"Beautiful Sea" by Mark Bryan
Doren Robbins
JawsI always thought
it was a nothing song,
"The Age of Aquarius."
And now it comes out
of the radio jaws again
at Marina Park Playground.
A few children smash
against each other
and scoop sand up
into each other's faces
right along to the upswing
of the beat. The water is placid,
the water is dull.
Adult humans, the ones
trying to ignore
the Aquarian singers
and the children following
the voices of their roaring,
find the water
deadly rimming the sand
an enviable state.
But we weren't
as condemned to dryness
as the Marina kids,
we went in
to the water.
The broken poison-drains
were still a secret,
so the jaws of hotels,
bars, and burger stands
wouldn't close up.
I don't know what
the placid water jaws
planted in me
for going in.
Nothing, so far.
I remember a guy
back in the 50's
in bulging Speedo swim shorts
holding up a lobster
by the Venice jetty.
A still beautiful gray-haired
flat-chested woman
with a petite full mouth
rushed over
to Kodak him
with a small
heavy-looking camera,
and they were kind of thrilled:
cold orange claws
clicking and opening
over his head.
Never saw those
pincer-jaws
down there again.
At the end of "Aquarius,"
a still young-looking woman
comes out from between
the several park slides
and walks directly
into my view
pulling one of her
loud children,
too hard. She wears tight
royal blue spandex
pants showing her
split vagina shape.
Jaws everywhere,
taking you
out of yourself.
Bio:
Doren Robbins' poetry, prose poetry, and short fiction have appeared in over seventy literary journals, including The American Poetry Review, Cedar Hill, North Dakota Quarterly, Cimarron Review, Hawaii Review, Indiana Review, International Poetry, Kayak, Onthebus, Paterson Literary Review, Pemmican, Sulfur, New Letters, 5 AM, Willow Springs, and Hayden's Ferry Review. His most recent collection of poems, Driving Face Down, won The Blue Lynx Prize (Lynx House/Eastern Washington UP, 2001). In 2004, Cedar Hill Publications published Parking Lot Mood Swing: Autobiographical Monologues and Prose Poetry. In 2006, Eastern Washington University Press will publish a new book of poems, My Piece of the Puzzle. A mixed media artist as well as a writer, two of his works are currently on exhibit at the "Crossing Boundaries: Visual Art by Writers" exhibit, held at the Paterson Museum in New Jersey. Currently, he teaches creative writing and literature at Foothill College where he is director of the Foothill Writers’ Conference.
