Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Business Card Poems

I've seen poems on matchboxes and business cards. I've seen them on book-marks, napkins, etc. Not my poems, other people's, mind you. So if you think you are safe from poetry, you are not. I like to write poetry myself, and I think I may try making business-card sized poetry to distribute at random for people to stumble upon. Isn't that a wonderful and funny idea? Why not make yourself heard in a way other than publishing in Poetry Journals or Poetry Books? Here is the poem I have turned into a business-card sized cry of "Read me!"

Shipwrecked

Short waves between us all,
a kick of fins,
dislodge of a mask,
salt stinging all eyes,
listening to echo-cavern
sucking breath of regulators.
All I know is the throttle
of underwater hurricane-force
winds whipping us like ragdolls
while we grasp steel barnacle-
covered railings with bare
hands, limbs ricocheting
like ropes snapping off
ledges of canyons.
One boy sits in an eddy current,
hands folded in his lap.
He is the calm
Before the throbbing,
pulsating limbs of co-divers-
starfish in the hurricane
waving helplessly at one another.

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