Inspector Kobold
Sea horses-who knows
What he was thinking.
Chess pieces made of fruit jelly
Or hand-blown glass?
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| Photo from chrono.qub.ac.uk |
Sad clowns of the moody sea,
They turn Poseidon's fields
Into a Spanish riding school:
Tiny ocean Lipizzaners.
Only, they don't seem to enjoy the dressage-
Judging by their faces-
These flute mouths, slightly piqued.
Does the current bother them, the kelp
In which their tails get caught?
Upright in their fish-bone corsets,
Ash-brown waistcoats, on their rounds of inspection
Through the dark algaeous spaces-
Unfazed by the sea urchins' sarabande.
I'm currently reading The Bars of Atlantis by Durs Grunbein, a selection of essays, so I was especially amused by this poem in The New Yorker. It's true, isn't it, sea horses do usually look a bit surly?
