Danny Gentile #30 - Lamprey and Candle-Fish

Lamprey & Candle-Fish

A mouth. Then a tongue with a single tooth. Like Dracula

permanently sucking on the body of some gigantic victim.

It is a tenacious thing that is clinging on for (genuine) dear-

life. Unfortunately, it is not quite capable of that illumination

that the name suggests. We have to leave that to the Candle-

fish; even then it will take some determined orchestration.

Every politician should have a Lamprey. Give it to them

so that they will have an understanding of what it is like

to be there constantly, often unnoticed. And in the darkness

of retirement, give them a Candle-Fish, let them dry it out &

stand it upright, try & coax a flame without a skerrick of flint

or even a gas cigarette lighter. The fish, gives its all in this

odd immolation. The Lamprey continues, attached to some

great beast, travels on, through a life of incessant feeding.

From Nine Poems on Aquatic Life

Danny Gentile #29 - Abalone

Abalone

Sucking into your mother-of-pearl, your outer shell

remains a furry husk, giving no hint of the dichotomies

that occur between your body & its seat. When you

have gone, the opalescent rainbow that once held you

will offer up a pierced & concave shape as an ornament,

or provide the focus for a variance of light, reaching

down to its resting place. In contrast, the movements

that surround it seem like a whirlwind, with the shell

as its eye, ambivalent & stationary. In this way it sits

as an appropriate memorial to your sedentary life.

You were never regarded as something both still

& contemplative, but perhaps that is simply an error

of our dry assessment. But your residence, no longer

goes unnoticed, as it promises to retain an aspect

of your silent rumination, in the unexpected aquarium

of a living room. It will hold many things through this

second lifetime. And the memory of asymmetry will be

quantified, as it cups the ephemera of that other ocean.

From Nine Poems on Aquatic Life

Danny Gentile #28

Haiku (2004)

silence is defined
clouds unfurl above the trees
melt into the wind