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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
GEO-BESTIARY: 22, by JAMES HARRISON Poet Analysis Poet's Biography
First Line: Life's too short to be a whore anymore,'
Last Line: No dog whore but trotting legs, an empty stomach.
Alternate Author Name(s): Harrison, Jim
Subject(s): Sea; Ocean
First Line: Life's too short to be a whore anymore,'
Last Line: No dog whore but trotting legs, an empty stomach.
Alternate Author Name(s): Harrison, Jim
Subject(s): Sea; Ocean
"Life's too short to be a whore anymore,"
I sang out to the Atlantic Ocean
from my seaside room in St. Malo,
the brain quite fugal until I took
a long walk seaward at low tide
and watched closely old French ladies
gathering crustaceans. When they left
they shook their fingers saying, "maree, maree,"
and I watched them walk away toward shore
where I had no desire to go. A few
stopped and waved their arms wildly.
The tide! The tide goes out, then comes in
in this place huge, twenty feet or so,
the tidal bore sweeping slowly in
but faster than me. I still didn't want to leave
because I was feeling like a very old whore
who wanted to drown, but then this wispy
ego's pulse drifted away with a shitting gull.
Before I died I must eat the three-leveled
"plateau" of these crustaceans with two bottles
of Sancerre. It's dinner that drives the beaten
dog homeward, tail half-up, half-down,
no dog whore but trotting legs, an empty stomach.
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