Tag: Poetry

Apologies to Sam

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One of the lovely, yet slightly unnerving things about writing obsessively about otters is that people pretty soon start sending you little-known factoids about otters and otter-related subjects. For example, did you know that my great, great, great grandmother by marriage came from Ottery St Mary in Devon? Of course you didn’t.

Anyhoo, today’s prompt was an interesting one about imagining place, so I decided to write an imagined Ottery, using as my template one of the most famous poems by the town’s most famous son, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. (Read the original Kubla Khan here)

(The Tumbling Weir is a real thing).

 

 

 

In Ottery did otter-kind

A wat’ry romping-ground decree

Where through a cunning aperture

Slid the silver’d river pure

Down through the Tumbling Weir.

 

So culverted and dug about

The river wound both in and out

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills

Where spawned many a succulent-tasting frog

And here were fish untouched by heron’s bills

Plumply fall’n in paws of bitch and dog.

 

But oh! those muddy chutes that slanted

Down the green banks athwart the tender willows!

A joyous place! as playful and enchanted

As e’er beneath the Hydra’s stars was vaulted

By otter leaping in a dwindling oxbow!

 

And down these mudchutes, with ceaseless squeals of pleasure

As if their merriment could last forever

The otter brethren happily did slide

Amid whose swift free-spirited glide

The plashy mud did bounce like blessed rain

And all who slid cried out ‘again! again!’

And waiting at the bottom, cool as ever

Ran the deep and sacred Otter River.

Five miles meandering with mazy motion

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran

Diverted from the settlements of man

By otters navigating to the ocean.

Hark, ‘cross the waters that they float upon!

Ancestral otters prophesying fun!

 

There was no shadow in the land of play

Cavorting on the midway of the flow,

All that could be heard by night or day

Were the otters paddling to and fro.

It was a miracle of harmony,

A place where creatures lived so cheerfully!

 

An otter with a mandolin

I saw once in a waking dream

It was an Amazonian

And on its mandolin it strummed

Singing of distant Andes.

Could I revive within me

Its simplicity and song,

To such a deep delight ’twould win me,

That by digging deep and long,

I would build that romping-place

Those water-slides! That Tumbling Weir!

And all who came should be of cheer,

And all should cry, hooray! hear! hear!

This splashing lark, these waters clear!

Encircle him most utterly

And keep him close unto your hearts

For he has travelled off the charts

To bring us all to Otterly.

 

 

Now Double Your Otter

Halfway through my self-imposed month of otter-themed NaPoWriMo poems! Time for something ridiculous, I feel.

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Double the otter is double the fun,

if you could have two, why would you have one?

 

Double again so your otters are four,

That’s eighty sharp claws on your new parquet floor.

 

But four is no party, let’s make it eight,

And if you consider their full-grown weight,

 

That’s almost three hundred and sixty kilos

of otter, pissing all over the dado.

 

Imagine the stench when you get to sixteen!

Never again will the hearth rug be clean,

 

The destruction that one thirty-two-otter raft

Can wreak on a free-standing cast-iron bath!

 

When the sum of the blighters hits sixty-four,

Flee from the mayhem and move in next door!

 

Just pray that they don’t take up playing bassoon,

This one-hundred-twenty-eight-otter commune,

 

You may be afflicted by pains existential

If otters keep breeding at rates exponential.

 

 

Keep Your Fur On

8038cc4f764c80709cc2f5a417360389Honestly folks, two straight weeks of otters is difficult enough, but the NaPoWriMo prompt today featured a very spurious poetic form with many rules about rhyme and repetition that are just too dull to explain to you right now. Suffice it to say, I have done it with 43 minutes of the day to spare, so if I’ve got the rules wrong then tough!

It’s inspired by the fur of the sea otter, which is the thickest on Earth, and which was the reason they were nearly hunted to extinction. Try this little video for more info. The picture for todays post is the only kind of otter hat people should buy nowadays.

Fur Trade

Diving, they are comet-tailed, a plunging silver fizz

of bubbles as the pressure wrings them sleek as fish,

flattening the under-fur that crowds a million to the inch.

 

One pelagic pelt could mean good silver to the thief

adept to plunge the knife in, to strip the sheath

from vibrissae to tail-tip, so some millionaire can swish

fur-hatted, fizz-swilling through crowds that enviously seethe

Oh! to wear an otter! it is our dearest aim and wish!

 

 

Do Otters Wonder What the Future Holds?

otter_love____by_seb_photos-d5i3x28.jpgTasked by NaPoWriMo with writing inspired by a fortune cookie, I delved into an online repository of those aphorisms and found this implausibly long, but entirely appropriate fortune – “Hidden in a valley beside an open stream- This will be the type of place where you will find your dream.” It really does sound like it was written with otters in mind, doesn’t it?

It reminded me of a story my lovely friend Lil told me. She was walking her dog on the banks of the Tyne river behind her house, when she saw an otter floating on its back in the water, for all the world looking like it was daydreaming. Lil was convinced she was imagining her future mate and family, and behold! some months later she saw the otter again, this time playing with two pups. They were on the opposite bank, and had found a red ball, which they were rolling to one another. So this is a poem for Lilly’s Dreaming Otter.

she dandles herself in the current

with her drowsy webfoot flutter

all whiskery contentment

she is as sweet as doing nothing

upriver and down, fishing and floating

balance in her belly and her heart

 

she watches the wind sift the sky

into its several selves

nested clouds, ribbons, tufts

some dark enough to cry themselves

back into the ever-slippery sheets

of her water-bed, this river

where she is dreaming up

a spry dog to share it

a glinty rogue, a playmate

 

they will make a home

where the river bank is scalloped

with beaches of pelt-brown sand

they will make pups, a proper romp

nose to tail to nose to tail

they will make a carousel of love

 

Sound Advice For Otter Trawling

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It may surprise you to know that I don’t have textbooks about aquatic mammals lying around the house, so I was hard-pushed to find an index from which to write today’s NaPoWriMo poem. Fortunately, Newcastle Library had a magnificently arcane handbook for commercial fishermen, from which I gleaned these wise words…(which should have been heeded by this fishing boat in Shetland)

The Trawlerman’s Handbook, p.89-91

Otter Boards divert water flow into your nets.

Keep your Otter Boards well-adjusted, don’t spoil them.

They are boards for water, but not waterboards.

Please do not waterboard your otter,

they can hold their breath for four minutes,

at best you will merely annoy them, and then

you must quickly calculate the Angle Of Attack,

which is the distance between your Otter Board

and the Direction of Flow calculated in degrees,

multiplied by your otter’s annoyance.

If your otter shows a V-shape when sideways on,

it is a British otter and remembers Agincourt.

If a piratical otter boards your vessel, repel!

Protect your salmon! Otters may become unstable

in the presence of large quantities of salmon.

Stop your otter tilting by shortening, or lengthening

their upper and lower backstrops accordingly.

Careful of your fingers!! They may strop back!

Always keeping in mind that a little tilt

is a good thing for some bottom conditions.

If you see your otter heeling inwards, and then

heeling outwards, he has begun his ritual dance

of Saluting The Salmon, and your catch is lost to you.

You should have repelled him when I told you to.

 

Otters At The Bottom Of the Garden

Today we are asked to describe a place, then top off our description with a philiosphical bon mot or two. Fab. Of course, I immediately rifled my memories for sunlit riverbanks, demanded my imagination populate the scene with otters. But then I remembered a place I had already promised myself I would write about this month, a garden I pass every day, a garden blessed with… an ornamental otter!!!!!!!

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This simple bench, its back against

the pebble dash, is a trap for sun

on which I sit, patient as bait.

In the eaves a host of starlings

whirr, click and chuff, discordant

choristers for a strange faith.

A road may be inferred beyond

the horizon of the garden wall,

from the odd passages of cars.

In their wake a sucking, slapping

almost entirely irregular boom.

I believe it is high tide. Yes, yes,

the bells of St Hilda’s nod agreement,

A stray beam of April illuminates

the pocket lawn, a square-cut emerald,

whose margins are as dense with foliage

and critters as a mediaeval Gospel.

Gargoyles and dwarves wink plastic eyes

under fancifully unscrolling hosters.

Amid bluebells, a goose gawps upwards,

its white throat a column of greed,

twice the height of the flamingo.

And at my feet, resplendent,

scampers the piece de resistance –

the moulded-resin, stone-effect,

not-quite-life-sized otter, apogee

of all that is good and pleasing.

It is not to have what you want,

but to want what you have,

that is true happiness.

 

 

The Literary Otter

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You know it’s Sunday when NaPoWriMo only ask you to do a poem listing the book titles on your shelves! And what of an otter’s library? Well I’m sure you could come up with a fair few better ones yourself, but anyway here goes…

An Otter’s Bookshelf

Far From the Madding Otters

A Farewell To Otters

The Unbearable Lightness Of Otters

The Otters Of Wrath

The Otter Is A Lonely Hunter

The Girl With The Otter Tattoo

Fear and Otters in Las Vegas

For Whom The Otter Tolls

All’s Quiet On The Otter Front

His Dark Otters trilogy

I Know Why The Caged Otter Squeaks

No Country For Old Otters

Of Otters And Men

Tender Is the Otter

The Otter Of the Baskervilles

The Maltese Otter

Otters Are Not the Only Fruit

My Family and Otter Animals

All the Harry Otters, obviously

Tarka The Otter

The Shellfish Gene (bit of non-fiction there)

Salmon Fishing In The Yemen (self-help manual)

Moby Dick (horror section)

Ring Of Bright Water (horror section)

So Long And Thanks For All The Fish

 

Not Everyone Likes Otters

Many of my poet friends have been digging deep inside their psyches for today’s NaPoWriMo prompt to write something that feels scary or uncomfortable to say. I, however, have been digging deep inside the (imagined) psyche of someone who finds otters scary or uncomfortable to be around. For some reason it sounds like a very bad pastiche of Wordsworth in there. Who knew.

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Otter with a huge smile

The Lutraphobia Of The Wild Swimmer

I have oft-times swum delighted in the Tyne’s electric cool

and wild waters, in the summer eves by Corbridge. I have

eschewed pools municipal, those crowded echo-chambers,

named them no better than aquaria, where captive mustelids

might twirl in Perspex tanks, to the cooing of the crowd,

their stank spray festering the public air as rank as rotten fish.

Those same aquatic weasels now have barred me from my bliss,

ruined all my joy in open water. I cannot quite say when

the fear of them first grew upon me, cannot pinch the moment

their smiling faces first shaded with malice in my eyes,

but now the chance whisk of waterweed at my floating wrist

casts trembles through my traitor limbs as, unbidden,

images of hairy muzzles poised to claim my fingers,

to crunch needle-sharp through knuckles, darkens my vision.

Too often I have seen, or thought I saw, these denizens

slink from their sandy caves in the twilight, so now, alas!

the o’ershadowing doom descends upon me, and I seek

in swelling terror for paw print or foul spraint here

upon my favoured shore, as a man obsessed by contagion,

and though my mouth forms, faint-hearted, a continual ‘O’,

never can I bring myself to audibly utter the now-abhorred

name of my tormentor, the dreadful title – OTTER!

 

 

Every Girl’s Crazy ‘Bout A Sharp-Dressed Otter

When I read the NaPoWriMo prompt today, I thought I’d had it – otters haven’t much use for flowers. Can’t eat them, can’t play with them, can’t slide down them. But I hadn’t factored in the glory of random googling. “Otter flower” brought me a link to this delightful young man, The Modern Otter, a fashion blogger who has had some things to say about floral prints over the past couple of years, oh yes. He proved most inspirational.

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The Modern Otter

The modern otter is not afraid of florals.

The modern otter has thrown away his plaid.

An avid consumer of articles sartorial,

He is nine parts hipster to one part lad.

 

The modern otter tries some unexpected chinos,

Balancing the flower print with simple chambray.

He dreams of days in Paris sipping stylish cappuccinos.

The modern otter wants to stroll along the Seine.

 

Transitioning to spring wear in optimistic camel,

Paired with indigo, or black, or dusty blues,

He folds a turn-up into his nether apparel.

Naked ankles shiver over waterproof dress shoes.

 

The modern otter favours crisply pointed collars,

Wants you to notice, but he’s too safe to be seen.

The modern otter is afraid of too much colour,

Though occasionally he’ll venture out in something hunter green.

 

The Curse of The Korean Otter

Good grief, we’ve managed a week of this nonsense! Everyone hanging in there? OK, today’s official NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a tritina, which just means I have to end my lines with the same three words, in different orders. It’s more of an instruction than a prompt, which mean I’m free! To choose whatever snippet of otterlore tickles my whiskers! So here you go – in Korea, a person who sees an otter will forever after attract rain clouds. What a fate.

otters-playing-in-the-rain-by-david-giffordI have seen an otter, and lost the sun.

From this day, I’ll always draw the clouds

to trail me, black and faithful as a dog.

 

I swear, at first I thought it was a dog

trotting through the long grass in the sun.

I called to it. My call became a cloud.

 

The callous skies are thickening with cloud,

and where I walk it’s raining cats and dogs.

At night I dream of basking in the sun,

 

but when the sunrise comes, I’m dogged by clouds.

 

Rain doesn’t seem to bother the otters much, or stop them from eating as often as hobbits, as you can see in this video.