Anatomically Incorrect
Sketches of Marine Animals
By Sarah Dawson
Author of Poetry After Ink
Published by Sarah Dawson at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 Sarah Dawson
Barceloneta,
May 2010
Observed
on a Zante beach, 2002
Anemones
Reedmace
Lug
worms, rag worms
Hastings
Beach, 1992
Our
Eroding Coastline
Warp
awaits weft
Boring
Sponge
Shadow
Catchers Introduction
Korperfotogramm
River
Taw (ice), February 1997
Out
of Shot
Vessel
No.3
Body
Dissolutions
You were miming
breaststroke – the universal
sign for swimming. Found the beach,
whilst I was
watching silken
laundry sea that lapped the
pillars. Beneath, fish were sewn from
thousands
of silk scraps –
seams that faced out, unhemmed
loose threads, labels, that you
ached to cut
they brushed each other; coats they ached to shrug off
Observed on a Zante beach, 2002
1.
Where vessels
branch, the delta of my left foot’s swollen -
skin’s a
membrane just enclosing liquid; cells stretched
to accommodate my
warm blood. Unlike pastel hued
line drawings, showing cross
sections of skin – a corner
turned up to reveal
the dermis – flesh seems rich
in colour, more in flux. I press
the swollen veins
which flatten, dark
blood backing up, until released.
This pool of me won’t
stagnate, stranded halfway
up the beach; I run
down through the grains, like tidal
water drawn to sea.
2.
Plastic bit between
my teeth; I concentrate on holding
my head vertical, and parallel
to temperamental
waves. My mind
drifts, water slips – the salt that lights a pathway
through me
– does it burn the gills of fish? And do their tightly sewn
blue sequins chafe
with sweat? How do they rub sharp particles
from eye ducts, clear
their throats? The sea is thick with needling
phytoplankton,
stirring shoal momentum, force made up
of flickers.
1.
Downpours spring the
moths from shower curtains, settle
on my naked belly. Damp, they
can be flicked away,
they land as
detritus, around my island,
cast in porcelain. I will admit that
in my arrogance, I
want to live alone,
the only moving, noise creating thing inside
this sealed off
space. I hate the roaches congregating
for their cigarettes behind
the basin.
In this absence of
air vents, or windows, dampness clings
to surfaces, as if a
sea-carved cave at low tide.
2.
On Maenporth beach,
as children, we’d awaken
each anemone, asleep under a film of
dampness
in its granite cave.
We’d goad them to react.
Our flat was poised above the sea.
Before sleeping
I’d have to check
inside each stiff oak drawer; each space
belonging too much to
itself – or to someone who walked
quite comfortably
below those too-low ceilings.
I would dream I woke, and checking
on each drawer
again, I’d find a key. I’ve drafted many plots from there.
3.
His hairs accumulate
in dunes behind the cistern.
Late at night, I check for roaches
there, in tile gaps,
blackened by the
mould. A single placid polyp
clings there. Cupping water in my
hands I douse him,
blind limbs tumble
out. ‘He’ll catch the moths that wake me,
landing on my
sleeping face’, I think, but soon
anemones spread over
your decaying grout, impinge
upon my island, tug my fine hairs as
I shower.
Squinting through
wire mesh
at densely packed reedmace stalks,
long leaves
peeling off
to dance; subterfuge.
Imitation marshland, just
a
clump bordering
scrub, but imagine
the richness: tits and
finches,
form a chattering heart
that splinters.
Later,
reconvenes
emboldened by the sturdy
reedmace heads, in
bloom
though looking austere
not like flowers should. Like
tame
deer who’d allow you
close enough to run
their
antlers through your hands. But
they’ll implode soon;
arms
pierce through them, tumble
out, pathetic reaching
limbs
that try to hang on
air, but grasping, fall,
accumulate,
leave quiet stalks.
Bristle worms frayed
threads antagonize each other;
uglier earthworms you’ve plucked
from their burrows.
The bristle worms
burrow round u-shaped bends – uglier
earthworms. You’re
sifting for sediment cast off;
the bristle worm’s
burrow. Round u-shape bends, worms suck down
then strain the
sediment. You cast off, lifting
your iron spade,
sand the worm sucks down. You strain
through the sediment,
gradually shifting the coarse sand
with your iron
spade. Sand’s abandoned in heaps across the beach.
Shifting the
coarse sand, you pluck the worm out
of its burrow,
abandoned in heaps across the beach. Plucked from
our burrows, now
exposed, our frayed threads
antagonize each other.
Our beach house rode
up on the tide at night;
when it was lain down, old, cheap carpet
ridged
in stiff peaks, it
seemed strange that the cabbage-like
sea kale and shrubs spouting
hard grapes had stayed
anchored. I laid
down inside, my cheek pressed
against the white, painted wood;
willed the spring high tide
up, over the rubble,
coarse sand, and chipped
limpet shells, beach glass, I wanted the
water
to rock me. To rush,
retract, over coarse sand
whilst the sea kale stayed anchored. I’d
picture
the groynes as the
blades of a water wheel
churning the beach glass and limpet shells
outside.
You read the rocks
with crystals in were spherical, and lighter,
so, a sorry
sandstone, shrunken by the tide in each hand,
judge. And hurl the
lighter at a stack of granite, though
your poor throw makes it
seem to have its own trajectory
- to split in
segments – new faces to wear down – crystals
absent. Think the
sea is seeking something in the rocks too –
massing back sand
grains to blast the skree and slate. Too young
a sculptor,
scratching at the essence of his subject
‘til a stub
remains. I loved to skirt the sea’s thin lip,
slate ridge
pressing the centre of my soles, testing handholds,
each bay we’d pick
apart the remnants, sea still in retreat
irrevocably creeping back
before you’ve weighed and smashed
each likely rock.
We’d have to climb the scree slope, digging nails
into the dirt
and clutching half set in slate pieces, holdings
in the process of
eroding. Clutch the crops of grass that mark
the cliff’s edge,
lined with pale pink thrift, pendulous roots
so, you can catch a
grasshopper, but not a ball? You press
his lever and step back; a
stop back prepared for the catch,
though you can’t
predict where in that clump he’ll spring from. Perhaps
you can;
he lands right inside your cupped hands, unlike
tennis balls; they
always bruise your torso. It shows
how determined you are to
isolate each source
of buzzing sonar,
bounced off you: an effort
to track you down. You need
distracting; I ask you
to find me each
different grass in the field; you oblige
though you think any
vertical stalk is a grass,
so you bring me
reeds, rushes, and sedges, a cluster
of colour as rich as a
medieval tapestry.
Our bare calves
engulfed by bristling tips of the melick
and cats tail; the warp
threads. An unused loom anxious
for narrative;
scarcely believable static scenes
woven in. But this loom shakes
in mild winds; we were kinder
to dismantle it.
Peel back each long ridged leaf, pick
each kernel, pluck each
grain, knot stalks and snap hollow
tubes. The insidious
grains, prematurely plucked,
stuck to our palms; they were barbed.
The unraveled field travels with us.
I apologise – you
found
my weakly beating cilia.
Caught coercing
nutrients
towards my central cavity.
Collide and
apologise;
headless colony of blind cells.
We amend ourselves;
shuffle
towards our similar cousins.
How did we build
silica skeletons
so complicated? How did our acid
burrowing
bore out our secret chambers?
Grind us down and
press us through a fine gauge
sieve; us blind cells fumble, slowly
re-arrange
to form our primitive appendages.
The following poems are inspired by the ‘Shadow Catchers’ exhibition of photograms, which took place at the V&A between October 2010 and February 2011. Photograms are made by placing items directly onto photographic paper and exposing them to light for a period of time. I specifically took inspiration from the following photograms…
Untitled (Korperfotogramm, Munchen), 1965 by Floris Neususs
River Taw (ice) 4 February, 1997 by Susan Derges
Untitled, 2007 by Adam Fuss
Vessel No. 3, 1995 by Susan Derges
Body Dissolutions refers to a series of whole body photograms, similar to the one written about in Korperfotogramm, which were given to their subjects to destroy, by burying them, setting them alight, or flying them as kites until they broke down.
All of the images above are available to view online, as well as biographical information about the artists. However, I hope that it is possible to enjoy the poems without this frame of reference.
He warned me that
you’d only care to see
what I placed close to the surface. My
bare skin;
white, dimpled, veined, clung to the yet-to-be
photo,
my flesh spreading under my weight.
His flashlight felt
warm; I fought languor. It pinned
me down, to the slide’s
surface. My bare skin once
made him recoil from positioning my
limbs
for photos; my flesh spreading under my weight.
I was ‘trapped in
the tadpole jar, gasping.’
I made-pretend ‘til my burnt lungs
complained.
He didn’t recoil
from positioning my limbs
to fit his designs: ‘in a falling
dream,’
‘trapped in the tadpole jar, gasping’.
He told me to leap,
higher, throw ink around,
then dive deeper, dragging my light body
down;
I’d live out his designs.
In my falling
dreams,
he’s using chemicals – altering my likeness.
I try
to leap, higher, pierce the airtight lid,
rescue my vulnerable
latent image;
he warned me it’s all that you’d care to see.
River Taw (ice), February 1997
If there’s
movement beneath
the opaque ice window, then
it's well hidden.
Droplets draw in,
contracting. Now they reflect until
breached by feet;
elusive stream slips
underneath. My blank sheet -
- my primitive
camera - infiltrates
beneath opaque ice windows.
Droplets draw in
through the seams
of my gloves, testing me. Freeze the scene
with a flash, but
the stream slips past, shy
as a mirror. My primitive camera
misses it; captures
opaque ice
windows behind. Detailed patterns
of fissures reflect
the constricted
landscape; fields like sheets of ice.
If there’s melting
beneath,
it’s well hidden.
an albino, a
milksnake; memory
of bolder relatives… just let him go
or else he’ll fall
through fingers
you’ll be left holding
a sheath of skin.
Grasping
his pastel bands… you have no place
to, like thumbing
though strangers’ faded
photographs. Shed his sheath of skin
today; first
pierced, then rolled the shoulders
every shrug revealing several
rows
of new, reflective
scales. His
slumped sheaths catch my darkroom’s
low red lights, like
stained glass
windows; opaque. Skin
speaks tactile
languages, preserving
textures. Muscles, teeth, intestines
are elsewhere.
Bathing, he sheds
the water molecules, nervous
to close behind him.
Trying to capture
him with clumsy apparatus; light
and paper. Scaled
flesh
out of shot; a ripple flicked
suggests his
presence.
Light lolls in new liquid valleys
cast off in his
wake. Intricate patterns
that I capture; his shed skin.
this chain of
spheres that slips
between my thumb and finger’s undersides
they could be
globes, or atoms,
nuclei inside unknowable.
Squeeze softly; the
fluid bulges, rushing
to conserve its nuclei -
I pause, mustn’t
press further.
Far from bilious clouds of frogspawn
tangled chains of
toads whose links
disintegrate. Tadpoles still
ill defined, flanks
fading out
to fluid. Every embryo
is growing limbs to
push it’s brothers
back. Interested light stares,
printing shadow
nuclei
onto the river bed. A print unfettered;
spheres that slip
away, vanish
like early photographs.
Clutching my own
image with awkward
handholds; arm above shoulder aching,
pressing
my image against the wind,
it bends
submissively, forgiving clammy thumbs
and dulling prints. Bends
become folds in gusts,
reversed in wind’s tight turns, they tear
inlets in toes,
elbows, thighs.
Trampling up dunes,
how can the slender
grasses hold
the sand down, do they whip it back?
They should be
whipping harder. Near enough
the peak, I try to tear a hole for
kite string, can’t,
just scratch the
sleek surface of shadow toes, so
crumple a corner, tie a tight
knot around
my not quite diamond
portrait. Held aloft
on fingertips, wind hunches, takes it on
his back. The string runs through my relaxed hand