Skindiving in Tokyo Bay

Photo by Natalie Kelsey (deviantart.com)

The sea wall shoots straight down

Beyond the threshold of the eyes

Beneath the inky evanescence above

And the silky nothingness below

That centrifuge where the mind stops minding

And the extremities embrace the moonless chill

And in the unblinking undertow

Yamashita’s gold glistens, then vanishes

Yet another bioluminescent blur

Beyond the precipice of the abyssal plain

Where spider crabs bide their time

And searchlights dissolve like sugar photophores

The curve of your back

Your pearldiver skin

Freezeframes in front of me as I fumble

Dusktreading and night terrorfoaming

Over angry tectonic ridges, rusted warships

And the barnacled skeletons of young men pressed into death

By imperial dreams and decrees

And yet still you urge me forward through the cross current

Beckoning with a supple serenity to surrender

To the will of the waves and the boundaries of reason

When one climactic zone transitions to another

Do we change our name or simply inch forward as we are

Sure . . . unsure

Shore . . . no shore

Sure . . . unsure

Shore . . . no shore

それ . . . あれ

Why don’t you turn around to face me

As I flail about amidst the black surge

Edo-wan at dusk is lonely beneath the skin

At odds with the detritus below and the neon crescent wrench

That grasps it tight at night

When the denizens of the depths recoil from reach

Why don’t you relight, ignite, send a pulse, a flair

At least make clear

That your crystal tips and grey-eyed equanimity

Were no deep-sea deceit, midwater mindfuck mirage

Minding your own business on the seabed is no trouble at all

When you were there all along and doing it anyway

Skindiving in Tokyo Bay

Past the shored-up satiety of Odaiba

Past the rusted-through remnants of the showy and the Showa

Past the echo-bait of subterranean human mazecraft

Past where the plateau pauses, then drops into the deep beyond

That place where the sawn edges of the Pacific parted ways

Leaving only memories of electric Taisho and the swordsharpeners of the Shitamachi

Blades brandished to keep the merchants at bay

Skindiving through the black machinery of now

Moorings loosened and discarded

Caution fed to the crabs, eyeless in the cold abyss

Reaching out to your lips with ease and understated grace

Shore . . . no shore

Sure . . . unsure

Shore . . . no shore

Sure . . . unsure

それ . . . あれ

Shreds of red sky refract through the surface zone

Twilight ignites with new dreams and tender memories

Sexy exits, sleek décolage
Runway lights through the depths signalling a bridge beckoning to the abyssal plain below

Beyond the Minamibōsō boundary and into the open ocean

Where no one will dare follow

Where drunken tengu sharks swim sentinel

Round the rusted hulls of prison ships and drowned memories

That place where chemosynthesis keeps me warm

Where all our junctions jut out to face the spectral surface

The weight of four million square feet of sensory overload

Rolls my eyes back as my back imitates the nautilus, twirling and fading into you

And through the midwater zone

Curviline contours shade in and out of sight

Beyond the convection of currents into the discrete vocabulary of night

Ribbons, cloaks and shields tumble to the depths

As my senses lose all defences

And sea and sky turn black and fiery phosphorescent

I’ve seen you here in the sightless jagged caverns of the hadal zone

Shimmering self, alive as angry weight attacks my eardrums

Sparks flying upwards, depth charges blowing holes through my sense of space and self-imagination

No choice at all but to follow the pinpricks of light and crawling cloudbursts of belief

Maps of the universe splashed across the void

In violent disarray

Sure . . . unsure

Shore . . . no shore

Sure . . . unsure

Shore . . . no shore

それ . . . あれ

The depths breathe and churn

Viperfish stir from their sleep

Shipmarks dissipate in distant darkness

We venture on inch by endless inch

Your tenderness and spark my only beacons

Your sonar my only sight

Nothing left but to face the light

And dive deep through rifts and currents

Ocean sinew unconstrained by mind or pressure

And then the tsubo markers of the ocean floor open outwards

With soft landings in sheets of silt ensured

Alone together enveloped in empty space

Freezeframe, endgame, freeze still, stay the same

There’s no pain in paralysis

Grasping hold of the moment and never letting go

Even as the silt and sediment scratch the membrane, erode the nerve endings

Hollow reeds bending and snapping

Broken on our piece of seabed

All my fibres, all your curves, connected and alive

Safely sheltered from the angry currents above

Beyond the ridges and rift valleys that tear at our senses

Leaving only echoes of their teeth-grinding tension

Growing softer and more distant

As we settle in for the long night

Shore . . . no shore

Sure . . . unsure

Shore . . . no shore

Sure . . . unsure

それ . . . あれ

あれ

あれ

あれ


This poem was written for the Mile Zero Dance's show Without Borders - and specifically for a dance-spoken word collaboration with the amazing dancer/choreographer/human being Jen Mesch. It was performed with Jen at dc3 Art Projects in Edmonton on February 20 and 21, 2015.