Four Listeners Riffing on 'La Mer'


I.  Frenetic tides, most caustic foam:
symphonic crests crescendo, roam
ferociously across the sea,
engulfing vessels slow to flee
the ocean's wrath as storms foment

and thunder forth with fierce resent.
 
 
II.  Pacific--yes, I know your pulse,
those sulking heartbeats that convulse
because no moon appears tonight

to lavish you with love and light.
 
 
III.  They once mapped waters mythically
with fiendish beasts of scaly tails
and eyes to strike a dire fear
in any captain swanning near.
 
But now it's sonar, satellites,
so no one fathoms fabled sights
or hears how Triton played his shell.
Do you hear music?  Listen well.
 
 
IV.  Some currents swerve me toward a beach,
but others keep land out of reach.
I wish I was the blue whale here.
I'd sing my long songs year to year
then breach the surface, beat my tail
against the waves and would prevail!




Four Listeners Riffing on 'La Mer' © Copyright 2021, Robert J. Tiess.

View this poem at AllPoetry.com

24 lines (25 the prompt limit).  Ocean Music theme prompt challenge - link: https://allpoetry.com/contest/2790337-Ocean-Music.-10-to-25-Lines

The "four listeners" are narrators imagining things while listening to Debussy's symphonic "La Mer" ("The Sea"):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_mer_(Debussy)
Submitted: October 26, 2021









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