Ode to the Two Panama Canals

ADVISORY TO SHIPPING

                “Gatun Lake’s level is currently at 81.75 feet, the lowest

                  on record for this time of the year,” the advisory said.

                                                              – New York Times

“For Man, Lacan explains, a nap is a Plan,”

declaimed le Docteur, smiling through his mouth-

toupée.  Martinelli fidgeted; he frowned.

“But an Alp is not a Map,” le Docteur (retrieving

his bone) barked, pleasantly.  “Lacan, Lacan!”

Martinelli complained – “Enough fitful conceiving!

We have no Alps in Panama!  This is South

America!”  The doctor’s office drowned

in sunset crimson (penthouse easy chair, divan).

Stumps of cypress peeked from Gatun Lake.

Rainfall was low; the people’s lips were dry.

In Panama City, Authority was out of town.

Tugs waddled tentatively through the locks,

testing the new routines.  “The Bohemian Rake

is proving useful in emergencies – shocks

to the system are to be expected” (wry

humor from our seasoned pilots).  Drown

Your Sorrows @GuppyCabana!  Salt Milkshake?

The new neo-Panamax behemoths

struggle on the uphill climb.  Old boats

were designed for any weather; these lunks

were built to be actually larger than the ocean.

It can make for difficulties.  National cloths

(flags) end up bumping into low-flying wren;

sailors die of old age crossing from floats

to bunks; giant ship fright syndrome (GSFS)

– a mode of Lacanian paramania-sloth –

mothballs many experienced seamen, before

they are even old enough to Man Overboard.

Just today, a Chinese super-blob christened

Large Ship (Tortugan colors) scraped itself

so bald on the starboard knee as to require

a complete soap-down (Polish Every Shelf!)

and as of today, two weeks later, a hoard

of destructions keeps its crew from Darien

for another week (at least until today).  Scare

stories like these spook international investors.

They collect in London, near Waterloo Station,

& count the oil bubbles that collect like flies

around the rainbows of the bubbles in the oil

that collects like gas bubbles from a Morse

Code info engine (old-fashioned tinfoil

type w/pink elephant-cake, called Mammon

– used in films such as Oil Bubble Rainbows,

starring Omar Sharif).  “Lacan – he bores

me!” complained Martinelli.  “I need stuff!”

His dream-flock of advisors waited, meek

as a collection of hubcaps, shining badly

in their eerie suite.  “We have the money,

your Excellency,” offered Twinglit, bluff

as ever, like the Wet Cliffs of Dover, knee

by jowl with his owlish advisor, Scuttley

Shipley of Scotland.  “What’s wrong, honey?”

inquired his wife, Toeniall Delendo-Muff.

“Is the yacht okay?”  Bobs her bouffant

toward the windswept film poster, from

Cuernavaca.  Under the shadow of the Liner

(Queen Elizabeth of Bath XIV) she files

herself into a small pile of clippings (faint

headlines featuring her husband as Crocodile’s

Crumbcake) and begins to tidy up some

leftovers from the funeral (this was her

finest hour, not Martinelli’s).  Old Paint

was the name of her favorite pony; the whole

City of Panama loved that showhorse filly

like their own flanks.  You could pour concrete

around all four of her dainty hooves

and she would still outrun every international

vessel you could flip her way, because

the concrete we bought was an absolutely

incredible feat of quadruple-booking, complete

with sub-microscopic fractures (intentional)

which will allow Toniall’s beloved steed

to trot alongside even the magnum monsters

of the deep with no fear of plunging suddenly

due to earthquake or stock quirk through

muddy lips of Gatun Lake – Life’s high meed

being nothing to the Bible (many tickle you

for fun, but sin be not in our thesaurus).

Camels will thread needles, Martinelli –

but not you Pacific.  Try Panama weed.

6.23.16

*Note : this poem occurred after collision with an article by Walt Bogdanich, Jacqueline Williams and Graciela Méndez, which appeared in the New York Times on Thursday June 23, 2016.