Gnashing jaws clenched in pause
consider teeth as seas: incisor waves,
the swell and crest of white-caps,
the ebb and chomp of molar tides
atomizing rock and atomizing grain
into grains suspended
in an enzymatic salivation
ground down beyond round,
ground to flow swirling in a maw
agape and settle on the tongue-soft
stomach floor of salted, shifting soil.
A slow acidic, saline massage
curls it all into the digestive
primed swill of ages; gluish knots
unbound once again, or broken to rebuild
a crystalline world in sucrose and in sand.
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Ian, I know this comment comes a bit late - hopefully you still graze over your poems from time to time to get a chance to read it!
ReplyDeleteNow I know I am not attuned to reading your work, so I don't know how helpful my reading will be. Please take it or leave it as you will.
My main question: am I really supposed to consider teeth as seas or the act of chewing itself as an ocean? If it is teeth, I am not convinced. Though I very much enjoy the toothy terms for sea-like things you come up with in the first stanza, by the end of the poem, I am left wondering if the narrator, upon asking me at the beginning to "consider teeth as seas," has lead me down the wrong path altogether.
i do look back for comments! and thanks! this is really helpful ; the initial thought was pretty tenuous to begin with - i was interested in the similarity between waves & teeth as things that gnash & chew and over time break things down so they can be reconstituted as something else. sounds like i could 1) frame this better and 2) write it clearer.
ReplyDeleteback to the drafting board.