The Disconnect

Posted on by Reena Saxena

I walked alone in the morning
while others slept
navigated my tracks
through dead fish and snakes
-it was low tide
the sea deposited
its ugly secrets
on the beach
as fisherwomen
hung their dirty linen
out there to dry

I walked alone in the evening.
the waves swallowed a golden ball
bled orange and crimson
on a weeping horizon
jumped high to create walls
to block the view of sun’s exit
from a not-so-pretty day

Far away,
tourists ogled at bounteous curves
A designer planned his next fashion line
with diaphanous drapes
that made women look pure
as if unwrapped from cellophane
for visual delight

I came again at noon
to feel the cool rage of oceans
against the warmth of dunes
all the poetry,
all the research
all the revellers
all the traders
fail to unveil
aquatic secrets
The disconnect remains
uncovered and wide

Poetics at dVerse – At the Beach with Picasso

27 thoughts on “The Disconnect”

  5. There’s a book, “The Empty Sea,” about the drastic effects of overfishing & how its do damaging to aquatic ecosystems. The problem, the author noted, is that the surface of the sea tells you nothing — same wide blue expanse — hiding all the truths below. Says a lot about the mistakes we make relying only on what we see at the beach.

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  6. I love this ekphrastic poem, Reena, and the way you explored all of its possibilities. I love the honesty of the first stanza, with the ‘ugly secrets’ deposited on the beach and the dirty linen hung out to dry, and the contrast of the evening beach, full of colour in the second, and the ‘cool rage of oceans against the warmth of dunes’ in the final stanza. Oh, those aquatic secrets, will we ever know them?

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  9. Very nicely done, Reena. I really like what you have done with the prompt and your story. These lines were wonderful….

    I walked alone in the evening.
    the waves swallowed a golden ball
    bled orange and crimson
    on a weeping horizon

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