Poem Review: The Ocean By Jacob Lee
The Ocean
By Jacob Lee
“…Subject GS00949 in position. Vitals conducive. Should be any minute now...”
“HELP! PLEASE, SOMEONE HELP ME!” his hoarse voice splintered with emotion as it cut through the stillness of the Georgia swamp for the last time. Five hours of wrestling with his fate had only strengthened the vice-grip that was squeezing his life away and now it seemed all he could do was wait. He raised his head and watched as the tip of the butt from his daddy’s Winchester 1892 sunk out of sight beneath the surface. The walnut handle seemed to surge upwards at the end, lingering in visibility for an exhausting moment, but then in an instant it was gone. Where it had been a single fragile bubble now rested as an accidental tombstone on top of the mire. He spat out a raspy cough, kicking up a splatter of water and dirt that settled comfortably on the filmy surface. He knew what that was a prelude too. It had been several hours since he had seen a leg, let alone a foot, and now the high muck mark was just under his adam’s apple. The suction that was …show more content…
He was in the midst of a large patch of overgrown cypress trees punctuated by a couple thick trunked black gums. A few yards to his right a dirt trail snaked its way familiarly through the bases of a few of the larger tree trunks while a thicket of just ripe blackberries framed his head and feet, leaving him boxed in on two sides. His whole left-side rested an arms length away from a large colony of cattails facing the sky like a giant’s discarded broom left upside-down; and through the thousands of flowering cattail spears he could just make out the murky shoreline of a small mud pool lapping slowly a couple body lengths away. He glanced up at the swampy pool of neither land nor water and then looked back at the rifle he still held in his hands. For an instant a vague recollection skimmed along the edge of his consciousness. Just as it did the Earth began to
By Jacob Lee
“…Subject GS00949 in position. Vitals conducive. Should be any minute now...”
“HELP! PLEASE, SOMEONE HELP ME!” his hoarse voice splintered with emotion as it cut through the stillness of the Georgia swamp for the last time. Five hours of wrestling with his fate had only strengthened the vice-grip that was squeezing his life away and now it seemed all he could do was wait. He raised his head and watched as the tip of the butt from his daddy’s Winchester 1892 sunk out of sight beneath the surface. The walnut handle seemed to surge upwards at the end, lingering in visibility for an exhausting moment, but then in an instant it was gone. Where it had been a single fragile bubble now rested as an accidental tombstone on top of the mire. He spat out a raspy cough, kicking up a splatter of water and dirt that settled comfortably on the filmy surface. He knew what that was a prelude too. It had been several hours since he had seen a leg, let alone a foot, and now the high muck mark was just under his adam’s apple. The suction that was …show more content…
He was in the midst of a large patch of overgrown cypress trees punctuated by a couple thick trunked black gums. A few yards to his right a dirt trail snaked its way familiarly through the bases of a few of the larger tree trunks while a thicket of just ripe blackberries framed his head and feet, leaving him boxed in on two sides. His whole left-side rested an arms length away from a large colony of cattails facing the sky like a giant’s discarded broom left upside-down; and through the thousands of flowering cattail spears he could just make out the murky shoreline of a small mud pool lapping slowly a couple body lengths away. He glanced up at the swampy pool of neither land nor water and then looked back at the rifle he still held in his hands. For an instant a vague recollection skimmed along the edge of his consciousness. Just as it did the Earth began to