BEHOLD

by Geoffrey Aitken

 

the cat

our predatory

suburban

household favourite

cannot change

its spots

the cuttlefish

the octopus

and the squid

like the chameleon

can change colour

now

the automobile

A minimalist industrial signature drives Geoffrey Aitken away from the scene of mental unwellness for the eyes and ears of those without voices. Widely published locally (AUS), and internationally (the UK, US, CAN, CN & FR), he chases ongoing congeniality.

SQUID SONNET

by Anne Graue

Seven years after scientists caught the elusive deep-sea cephalopod on video, they saw another. Then lightning struck a third time. Here is a juvenile giant squid approaching, attacking, and then retreating from a ring of pulsating blue LEDs on the Medusa deep-sea camera system. Video by Edie Widder and Nathan Robinson via The New York Times, June 21, 2019

It should be immense, for a giant squid—
The one on camera that emerges
from midnight, from nowhere, reaching for light
the bait in front of the lens. It spreads wide
its suckered tentacles, its ghost arms search
for prey. Millions of neurons in pointless
hunting with a stab at the lighted lure—
its only course to return to shadow.
This sonnet only fulfills its promise
to keep itself contained within its lines.
The squid, too, will adhere to nature’s plan—
male or female, to inject, lay and hatch
offspring in a final endeavor to
become food for crustaceans and sea stars. 

Anne Graue is the author of a chapbook, Fig Tree in Winter, and has poetry appearing in numerous journals and anthologies, online and in print. She also has reviews in Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Whale Road Review, and The Rumpus, and at Asitoughttobe.com, where she is a contributing editor.

MOVING FURTHER UP THE COAST

by Laura Rodley

Image source: Professor Potts

Clear balloon like creature, submarine shaped
with small yellow orange and pink dots draped
along its body, tiny beads for eyes
and tendrils on its bottom, a surprise
swishing through the salt sea water, small as
my hand disappearing into morass
of bright green sea lettuce waving on rocks
but tide is leaving and this creature balks
from swimming with current into the sea
squishes against rocks covered with wavy
green troll hair, but he’ll dry up in the sun
and die if he doesn’t hurry up and run
into tidal sluice, so I herd him out,
guide him with my hand towards ocean, turned about,
this squid moving up the coast, weather’s burst,
hotter, never seen one before, my first.

Laura Rodley’s New Verse News poem “Resurrection” appears in The Pushcart Prlze XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses (2013 edition). She was nominated twice before for the Prize as well as for Best of the Net. Her chapbook Rappelling Blue Light, a Mass Book Award nominee,  won honorable mention for the New England Poetry Society Jean Pedrick Award. Her second chapbook Your Left Front Wheel is Coming Loose was also nominated for a Mass Book Award and a L.L.Winship/Penn New England Award. Both were published by Finishing Line Press.  Co-curator of the Collected Poets Series, she teaches creative writing and works as contributing writer and photographer for the Daily Hampshire Gazette.  She edited As You Write It, A Franklin County Anthology, Volume I and Volume II.