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Travel down my monkey ass and
You’ll find a fishtail, a wide fin boner
For sporting in the biggest womb of all.
Beyond verse foolery, these motions
Are more riven, trothed by first
Principles to swim and fuck and eat.
The road is five hundred million
Years long; that deep too, sounding
Epochs and aons down blicker-leeching
Hue. The first room which life entered
Was the last one for star streams,
Salting the fertile oceans with a start,
Dead intents fisting riled-up verbs
To hurl and leave me to this beach.
I ride and write ‘em every day,
Hairy cheeks saddled to rude salt tales
Yeehawing heaven on deep-water swells.
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Submitted for Real Toads’ Open Link Monday.
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Note
From Sandor Ferenczi’s Thalassa: A Theory of Genitality, transl. Henry Alden Bunker, MD:
“In the biological stratification of organisms all their earlier stages are in some manner preserved and are kept distinct from each other by resistances arising from a censorship, so that it is in the living organism that one must accomplish, with the help of an analytic type of investigation ((or a poetics)) the reconstruction of the most remote epochs of the past out of present behavior and present modes of functioning.
* * *
… What if the entire intrauterine period of the higher mammals were only a replica of the type of existence which characterized the aboriginal piscene period, and birth itself nothing but a recapitulation on the part of the individual of the great catastrophe which at the time of the recession of the ocean forced so many animals, and certainly our own animal ancestors, to adapt themselves to a land existence, above all to renounce gill-breathing and provide themselves with organs for the respiration of air?
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Your poem, as always, demonstrates your skill with word. The book sounds interesting, but I would be weary of some of the theories. The same way my language shows there is no way I could have an advanced degree in CIS, just from the short quote listed here it is clear there is no way the author has an advanced degree in biology.
Nope, Ferensczi was a psychoanalytic theorist, a follower of Freud’s with added influence from Lamarck’s evolutionary theories. He wrote the book in 1924 and was dead in 1933. It was a weird theory — not many took notice of it – but I think it makes absolutely perfect poetic sense, in that personal history is a recapitulation of the history of the cosmos. Way down our brainstem is the recall of the emergence of life from the ocean, and Ferensczi’s theory that the cataclysm of birth equates with the emergence from the sea is a wonderful metaphor of the cosmos within. The scent of that first came to me when I first fell in love and woke after a night of lovemaking deep in a dream of swimming in a vast blue uteral sea. Thanks for reading. I don’t know what CIS is.
Searching using Google and Altavista fails to bring up any history on the author AND translator that is not fabricated. It seems the govt. powers should maybe set their aims at endorsement of sites that are authoritive (does not allow fabricated information) What good is the web if there is no informative sites that haven’t been manipulated by former investigative types upset that others have access to info they once had a perceived absolute control of?
I did read his book.
that’s not what I meant, sorry bout that Brendan. Any of my anger directed at you here is misdirected. And from what I have read this theories make sense in more than a poetic sense. It’s goes further to bridge the gaps in information, the story of a bigger picture then most people are capable of comprehending because of the orbit our living lifes are at in regards to time. And by that I mean the story behind the non-hunting whales inherited complex eye and how long it has taken mankind to realize that the air we breathe is an ocean. But due to the extremely unique properties that arise from the marriage of two Hydrogen Adams to one Oxygen, and each triads affinity for other of the same triads (the cohesiveness of water) their gathering creates an all but impenetrable veil between all other oceans.
Water’s uniqueness can be seen in it’s slope of the phase diagram, is enough of a peculiar anomaly, that the veil it creates is such that we know more about outer space than we do the deep sea.
It’s like a working example in the actual physical world of the ancient philosophy to seek answers internally instead of externally.
much like heat, is just motion of molecules, and mankind’s potential intelligence is only potentially available because of our e-motions.
Something that human beings experienced long before we could have ever discovered the linguistics of being able to share the thought that we understand. Being able to communicate as individuals in regards to specific subjects says “I understand” and that is to some like casting a vote, “Aye” to a higher order.
It’s a vote that is heard even when nobody on earth seems to hear it. Regardless of what I may say, or disagree with your opinion, it is important that you carry on with what you know to be doing the things that are inherently you.
Sorry about anger gibberish or typos if this has any, as per usual, I am running late.
Dusty
Thanks for clarifying, who/Dusty, and for the added info. I think you’re right that water is a prelingual presence in us, as we are inarticulate in the womb yet still understand and remember much of what’s there. B
And now I wish I had not added my second comment because in it I am guilty of the very thing which I despise. Because aggressive words written or spoken passive have an effect that few if any people realize or choose to outright deny. It’s like trying to mix oil and water. Minute amounts of masked or unrecognized anger can taint oil with just one drop of water the same as a drop of oil can soil an ocean of water. Truth when used as a weapon soils the truth, much like anger unleashed in art but disguised, is like a trojan horse waited to trample out all freedom of expression.
Agreed. Thanks for sharing, and there’s nothing wrong with passion. I don’t always understand your comments, but appreciate the dialogue anyway. B
This piece shows your profound skill with words – the lines seem wrought to the rigors of your uncompromising thoughts.
I hate to break it to you, but I think Nell is in love with your (sea)horse.
Years ago I read a feminist treatise looking at anthropology from that then newly discovered female slant(who wrote it is lost in the mists of time and degenerating memory) but to prove one of her points–I think it was infants being able to swim almost at birth–) the author painted a scene that’s never left my imagination–she averred that humans in their early history were almost certainly cannibalistic, and that mothers and babes being particularly succulent, they often sought sanctuary in the sea, hiding amidst rocks and caves–thus woman’s higher body fat ratio for buoyancy and warmth, while infants needed to be almost amphibious–and it also explained the uncanny strength of a baby’s instinctive deathgrip on your hair, which is quite strong for such a mite of flesh. Perhaps that’s all backwards theorizing, similar to Ferenczi’s above, but the poetics of it seem right, just as his do. (Your poem’s first lines made me go: HA!)
Thanks H — Anne Carson in The Sea Around Us made the observation that sea-mammals are all land-mammals who returned to the ocean some 50 million years ago, perhaps to escape the predations of some or other animal — and yeah, hungry men could be on that list. (What’s changed?) Funny too that the Latin root of dolphin is “delphi,” meaning “womb.” And those seals on rocks with the long eyelashes and siren-voices … hmmm. Cupid was often depicted as riding a dolphin (cupidon) and were thought to be ferriers of souls to the afterlife, or, sometimes, to Love. It all makes poetic sense to me, though the only thing I’ve ever considered munching on was a woman’s behind from time to time. (Maybe that’s because they were always running away.)
Very thought-provoking, both the very skilful poem and the interesting discussion in the comments.
Those opening lines kick ass!
This is AWESOME. #thatisall
Lovely work Brendan. Thanks for all the footnotes…I am always learning something new when I visit you.
You’ve used poetic license to spawn interest in a theory not so popular. Gotta admire that! I recently had a long discussion about the gender spectrum and it’s many manifestations. I thought you were initially moving into the realm of hermaphroditism with this piece, but you surprised me. Always an intellectual spark here, and I like that.