The Sunday Poem: Change of Dreams

We have no more Sargasso Sea:
We’ve lost the tales from Argosy,
Of giant jewfish swallowing divers
And ghost ship press gangs snaring live ones.

No more stalks the sleuth in alleys,
Nor with Sumatran rats he dallies.
Murders ceased to be genteel,
And duels settle sans cold steel.

So rarely see we Poe-like horrors;
Our monsters are our mundane neighbors.
We do not live in R’lyeh’s streets
But kids must stay within ten feet,

While half the way to Paradise
The trash collects, a plastic isle.
A new Atlantis or Hy Breasil,
A continent recycled and eternal.

This one is late, sorry.

The continent of trash is real, by the way — try a Google search for “Trashlantis.” Argosy was an adventure stories magazine in the pulp days — I grew up reading story reprints from it. I do recall the one about the giant jewfish — apparently the fish is now named something else because the original name might offend. Oh, and Hy Breasil is pronounced “Hy Bree-sal.”

The Sargasso Sea is still there, of course. It’s just lost its sense of mystery.

The other references I leave to you… they’re all easy. 🙂