Water — Submerged

http://www.nationalgeographic.es/documentSetting/photos/large/YC13TWDL-Z4L4-UCB4IWKPSUEA.jpg
Photograph by Emory Kristof, National Geographic



Write a poem about hidden depths, unexpected discoveries. Let your words flow… What is wanted here are thoughts from deep wells, emotions dragged by wild currents, drenched awakenings...

Bonus twist:  
Selected entries can be considered for publication in the next issue of Serendipity Magazine.  Those chosen for publication will be published under their username (if you want real or other names, please PM me), and include a link to their poems here on DUP.  If you do NOT want to be considered for publication, please PM me.

(Hey, some DUP poets were already published! They participated in the "No Air" competition and were in the last two issues for the Elements of Air and Fire. You can see these issues here:

http://free.yudu.com/item/details/634718/Serendipity-Magazine---Elements-in-Art---Air
http://free.yudu.com/item/details/707552/Serendipity-Magazine---Elements-in-Creativity---FIRE)

I will be choosing a winner here for this forum competition on DUP, but submissions for publication are to be considered by the editorial staff at the magazine.  Anyone interested in more details, please message me or see the magazine blog: http://magserendipity.blogspot.gr/2013/02/poetry-challenge-water.html

Old and new poems accepted
Collaborations accepted
Two weeks
No limit on entries
500 word limit per poem

It is finally here! Until the 4th of March? Count me in! :-)

AscensionES said:It is finally here! Until the 4th of March? Count me in! :-)

Yes, here it is... Bring it, mister.  

Deleted.

Evan, thank you for kicking the competition off.  Your entry is a salty, thunderous one.

Atakti said:Evan, thank you for kicking the competition off.  Your entry is a salty, thunderous one.

Funny that, bringing fresh air to the DU with salty poetry. Hehe. No worries!

Dodging Harpoons -

I read today
"The Japanese will once again hunt humpback whales."
and recall Greenpeace days.

Those were times when I thought
if I saved a whale
I was saving myself.

How do you truly play
when harpoons spear
at the corner of your eyes?

Long ago, someone dove into
the pitch of chasing me
and I bent sideways

as I spun around, and around
in an attempt to clean the algae
of collected years. I drifted

in consideration of him, trying
to ease his breath
with my bubbly smile.

But he mistook it
for an attack, and wounded
me in the dark predator depths.

I read today
"The Japanese will once again hunt humpback whales."
and wonder

Have we mammals truly escaped our end?
Or am I still swimming with the whales
dodging harpoons?

Maggie, thank you for this swimmingly lovely entry.

:)

Submerged

Strapped to the eons
of thoughts
these dear dogmas,
breathlessly hoping
their truths to unfold,
herein belies
the fiction of feelings
the ones
that lie helpless
their truths to expose.

Nothingness
rays through expressly
these motions
balmy less hazards
to consciousness gleamed,
more thrusting forward
the truth of our passage
onward and inward
these truths as
they seemed.

On leveled
acceptance,
convenient
and spelled
magically wondered
and spirit compelled
rounds of all nature
eventual known
these sunken treasures
point to just foam.

Sunken
submerged
drowning
release
death of our visions
dreams of increase,
all these grand measures
of gaining it all,
dark passage
upward
into the great call.

Soul of All Being,
hear all my depth
abandon me not,
not through with me yet.

Teach me
to humble
my will and to see
the grandest illusion
that lives in the sea,
the greatest submergence
the self-righteous me.

Herein enjoin
compassion
my plea,
empathy rising
in all company.

No greater am I
than others
or none,
all is one being
and all of us One.

runningturtle87

An old one but will write a new one to enter also.



<< I Can Catch Myself >>
   
     
     
I went away in my head    
to escape my world of impossibilities    
     
     
       
No one can catch me when I run    
a million miles in the direction of the wind    
where the spinning stops and I can catch myself    
     
     
     
     
Tears unspoken are shed on the inside    
words of love confined in corridors unseen    
an embrace with arms open is all that is felt    
along cold realities away from my silent cries    
     
     
     
     
Tender touch moments so far out of reach    
like trying to catch butterflies with a hole in my net    
makes me as tired as the worn out rocks battered by the sea    
waiting to rest on the ocean floor of lost treasures never found    
     
     
     
     
Lost days take me by the throat and choke me sometimes    
hard to take a breath times as my will fails me in minutes    
     
     
     
     
And I go away in my head    
to escape my world of impossibilities    
     
     
     
     
No one can catch me when I run    
a million miles in the direction of the wind    
where the spinning stops and I can catch myself    
     

DEEP WATER

I am the Queen of the deep deep sea
Where only  robot submarines can go
They are not aware that I am there
I watch them watch the life down there

Some call me the Witch of the Sea
For once things go this deep
They are never seen again
So far only special submarines
Can intrude on my Queendom and bother me

The Creatures of the Deep are usually white
Often translucent - there is no need for colour
In a world of black - we have never seen the Sun
Never seen it - we fear it, it can be no good for us

We have hot springs here - from the earth's firey core
Strange flora and fauna who I all adore
We do not want to be the next great catastrophe
That Man brings with him whenever he seeks
Knowledge that was best kept hidden
Pandora's box was meant to be closed

I have talked to the earth
I have talked to the sea
I have spoken to the sky
They all agree - Man is dangerous, not to be trusted

So we have conspired to get man back to where he came from
As Darwin observed, they crawled out from the sea
Reverse evolution should solve that problem
Mutations are needed for that to happen
I have heard they are on the verge of nuclear war
That would be wonderful for their technological advancement
World War 4 will not occur - the dinasours will return
The earth, the sky, the sea will recuperate
From the stress that the creation of man has brought
GOD meant well, we know, but those who steal
From The Tree of Knowledge
Will surely perish
As they will unleash
Powers they cannot harness.

FULL FATHOM FIVE


Full fathom five thy father lies
In the Bermuda Triangle
He went out in cloudless skies
Never to return
They looked for his plane
They even sent a diver
Neither the plane, nor your father
Have ever been found

Here, I have dropped you
From my boat
In full scuba gear
You come back with photos
Which show the beautiful coral reefs
You even found some pearls

Your father never left
He became the coral
He became the pearl
The sea has changed him
His soul lives on
I heard the wind say:
"I love my son"

**********************************************

The quote:
Full fathom five thy father lies;Of his bones are coral made;Those are pearls that were his eyes:Nothing of him that doth fadeBut doth suffer a sea-changeInto something rich and strange. Quote from The Tempest. Act i. Scene. 2.  
SHAKESPEARE

Lighter,  for a change

Lighter for a change,
My disposition is betraying me
Making me a fool
Pleasantly mocking my judgement  
 
This is happiness
 
A suiting word.
For a coward like me.
 
If there was a warm honeyed thought
reverberating with kindness
that would be me
 
Who would have ever thought?
 
Following the passage to the ocean
I'm contented with possibilities
Satisfaction a step away
 
Did you know that you could find
the moon in the sea?
I heard that lyrically uttered,
Hit me, made curiosity flow.
 
For I am gleeful, joyous,
I won't hold this in skepticism
I'll free my mind to explore
 
For there is not a darkening malice
Clouding in my mind
A change from me, I know,
How confusing
How uplifting to my mood
 
Back to the moon.  
 
If the moon is in the sea,
Then I'd like to find it.
Good-natured that I am
With brimming content
 
I think that in that event
nothing can go wrong,
I will step into the cold waters.
 
How refreshing as the caressing undertow
pulls me in for an embrace.
 
It is all good to me because,
for once I am happy,
which makes me immortal
In a sense?
 
I'd like to think so.
 
The sky becomes a distant memory  
the current sweeping me away
It's ok
 
I want to find the moon,  
though lack of oxygen
could affect me
 
if I believed in such dark consequences
 
For now I think I'll just see  
where this leads.
 
As my mind becomes
lighter for a change,  
light headed?
I see bursting sparks.
 
These should be stars, they're beautiful
as stars should be.
 
I want to see the moon
At the bottom of the aphotic zone,
surely it would be hidden
 
Where light cannot penetrate?
 
Well I'll make it there,  
for I see the stars,  
and I'm sinking,  
Down to the abyss
 
Sinking in regards to myself.
I realize I cannot breathe
This would be alarming,
If it wasn't such an intriguing thought
 
To embrace outer space  
in the comforts of your own bottomless pit
 
I always wanted to be an astronaut
 
Now I'm living the dream
 
How lucky am I?
 
My lungs are searing
My thoughts blurring
But if only I ride the current deeper
 
I'm not often this careless
It feels good
To cast aside my hardened shell
In search of gratification
In the wanderings of my psyche
 
I'm so glad that I decided to let go,  
To embrace bliss
 
To allow myself that one glimpse  
Of something that could truly
Render me obsolete
 
It will be all right
For even a 1000 feet of water
weighing down on me
 
stealing my breath
cracking my lungs
freezing my blood
 
Couldn't kill me
could it?
 
not in this new found cheerfulness
Nothing could go this wrong
As to die under the waves
 
Searching for the moon
 
At least let me see it once
Before I succumb
 
There's so much pressure
Constricting me
 
Just let me see it
Just once.
 
I want to say I discovered something
Something astonishing
The universe unfolding around me
 
But I can't
I just can't...
 
comprehend
 
There's no pattern
no process
 
Only cold
bitter, treacherous realization
 
How could I have been so stupid?
To allow myself contentment?
 
To believe that it could exist?
 
If there is a moon in the sea
It has lead me astray,
Condemning me
 
Punishing me as it tightens it's grip
For having hope
 
It wrenches from my lungs
The last feeble breath I had left
Simultaneously crushing me  
Without remorse.
 
Blackness settles in,
My heart struggles, in denial  
The sun is too far away
 
Too much water overhead to rise
Out of this grave.
 
This is the most painful thing I've ever felt
Betrayed by the moon
I close my eyes,
 
I never saw anyway, no point now
 
I know the end is coming
I can feel the damnation spreading
Drowning...
 
dying...
 
gone
 
All is gone
 

Adore the comp idea Atakti, I'm always in love with underwater adventures.