Danusha Laméris: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Bermuda Triangle 

   

It loomed large over my childhood, hungry mouth

in the center of the Atlantic, a vast expanse that ate boats—

dinghies, cargo ships––sucked them down below the waves.

Or maybe took them up, like the planes that vanished

in mid-air, nothing left, not even contrails icing the upper

atmosphere. Not even a slip of a pilot’s lapel, or piece

of fuselage, fallen from the clouds.

 

I’d lie on the couch and watch its red outline hover

over the undulating map, learn the names of vessels

that went down without a trace: Star Tiger, a fighter plane

bound for Bermuda, the USS Cyclops, its load of iron ore,

the crew of over 300 never found. Once they said a passenger

flight turned a somersault in midair, nose over tail, then

righted itself and moved on. Who or what was behind it?

And how could we ever be safe? Though now I know

 

something of the pull that can prove too great. Desire’s lure.

How murky the waters of the heart, its rough, uncharted seas

and taut geometry. Who among us hasn’t drifted into

that treacherous terrain, engines whirring, compass gone

suddenly amok, only clouds above, only clouds below.

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Danusha Laméris’s third book of poems, Blade by Blade, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press. She is also the author of two other books: The Moons of August, winner of the Autumn House Press Poetry Prize, 2014, and Bonfire Opera (Pitt Poetry Series, 2020), finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize and winner of the 2021 Northern California Book Award. She is on the faculty of Pacific University’s Low-Residency MFA program and lives in Santa Cruz, California. (Photo of author by Mark Stover. This poem originally appeared in The Southern Review, Spring 2023.) 

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USS Cyclops. Its disappearance in March 1918 resulted in the single largest loss of life in the history of the United States Navy not related to combat.

Comments

[Beth Joselow]

This poem makes a turn that is at once graceful and, for this reader, unexpected. Timely selection as we have all had our attention drawn to the miles deep floor of the ocean this week. And love is sometimes love of a challenge we cannot always meet.

[Abbie Mulvihill]

Wonderful and timely imagery and analogy.

[Clarinda]

Timely and wonderful. The Volta turn is terrifc

[Clarinda]

Ps. It’s almost a sonnet

[Eileen]

Wonderful poem. Loved it.

[lally]

another brilliant choice terence, thank you danusha

[Terence Winch]

Michael:  thanks for commenting.

[Bill Nevins]

Timely poem with the sinking sub sinking Russia sinking sinking sink--like those baking soda subs we used to find!

"How murky the waters of the heart, its rough, uncharted seas

and taut geometry."
Don't hold your breath too long.

[Phyllis Rosenzweig]

Loved it - despite its apparent timeliness. Beautifully structured and its metaphor is timeless and delightful.

[Anne Harding Woodworth]

Who among us? Every last one of us. “How murky the waters of the heart.” Lovely poem.

[Susan Campbell]

Definitely.

[Dr. Earle Hitchner]

With a translucent grace and an undertow touch, Danusha Laméris maps the Bermuda Triangle we know geographically and the one we think we know emotionally. Each has a maw-like voracity (“hungry mouth,” “ate boats,” “sucked them down”) for destruction or, more accurately, vanishment. What Laméris deftly evokes is an ache of memory and a gnawing craw of questions. Her signaling of the poem’s volta (turn) is cannily done: with the last four words of the second stanza leading into the third stanza. This enjambment is also effected through no end punctuation (both the first and third stanzas finish with a period). And so we do precisely as she wishes: reading through without stop. “Desire’s lure” indeed, as we move inexorably into “treacherous terrain,” with unrescuing “clouds above” and “clouds below.” What ultimately emerges is a poem of seamless structure and vast linguistic accomplishment. (An example of the latter is those aqueous “l” sounds in “Not even a slip of a pilot’s lapel, or piece / of fuselage fallen from the clouds” in the first stanza.) Danusha Laméris has done something remarkable: explored the Bermuda Triangle with geographic precision and vivid concision, and explored the Bermuda Triangle of the heart with extraordinary insight and skill. Thanks, Terence, for bringing her verse to my attention. I plan to dash to Danusha’s other poetry pronto.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Earle---another marvelous & insightful response from you.

[Peter Kearney]

This striking poem handles nicely the parallels and differences between the Bermuda Triangle and Desire's lure. The lure differs with its murky waters and rough, uncharted seas, whereas it resembles the Triangle through its phrase "taut geometry" and, secondly, through the image of the somersaulting passenger plane and the closing line's "only clouds above, only clouds below."

[Joanna Howard]

Exquisite.

[Nin Andrews]

What a stunning poem!! Thanks for this!!

[Michael Winch]

What a twist! Last paragraph threw me for an emotional nose-over-tail loop