Hooked
Hooked
A woman uptown
comes home to two children
stabbed. All the next day I hear, silently,
her screams.
Then think, as I see caught fish pulled
onto the esplanade–of how we ache
for silver linings–slitted gills grasping desperately
at thin air, metallic iridescence belly-flopping
on stone–something to be made right, fixed,
bearable–and how, to a fish,
all upper surfaces must
seem silvered – ripples plated by sun
or mist, until whipped
into the sky, it finds
that the world is not as it
has known, that there are vast portions
where neither body nor
instinct can protect, can even
function.
So we too
forge ahead, with or against
the current, but still in the comfort of luminous
viscosity until some terrible ‘suddenly’
when we are pulled
onto a stone slab of rending gasp and bootless
throttle, where the grey of sky is at best
mercurial.
If lucky, we are thrown
back – and though our breathing may labor,
accordion halation un-keyed, we float at last lopsidedly, slither
at a slant.
But sometimes, some one of us
is trapped in that sharded air until, seemingly, the end
of days.
We gasp, spin, in the eddy
of their reverberating
pain, then, gratefully, guiltily,
swim on, faster,
faster.
Tags: "Hooked", dVerse Poets open link poem, insurmountable sadness poem, manicddaily, Poem about Tragedy, when nothing can be done poem, When there is no silver lining
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ManicDDaily 
October 30, 2012 at 7:05 pm
goodness…ugh, what a thing to be dealing with on top of the storm…you hooked me right up front…i think we do look for silver linings though sometimes that is just hard…i like the extended metaphor as well…when the sudden happens it can throw us pretty well…and sometimes we try to just swim faster…
October 30, 2012 at 7:32 pm
Yes, I did hear about that nanny. What a horrible thing:
” there are vast portions
where neither body nor
instinct can protect, can even
function.
So we too
forge ahead, with or against
the current,
”
Well, I think oftentimes this is all we can do. Just forge on as best we can, damaged, but moving forward somehow. There is no other alternative.
On another note, I have been watching television and have seen scenes of Battery Park. Such a lot of damage incurred..but I hear you when you say that NY is in a good mood. They do seem to be able to roll with disasters somehow….. Be safe.
October 30, 2012 at 8:22 pm
glad to hear you are safe k. – and what a tragical story, even more haunting with the image of that fish… ugh..i’m lost for words..
October 30, 2012 at 8:24 pm
Yes, unbelievably sad. k.
October 30, 2012 at 8:23 pm
Karin, wow! I thought this was about the storm and then reading your process notes was very shocked to find out what it is about. I am glad you are safe, dry and warm. This is an intense write.
Pamela
October 30, 2012 at 8:59 pm
Glad to hear you are safe. The news last week was devastating…such heartbreak!
October 30, 2012 at 9:17 pm
Life is so messy. Pain is horrific and we somehow gloss over it–I am always stunned by violence and yet another part of me wonders how we could not be violent–how that angry, desperate part of us cannot hope by find escape somewhere. Great write and I am glad that you are ok.
October 30, 2012 at 9:50 pm
Well I read about that bizarre tragedy, and also glad you have been evacuated and are safe. Another haunting write and a good read thanks for sharing.
October 30, 2012 at 9:56 pm
in my experience (sheltered as it is . . . ahem . . . ) In attempting to poeticise the unbelievable, that is to take notice of the hook, we may become better swimmers in the long run, Therein lies the grace . . .
(that sounded better in my head, but there it is . . . )
A tough subject to render readable but Imho . . . You do – stay safe and take care 🙂
October 30, 2012 at 10:04 pm
Very good (and beautifully said) point. Thanks so much for your thoughtful comment, Aaron. k .
October 30, 2012 at 11:24 pm
Some terrible “suddenly”. Those moments in our lives where we have no control, are the most vulnerable to cruelty and hate… You certainly brought it home with this write.
October 31, 2012 at 7:14 am
Thanks, Margaret. I kind of think the actions involved here stemmed from insanity – no one really knows – but the whole thing is just inconceivable to me otherwise. Thanks much for your comment. I loved your son’s poem by the way – so great for him to let you post and you to post. k
October 31, 2012 at 3:01 am
Chilling and terrible…your verse is riveting
October 31, 2012 at 7:12 am
Thanks. k.
October 31, 2012 at 5:30 am
What a poem, karin. Your fish metaphor which ought to be familiar comes across as such a slap of cold, bitter reality, the alien quality of a totally inconceivable perspective, as the one such madness has to be to us on the other side of that sliver dividing plane, so thin, between the ocean of reason and the poisonous air of insanity. Fine work trying to plumb the un-understandable. That horrific event has been on my mind as well, surrounded as it is by so many questions of how it could come to be. A fine and difficult bit of writing on a very unpalatable topic–all the more valuable to tackle it.
October 31, 2012 at 7:12 am
Thanks. Mainly trying to get to this silver lining business though interesting to see how it is read. Hope it doesn’t come across as unsympathetic – so terribly painful. I had more about just the pain of it – it really shook people here, especially women, I think, but it was too long really (within the framework of poem.) Thanks so much for your helpful comments. k.
October 31, 2012 at 6:52 am
OO-er… this is terribly good, awfully great, mind twisting and tummy wrenching. I love it. I don’t think anything could follow it, though. I’m off to lunch!
October 31, 2012 at 7:08 am
Ha. Thanks, David. k.
October 31, 2012 at 9:07 am
fish metaphor, I wondered how this would spin out. it is luminous in itself as you keep the silverlining alive. metallic iridescence, ripples plated, viscosity. beautifully done!
October 31, 2012 at 12:47 pm
Thanks, Jane.
October 31, 2012 at 9:54 am
this is so true!
October 31, 2012 at 11:12 am
Some stories just won’t let you go. You do a beautiful job here of building the emotional force of your metaphor…well don K.
October 31, 2012 at 12:47 pm
Thanks, Becky. k.
October 31, 2012 at 4:50 pm
This immediately took my breath. Masterful conceit and an intense emotional core combine for affecting and impressive poetry.
October 31, 2012 at 4:56 pm
Thanks so much, Anna.
October 31, 2012 at 7:06 pm
I am glad you are safe K ~ This poem of yours is chilling and darkly narrated…great work on the pacing and action but yikes to the killing of the children ~
October 31, 2012 at 7:09 pm
Yes, just the most horrible thing. Honestly, it’s meant to be about any big loss – there were more children killed in the storm, and the impossibility of silver lining is probably as true there. This particular incident was just such a horrible one that it really raises those questions for me. k.
November 1, 2012 at 1:13 am
Karin, excellent piece, from title to current shift, to last words here, fantastic. The visually striking second stanza is so strong, and the fight to move on, to fight the current and the depths, really remarkably illustrated. Fantastic read. Thanks.
November 1, 2012 at 8:03 am
K. such a visceral, visual poem….layered in such a way that the top ‘theme’ could be deleted, and it becomes more of an ecological statement, but hell, the power and punch of that killing of the children and the (silent) screams of the mother, constant…well, it ‘adds’ to what is to come. I found this very hard to read, knowing the tragedy of what happened, and there are no silver linings, either for anyone, and not for fish. We just hope and live for them.
Ugh. You tackled something that in the very least was a hard and heartbreaking theme, but you expanded it outwards, and then…inward to a amazing finish.
I keep reading this over and over because it really is a difficult poem, and I felt it was like an accordion. You really do some mean layering here of great impact.
Chilling poem, but with a deep philosophical thrust that shines forth.
There is not an extra word that would push this off track.
And the title? Perfect, k.
Lady Nyo
November 1, 2012 at 8:16 am
Thanks so much, Jane. I just worry that it (poem title) seems unfeeling – and of course not meant to be. The hooking being us onto silver linings primarily, and not really someone caught in insurmountable tragedy though they too are caught. But not in anyway trying to minimize that. thanks. k.
November 1, 2012 at 7:31 pm
I’m glad that there is some sort of cheer in the mood, considering. Such a sad story told in the most delicate and magical way. I am happy for the sense of endless spirit in this piece.
Wishing you well.
November 2, 2012 at 7:25 am
Sensitive analogy–well done.
November 2, 2012 at 4:01 pm
Sorry I’m late to come a-reading and I don’t have any excuse except that life gets in the way of doing the “poetry thing” much as I love it. The language in this poem is mesmerizing – speaking to itself in sound and in subject reeling the reader in and unveiling the disorient, the lost, the displaced and the dying. Brilliant stuff!
November 2, 2012 at 5:29 pm
Thanks do much, gay. I understand life in the way business.