She saw through him,
the last glass eel of summer,
tinkling and shattering
up the river
with a shiver
like a lost star
in an alien galaxy,
a long way from the Sargasso Sea.
She felt sick
as she let the slick
predator slip
through her fingers
in whirlpools of emotion
and he abandoned her ocean.
Kim M. Russell, 2017
Linked to dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night, where Gayle is hosting.
This is so beautiful!!! River, shiver, star, galaxy!
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Thank you 🙂
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Such a longing love poem, such a shattering. BTW, I can’t stand eels. They give me the jimjams…. 🙂
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🙂
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They’re kind of prehistoric, I think. I find it fascinating that they travel all that way to spawn and then all the way back again. But the glass eels are pretty.
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I am not a fan of eels either, which is distracting me from your excellent writing! xxx
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Ah, the poem must be working as a warning to let a slippery eel slip through your fingers, even if it is the only one left. 🙂
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I prefer eels in their natural habitat when they are alive and doing what they do naturally. My father used to catch eels, kill them, smoke them in a kiln and then eat them. It was this whole ritual I found so dusturbing as a child and I was made to eat eel under duress. I should have explained I am not a fan of eel as food, I have no issues with them as living creatures! 😉💜 xxx
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Oh, I agree, Xenia! My grandparents, like the good Londoners they were, used to eat jellied eels – yuk! 🙂 xxx
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I was listening to Radio 4 on my way to the library earlier this week. A man was talking about eel pie and mash shops in the East End and my stomach churned. 🙂
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I do love the way an eel changes from those transparent beauties into the fullgrown ones. Just wanting them to come back so we can once more enjoy eel with a good conscious.
Love the rhymes in your poem
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I like looking at them but not eating them – bad memories from childhood.
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Such beautiful and intense yearning in this!💘 Beautifully penned, Kim 🙂
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Thank you, Sanaa!
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I love this, Kim, and it seems to hold a dual meaning here somewhere other than one of a transparent eel making his way to the sea.
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Beware the slippery eel 🙂
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You pack so much in your short poems–internal rhymes, symbols, line breaks. I like the lines /like a lost star/in an alien galaxy/. I feel like that some days.
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Me too 😉
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Such mysterious creatures, and forever associated now with the first Mrs Rochester.
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True.
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🙂
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I love your poem. It’s fantastic. But I’m very distracted by what I perceive to be a gummy snake rather than a glass eel. I think he wants me to eat him. 🙂
The Sargasso Sea line is my favorite. In the title, I see Trans-Parency, which makes me think this is about parents who are transgender. Or it’s a Danish Girl situation.
Then I also see a layer where the speaker is a mother trying to protect her daughter (her ocean) from a predator.
I like the pool/ocean play at the end.
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Thank you, Shawna! Glass eels are young and I suppose they might be gummy. It’s the older eels I wouldn’t want to meet – they have a bit of a bite to them! I love your interpretations.
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Amazing.
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Thank you, Jael!
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I liked the dark eyes on that eel and the phrase “whirlpools of emotion”.
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Perhaps it is just as well ~ Love the way you incorporated this:
a lost star
in an alien galaxy,
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Thank you, Grace.
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I agree with Grace and the “a lost star in an alien galaxy” is a terrific phrase.
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Thanks Debi!
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Brilliant write! Best to let glass eels go slithering on their way…
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Thank you, Lynn!
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Pretty, slippery and deadly… hmmm, I think our minds might have been going on rather parallel paths this week…
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I’m just about to read and comment, I look forward to reading yours!
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Lovely species. Funny I just saw earlier today the Chinese Pizza Hut promoting … you guess it … eel pizzas.
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🙂
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Another Marvelous saga! 😎😎😎🥀🥀🥀
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Thanks Dorna!
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tinkling and shattering
up the river
with a shiver
like a lost star
Some do try their best to send wrong signals but there are always ways to know of their intentions! Rightly said Kim!
Hank
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Thank you, Hank!
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All the critters in the universe, and you choose the glass eel as the analogy. Well done! 🙂
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Thank you, Sarah!
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I enjoyed the rhyming and alliteration.
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Love the sound here.
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Thank you, Imelda.
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