Louis J. Pasternak
Poetry Assignment #6: The List Poem
If You Accidentally Swallow Ocean Water …
you also swallow:
gloopy whale blubber
broken starfish arms
penguin poop
dead fish
sunken ships
lobster shells
and all the pee of
all the kids in the world,
even kids in Europe and Australia and Africa and
including my little sister, Daisy,
who don’t leave the ocean when they
have to go
Miss S – Have fun with your niece at the beach this weekend. (Don’t swallow the ocean!)
Thank you, Louis. The push and pull of the tides always reminds me of the mysterious artistic forces at work in our lives. May I suggest you read the poem “Seaweed,” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow? Its dramatic and beautiful description of the ocean might be a good model for you to follow.
Miss Sweetmallow read more poems out loud. But she did not read mine.
It was time to get sneaky. Like Doctor Savage: Stealth Surgeon on Plague Hive (best TV show in history), who goes around doing gross plastic surgeries on people while they sleep! Awesome. And when they wake up, they have some weird supernatural talent that matches their deformity.
I would be Doctor Pasternak: Stealth Poet.