inspired by ‘Kraken’ by China Mieville



At the apogee of oxygen

           where cyan turns to cyanosis

                    and air frays and fritters into space,

                             where metaphysical angels sing

                    and ET friction-brakes his saucer

           something loses its dispute with nothing

and up finally vanquishes down,

         where satellites skim like fins of sharks

                   and all the stars are notched on night

                             where eagles do not dare, nor planes

                   find sufficient lift to place them there

         and even party balloons won’t retreat,

the levitator’s overreach,

         the other end of Jacob’s ladder,

                   doubt’s perigee, the rainbow’s arc,

                             they’ve not yet found a flying squid,

                   its skin as loose as paper crepe,

         as big as a bus, as thin as tin,

diaphanous as the emperor’s rags,

         tentacles as long as jet stream’s churn,

                   flung and blown and tossed

                             as though a barometric bathysphere,

                   old ebony beak a dull drawn dart,

         eyes as big as Olympic rings,

substantial as a crystal cloud

         wandering lonely as a radar fog,

                   so nothing much can get a glimpse,

                             not bats nor moths or little birds,

                   all unidentified flying things,

         all clear air turbulence, water

squall, waved-off jets in solid cirrhus

         and oops-exposed exposés,

                   photos of tentacular lenticular shapes,

                             this nautiloid, this cuttlefish cloud,

                   a sometimes drench of black ink

         dreams, crop-dusted nightmare

drizzled down, cloud-seeded,

         contrailed, black-dog bleed,

                   streamers, smoke-bomb blush

                             of ink, enough to drown the world

                   in drink, to stain the good glass

         sky, to blank and place a headache

in each head, serpent, prophesied

         doom, galed and weathered with

                   the storm, whichever way an ill-

                             wind roils, no whales to test it,

                   no harpooned hand to puncture,

         high and dry, adrift and gone, in

oceans of air, sometimes fallout,

         sometimes ash, the fritz that hits

                   the antenna’s spark, this bad-

                          faith mist, this persistent pall,

                   this shadow like a squid’s cold

         span, this stealthy light leviathan.