through the solid white wall
that parts. Inside, everything’s hushed.
Foam bank shivers with the wind, flecks
tumble in. My body’s encased in a thin
layer of it. Air pockets pop and hiss on
my clothes. I can just see the thinning place
I breached—not a door, but a seam.
I’ll thread myself through soon enough,
the sea will re-find its form, then I’ll strip
and throw myself in. But for right now
I’m this soft non-being, an invention
of the sea, wet-slicked and breathing.
Elkhorn Slough Lesson
Warbling neck of the great egret
shunts side to side like a willowy
dancer as it slides something down
its throat: a shaken-out scarf?
a hose that’s been snapped
and the snap travels down
the length, wimpering smaller
‘til it gives out at the tip? Yellow
spike of bill pierces the blue sky
as it lifts its head and gives it
one final shiver that travels down
the length of the body to feather out
its tail. Its digestive process
is a remarkable feat of engineering,
pierced bill to stomach to anus,
one long white tunnel. It excretes
a thin stream of dots, then hoists
itself into the trapeze of the sky.
Chance and Choice
Death takes every run with me, offering
a heart attack my wrist band’s phone numbers
won’t save me from, a crumbling cliff face
I run too close to, hemlock seeds that bob
along this trail looking innocuous as anise
I used to pluck and chew when I ran
in Southern California. Someday I hope I’ll follow
my mom and choose to die, choose death in my own
time when my body ceases to serve me, but
in the meantime I choose life, hold the wire
I step over to get nearer this cliff, strap on
this bracelet that might aid another runner
getting me helicoptered to safety. I choose life.
Run into it, on this rain-sodden morning, greens
shining themselves into being along this trail,
lichen crawling the south side of every trunk,
and in the organic farm fields small white flags
are waving, marking new plants, giving them
a chance. This is my one, and I am taking it.
David Allen Sullivan is becoming the poet laureate of Santa Cruz County, California. He is reading with the current poet laureate, Danusha Lameris, on June 19th at 5 pm, through PhrenZ and Bookshop Santa Cruz. His books include: Strong-Armed Angels, Every Seed of the Pomegranate, a book of co-translation with Abbas Kadhim from the Arabic of Iraqi Adnan Al-Sayegh, Bombs Have Not Breakfasted Yet, and Black Ice. He won the Mary Ballard Chapbook poetry prize for Take Wing, and his book of poems about the year he spent as a Fulbright lecturer in China, Seed Shell Ash, is forthcoming from Salmon Press. Nightjars, a long narrative poem about the friendship between an Iraqi interpreter and a US soldier is searching for a home. The first section won the Golden Walkman aural chapbook award and is available as a podcast. He teaches at Cabrillo College, where he edits the Porter Gulch Review with his students, and lives in Santa Cruz with his family. His poetry website is: https://dasulliv1.wixsite.com/website-1, a modern Chinese co-translation project is at: https://dasulliv1.wixsite.com/website-trans, and he’s searching for a publisher for an anthology of poetry about the paintings of Bosch and Bruegel he edited with his art historian mother who died recently.