Brave Fish

Torrent tides
Ripping the ride
And the ripple winnowing
Encumbers the quartz
Of time and the fray's
Unmarred, vestal,
Succulent vim.

How do you lose
Yourself?
How do you lose
Life?
Being taken by the current
Like a dead fish
Within the puncturing rift
Of skeletons and daemons
How could you lose it
Without a gamble?

The quintessence of self,
Like a sole gyratory leaf
Needs not a place
For it isn't found;
Liberal, in the pliant
Dictates of inadequacies
And it can swim in the atmosphere,
It can defy gravity
Equipped with buoyancy
In its profound hollowness,
It can drift astray
Out of place
But not lose itself
Unless crashed by
The charred
Infernal flames.

In my anteroom, meander
And find the vexed perplexities
Of unfurling the riddles
Of your turbulent aching
To find yourself.

You have found a place
In the ferrying parade
Of the river, to the sea, to the ocean,
Ballasting salts and chemicals
Metamorphosing the regal
Cloys of tentacles
Injects of treacle.
You are who you are
In the river, the sea, the ocean,
Change is inevitable
But a brave fish
Cannot be taken away
By the foul eddies.

poem by Norman Santos
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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