The Venerable Rumptickler

In between tongues I
am the venomous lumpsucker
baying at the moon;
teeth like fig pulp, blood like salt,
flowers wilt in bloom.

Hear my skin flaps usher God
watch the water shudder,
part the seas with trembling
eye, caress my tenderest blubber.

Oh, how the whale falls whalefall steady
dripping in sloughing flesh,
maggots abound
her chest is heavy, loose bones
I grind for the bread.

A thimble of jam
is my hole in the cave, underwater
it reeks of decay; where the clown
fishes lark I fester untouched,
patient, they pass my way;

Then out in a flash the shimmering blue
turns a curious
plum shade of death,
their thoughts I inhale like Scythian smoke
as their guts disappear to the depths.

In between lungs,
the virtuous sucklumper –
dining on Biblical fayre –
carves out a lance of sea turtle shell,
shark tooth and blind mermaids’ hair;

Then turning to shimmering
buttery womb, the heart
of the deep ocean blue,
diving I cry, “What a sucker am I!”
and pierce the old ocean-heart through.

Now sunlight diffuses, the copepods
dance their luminous
sapphire waltz.
And all is still in the world
of the drowned,
except me, in my
lump-sucking vaults.

———————

Anemones shrivel,
stone fishes freeze,
plankton surrender
the mushrooms are trees;
lumpsuckers suck poison
humans believe,
sand is eternal,
the ocean, reprieve.