John Berryman Reads from "Dream Songs", 1968

New Poetry by Benjamin Dodds

Magnapinna species

The elbowed thing drifts
and darts, drifts and darts,

trailing a metres-long train of tendrils
—Rapunzel as incubus.

Held tenuously in bilious floodlight,
it hangs in relief

against the darkness of this Vernian depth.
The remotely controlled camera

jerks on its clumsy x-y axis
to keep it in frame.

At once, this pudendal creature
transfixes and utterly repels;

without instruction,
the muscles at my core brace

when it’s on screen.

She erupts into the room,

one dangling earring already hung,
the other in search of a hole,

tilts her confused-Collie head
and in jarring tones

demands an opinion on how she looks.
She lobs another question over the shoulder

on her way out, not staying to see
me catch the bouquet, or if it’s caught at all.

Is that in space or the sea?


- Benjamin Dodds 2010