The Lobster

By Carl Rakosi 1903–2004 Carl Rakosi

Eastern Sea, 100 fathoms,

green sand, pebbles,

broken shells.

Off Suno Saki, 60 fathoms,

gray sand, pebbles,

bubbles rising.

Plasma-bearer

and slow-

motion benthos!

The fishery vessel Ion

drops anchor here

collecting

plankton smears and fauna.

Plasma-bearer, visible

sea purge,

sponge and kelpleaf.

Halicystus the Sea Bottle

resembles emeralds

and is the largest

cell in the world.

Young sea horse

Hippocampus twenty

minutes old,

nobody has ever

seen this marine

freak blink.

It radiates on

terminal vertebra

a comb of twenty

upright spines

and curls

its rocky tail.

Saltflush lobster

bull encrusted swims

backwards from the rock.

Carl Rakosi, “The Lobster” from The Collected Poems of Carl Rakosi (Orono: The National Poetry Foundation, 1986). Used with the permission of Marilyn J. Kane.

Source: The Collected Poems of Carl Rakosi (National Poetry Foundation, 1986)

Biography

The son of German Jewish parents, Carl Rakosi was born in Berlin in 1903, moving soon to Hungary following his parents’ separation in 1904. Immigrating with his father and stepmother to Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 1910, he eventually graduated from the University of Wisconsin (where he edited the literary magazine) and later earned a master’s degree in social work from the University of Pennsylvania. Rakosi’s involvement in the . . .

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