The Sepia Woman

I’m not an octopus, I’ve said it a thousand times

yet I often have one wrapped around me, I should have read the signs

as I’m sinking, dragging, sagging to the ocean floor.

I’m not an oyster tethered to its rock

though Cancarian I embrace a shell on my back

I chance direction from this, to that

Oh to be in the ocean blue,

blue is something I seem to do

to wear, to feel, to dream

of that independent creature swimming serene,

not on the ocean bed, scuttling

shy solitary cuttlefish,

this elegant creature with remarkable eyes

masking emotions on its rides,

blending in with the world around

spraying black ink

With its dark moods, a sombre cloud

 inky fish, this ink with which I write

and have now spilt, what a mess

I’m cross with myself but have to confess,

if it had been anyone else, how angry I’d have been

Yet, look now at what I have seen

the most beautiful free-flowing design has appeared,

So scrap all the rules and conformity

Patterns all rigid, perfection for normality

I’m messy, I’m inky, I’m free to be me

Now ink of sepia, you colour of brown

I wish you could photograph and capture my frown,

furrowed lines on my head, cross-examine

the state of the dye which has spread

blood like,

tea stained,

brown, black and blue,

used with creative spontaneity through

history,

for writing, drawing, thinking in hue,

for colours is where attraction will lay,

with colours for moods, they change, react

to any words which others say.

So I create, I move, I dance with abandon

because I’m not an oyster afraid of the sand,

with a walrus near by and a carpenter to hand,

I’m not an octopus, I’ve said it a thousand times

yet I often have one wrapped around me, I should have read the signs

I am the cuttlefish, the sepia woman

writer of verse and a poet of rhymes.

T.Shendi 2016.