Thursday, May 21, 2026

what the water gave me


was clear line of my belly

filled with salt & seashells

holes, much like my memories

fading away, a ship in fog


was bed of drowned summers

plated in orange light,

i should have said some things

let the tower fall & shatter to ash


was illusion of calmness

yet underneath are currents 

a puzzle of faces

a skeleton, whose bones i still

do not know


was questions 

do not need answers 

not right away


see my right foot bleeding

i still do not know why


Posted for dVerse Poets Pub - OpenLinkNight - Thank you for your comments and visits.   

19 comments:

  1. The water is mysterious like things under our skin, a beautiful probing poem 👌

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  2. This is absolutely exquisite, Grace. I love how you weave mystery into the poem with; "was illusion of calmness/yet underneath are currents." ❤️❤️

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  3. I know that feeling of ‘memories fading away, a ship in fog’, Grace, and the sense of mystery in your poem.

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  4. There are so many unanswered questions, where we think we ought to know
    Fabulous the ending 2 lines

    Much love

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  5. What the water gives, it just as easily steals away. Fine work, Grace, and THANKS for hosting / sharing

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  6. I really like what you did with the poem interpreting the painting. Using the title for each stanza worked very well!

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  7. Beautiful poem and my favourite image is " bed of drowned summers plated in orange light,"

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  8. I really feel this, as we are beings of water much more than we would acknowledge until we think about it...

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  9. This is beautiful, and water, as a major part of our composition is indeed as deep and mysterious as a person.

    I loved the poem, and it went with the prompt so well too...

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  10. Insight is inside sight, a line of vision occasioned by waterlines and murky things below. Some fertile employment of the Kahlo and endowing nicely a similar view to the reader.

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  11. The unsolved final question fits the rest of the poem and image very well, the idea of not fully knowing ourselves. Beautifully written Grace 👏

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  12. Memories and mysteries! Such a well-crafted ekphrastic.
    "holes, much like my memories
    fading away, a ship in fog" stood out to me, as well as the final stanza--which lingers.

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  13. Sending these lines back to you with appreciation. I hear a sense of patience developing in this poem.

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  14. You evoke the mystery of this, and most, Frida Kahlo paintings, Grace and yet you set down thoughts just as she has set down images. As a child, I found the bath to be a place of lininal imaginings, my legs as landscape enclosing a fiord of possibilities, so I especially liked both the painting and your poem...

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  15. What lies beneath can be bewildering.
    my son years ago at 16 years old cut his foot on a seashell on the first day at the beach. he kindly watched us get in the water. gave hurrah's to his 8 year old sister,
    anyway, love this:
    "bed of drowned summer plated in orange light."

    so much water: flowing, waiting, under the bridge, over the heads, washing us, washing us away. I feel all of that in this

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  16. I love how you unfold the painting for us - such delicate imagery even when the story becomes more ominous - Jae

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  17. I loved your poem Grace, it was mysterious and held my attention. I did not expect the ending! 🥰

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