“Ode to the Blue-Ringed Octopus”, “Springtime” and Three Haikus

By Madeline Pumphrey

Ode to the Blue-Ringed Octopus

Laying in the shimmering sands
A brooch buried beneath the rolling waves

A striking gold lemon
Encrusted with luminous rings of lapis

Not quite unlike the Angler’s esca
that light which halos the great beast’s head

Does your alluring glow still draw me ever nearer
Despite bearing forewarnings of a meddler’s end

What must nature find so amusing in making treacherous rogues
Of its most vibrant and cunning beauties?

There is a near-sickening sweetness to your venom’s taste
Which should leave me all but breathless

But oh, to have your thread-like arms curled tight around my fingers
Would make a most welcome, fatal and final embrace

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Springtime

The creature arrives in an open field
So expanse the terrain which he crosses through
And yet, the stalks of unruly grass merely brush against his fingers
Ever so lightly rubbing away at the dirt upon his calloused skin

This new light which hangs over the land
Stirs a warmth from within the creature
An odd but welcome feeling
After a time spent long confined
Within the frozen stone of his beginning
And the stretch of darkness which he’s traveled since

At last does the creature arrive at the edge
Where the prickling and faded greens
Meet shimmering blue waters
It is here where the creature comes to a stop
And soon begins to seep lower and lower
Nestling between the bunches of milkweed
Pinpricks of pale pink scattered along the borderline
A twist in the air strokes his face, lingering for a moment
In the fringed edges of the creature’s long, unkempt hair

A flash of color flutters across his vision now
A pair of bright yellow petals dancing in the wind
Another creature, he realizes, though one not like himself
The creature watches this kindred thing
As it weaves above and about the overhanging stalks

And he wonders how alike they are
To be together in this present moment
Had it, too, been born in darkness,
So cold and so empty?
Only to arrive here, sharing in the warmth
and open arms of the light?

From his place among the flora,
Revealed in the stillness of the blue,
A looming body embroidered with sutures

Numerously entangled across his features, reluctant
Kisses bestowed in haste and steeped in hubris.
Eyes which shine with the dullness of relit candles
Not long ago having spent most of their wax,
Sunken deep into a rigid framing.
To this, the creature remains unsuspecting
Entrenched in the glow of the newfound world
Instead ignorant to his impeding incorrectness
No soul in sight to revile and reflect upon him so

It is then that the yellow petals find their purchase,
Balancing upon the creature’s bruised and ashen skin
And for the first time in his existence
The creature is touched

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Three Haikus

[1]
In the early morning light
even the housefly
hums a gentle tune

[2]
The balding branches of late September
Are just as promising
As the fruitful trees of early May

[3]
A ghoulish brush with howling winds
Draws me ever nearer
To the moon’s pale glow

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