An Octopus Picks Litter at the End of the World

Cherry
Pick of the Month

By MistakenMagic

Sat, 03 Feb 2024
  • 2368 reads
16 comments
 

A serrated bottle cap. A triangle of green glass.
These are unusual shells: strange, immortal tools
that she collects during a morning’s foraging.
The ring pull from a tin can slides over one tentacle tip
like the closing of a trap, but still she swims onwards,
a chameleon umbrella, shimmering like an oil spill.

She adapts. This alien debris has bewildered her
fellow sand-dwellers, but she is an architect, a pioneer.
A cave of can. An inverted volleyball is an ample bowl.
Yet she is also a soothsayer, a creature of Cassandra.
She senses the prickle of warmer water, the stirrings
of a terrible future. The sky is already falling around her.

A kinder death awaits. She is beginning to mimic
the gentle bloating of plastic bags across the blue.
Soon, she will retire to the darkness of a car tyre,
its black, fraying edges floating like a shroud.
Swelling with eggs, she will guard her nest:
starving artist, sacrifice, prophet-martyr.  

 

AN: This poem is from my debut collection, Walrussey, published by The Black Cat Poetry Press, available to purchase here: https://www.blackcatpress.co.uk/product-page/walrussey

 

Certificate U
Poem
Nature

Comments

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

This is wonderful in every sense - thank you so much for sharing it on here MM. Could you please add a link at the foot of the poem so people can buy your book?

 

Submitted by MistakenMagic on

Thank you so much, insert! So pleased you enjoyed this one and I positively squealed when I realised it's been cherry-picked - bringing back all the late noughties memories. I've now added a purchase link! :) 

 

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

haha - the thrill never goes away does it! I'm sure someone will want to place an order when they read it and now it's very easy for them to do so!

 

Submitted by luigi_pagano on

Sorry, Rebecca, the link gives this result: This product couldn't be found

 

Submitted by MistakenMagic on

Hi there, Luigi! I think it was a rogue full stop - it seems to be working now, but just in case, here's the link https://www.blackcatpress.co.uk/product-page/walrussey

 

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

https://www.blackcatpress.co.uk/product-page/walrussey

I can't see any difference between the two links, but this one does seem to work for me. Does it for you Luigi?

 

Submitted by luigi_pagano on

Yes, it does now. yes

 

Submitted by celticman on

of course, it's cherry picked. A wondeful expression of life and poetry, perhaps not in that order. 

 

Submitted by D G Moody on

What a delightful poem, and how it brings to life the octopus; I particularly liked how you've shown how she (octopus) adapts our discarded junk to for her own use; and am I right that the octopus sacrifices herself in giving birth? 

Dougie Moody

Submitted by MistakenMagic on

Hello there, Dougie - apologies for the delay replying to your lovely comment! I'm really pleased you enjoyed this poem and thanks so much for letting me know. Unfortunately, as is often the case with cephalopods, the octopus does give her life for her children, so this poem is both obituary and elegy. Thanks again for reading :) 

 

Submitted by skinner_jennifer on

Hi Magic,

I read your poem. It's so deeply observed and a potent reminder of what we are doing to our beautiful oceans on our exceptional planet earth. How the Octopus has adapted to its enviroment brings your message home to the reader.

Jenny.

 

Submitted by MistakenMagic on

So lovely to hear from you, Jenny! (And apologies for the delay replying) Thank you so much for your very kind feedback on this poem, so pleased you enjoyed it <3 

 

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

This is our Poem of the Month - Congratulations!

 

Submitted by MistakenMagic on

So sorry I missed this! I need to get back in the habit of checking ABCtales :) Thank you so much, absolutely honoured that this was Poem of the Month!! 

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

I did not know about the mother starving to death beside her eggs. The sadness of this natural end of such an intelligent, beautiful and mysterious being, within the dying environment we cause, oblivious, I found really powerful and moving

 

Submitted by MistakenMagic on

Thank you so much for reading and for your very kind words. It is so incredibly sad that octopuses, with all their ingenuity and beauty, only have short lifespans and more often than not, sacrifice themselves for their children. I couldn't help but write about them! Thanks again for commenting :)