Mahi-Fish

Not really. No, really.

157 Watchers67 Deviations

34.5K

Pageviews

Latest Deviations

See all

Sand and Salt by Mahi-Fish, literature

Literature

Sand and Salt

Sand and Salt The ocean stole grains of sand from us pulled unnoticed one granule at a time, (wrapped as we were in whispers) and replaced each with salt filling the depressions left- no longer footprints but lakes and seas of sloshy saltwater foam our whorls at their depths impressions containing us within them eddies crashing over ridges drawn by the gravity between us. As the tempest subsides cyclones spun from sighs shut their eyes and deposit quartzen silt along the bed.

October Bonfire by Mahi-Fish, literature

Literature

October Bonfire

The bonfire didn't stop your shivering. You sat, knees drawn, lip quivering; a vortex of smoke swirled skyward. Primal paths jettisoned ash in an ethereal fae dance, and alighted in your hair as ephemeral grey snowflakes. Drawn to you as I was. Heat radiated outwards and upwards gifted by the sand's last memory of sun, and my first of you seared into me deeply as the firebrands imprinted on our retinas in brilliant red after furtive glances across the coals. You buried your feet in the sand toed curled and clutching probing deeper, colder wicking off the heat building inside you. Your lips pursed; our eyes met, and I r

Static by Mahi-Fish, literature

Literature

Static

the wooden floors don't creak the vents don't rattle or thrum empty pipes run between the walls a fly perches on the windowsill unsure how to proceed while the bamboo plant stretches and wilts dust settles on the television its hissing eye of sign-off static reflects the unblinking stare of a small dog asleep on the couch rows of shoes frame the door laces tied and tucked a swallow of coffee sits cold a rice pot glazes with starch film by the recliner a new copy of an old book waits light from a bulb flickers once twice and is no more

Redneck Prison Guard by Mahi-Fish, literature

Poetry Self-Edit Checklist by Mahi-Fish, literature

Literature

Poetry Self-Edit Checklist

Poetry Self-Edit Quick Start Guide and Checklist Introduction The idea behind this is to give newer poets a way to better edit their poetry themselves, without having to rely as much on an external editor. It can be frustrating, especially for new poets to request feedback from a friend, or worse, to post a poem, and have all of the responses be about grammatical errors and other details. We write poetry to convey ideas and emotions, and when something is off technically about the poem it distracts the reader. When a reader is distracted enough to notice an error or other problem it means they might spend th

Sleep by Mahi-Fish, literature

Literature

Sleep

the first night without sleep passed in a dream the mists parted for my passing and then crashed in around me as I crossed with no divinity to protect me from folly memories as shards of glass stained by my presence form mosaics of the self I sought to shatter inescapable kaleidoscope patterns that cartwheel together each replacing itself with an identical image each day like every other- no longer hours or days but blocks or cubby holes neatly filed albums filled with slideshows I scarcely remember projected in front of me in a semi-random chronology as I watch the next minute hover and float backwards on hummingbird

Traces by Mahi-Fish, literature

Literature

Traces

Dawn traces her curves through venetian eyelids another day has come to steal her away already the memories we left are clearer than the silhouette before me or breath on my cheek a dark veil curtains her face as she lays. I'm afraid I won't remember the moments that brought us here; the days to come will slide down the window with the condensation like all of the lost days before. My finger traces the script in her journal lines my words aren't worthy to follow songs which call to me but I can't recite I turn the pages and inhale; pressing them closed won't enshrine her essence- still nothing has changed between the covers. Th

Ink by Mahi-Fish, literature

eucalyptus by Mahi-Fish, literature

See All

Featured Gallery

See all

Cajun Boy by Mahi-Fish, literature

Literature

Cajun Boy

Cajun Boy I came to be in the murky depths of a forgotten bayou. I learned to walk on cypress knees. Mosquitoes tattooed flags on my flesh staking their claim for one insect empire or another. I was weaned on swamp water gumbo and fried things I can’t name served over rice. Tabasco flowed through my veins, pumped by a zydeco heartbeat. I learned to dance, barefoot, on a long dirt road that stretched between nowhere and nowhere with a girl named Anna, or was it Marie? Maybe it was both. I learned life’s secrets from the blue heron and wise whiskered catfish and a bitch hound in heat in grandpa’s dog run

Cowboys of Color by Mahi-Fish, literature

Literature

Cowboys of Color

Cowboys of Color In photos they always stare straight ahead and slightly off center as though unable or unwilling to meet the discerning eye of the lens head on. Their faces are creased and curled parchments etched with paths to forgotten ridges and gullies that appear on no other map. They were black or Mexican or Indian before such names became hyphenated and made American. John Wayne (whose own name was a bit too ethnic to uphold the ideals he became) Took from them their songs, their trails and their spice flavored sweat, and boiled it down into a paste with which the makers of heroes could fashion paper mâch&

Reflections in the Rear View by Mahi-Fish, literature

Literature

Reflections in the Rear View

Reflections in the Rear View The highway cares not why I drive, only that my wheels turn. I find myself obeying its will though I know not where I’ll end up, guided only by perforated orange lines, out-dated maps, and my own intuition. Tires chew through miles and hours; I sing the songs I carry with me until, hoarse and exhausted I roll down the windows scan staticky radio stations for something I've never heard, and turn up the volume all the way. Billboards entice me to rest in any of thirty seedy hotel chains. They should have known it is the inability to rest which puts me on the open road instead of wrapped in th

Sorcerer by Mahi-Fish, literature

Literature

Sorcerer

Sorcerer He dances compass rose tattoos speak to east, to the west, to the north, to the south on packed earth weathered feet leather-faced scowl of concentration dust storms swirl beneath his heels gatekeeper on the edge of the village. Thatched hut embers cast out shadows – spirits of nameless men. speak to east, to the west, to the north, to the south Lizard skulls rattle; baubles percuss words to his toothless-trance-chant spells with power to heal or kill. An unknown woman’s spirit drawn precariously towards the Village of the Sick. His recitals guide her gently back. speak to east, to the west, to the north, to

Without Her, Without Him by Mahi-Fish, literature

Literature

Without Her, Without Him

Without Her; Without Him He sows salt on green shoots in hopes they will be more delicious when plucked. She scrubs traces of him from her heart with steel wool and bleach. He hums tunes of love songs she wrote to him but forgets the words. She takes pictures off the wall leaving dark rectangles of unfaded wallpaper. He builds futures out of skeletons of extinct sandcastles in the rain. She burns every letter that came on the same day as his just in case. He bites a chain-link fence until his teeth taste like rust. She folds his shirts into origami fish and releases them into the ocean. He builds Shinto shrines around

Vanished by Mahi-Fish, literature

Literature

Vanished

Vanished He left early one day without a word loose change, a chewed pen and one cuff link on the dresser an empty coffee cup greasy lip prints on the rim and a sugar crusted ant ring on the counter. The medicine cabinet tastes like the half empty bottle of Old Spice he left on the half full shelf. And it sits between the expired aspirin and the unopened vitamins and they wait for him. And I wait for him. The serviceable trench-coat he left in the closet still smells vaguely of musk and sweat and just a tinge of mildew. It covers me completely even if it will never fit. But it keeps out the rain. And I

Shadow Puppets by Mahi-Fish, literature

Literature

Shadow Puppets

The sun rises. Light shards slide through my blinds and crawl slowly across the floor bisecting me and my aphotic shroud. Silhouettes erupt into wayang kulit - fleeting shadow puppets on a tapestry of flesh- revenants of the man I was; memories long cauterized swell and rupture. The stories unravel as dawn plucks each jeering figure from beneath my skin. The gamelan music swells and crescendos through me. The sun rises. I am free. T. Scott Fisher

Empty Names by Mahi-Fish, literature

Literature

Empty Names

Empty Names She wasn't the eldest son they hoped she'd be. Her part of the family name a malformed inheritance expressing contempt at her birth. Her name left blemished initials as footprints in black mud by the riverbank. She wasn't the eldest son- but was often a mother to the three sisters who followed, and later to nieces and nephews- children of her heart waltzing to music box lullabies. With her empty name she became a palimpsest scrubbing out cactus spines from the family tree; writing over herself in newspaper ink and fingers smudged tear tracks from her face. A lifetime of learning counterbalanced pain- a b

The Flamingo Poem by Mahi-Fish, literature

Literature

The Flamingo Poem

I was twelve when she was ten. Our neighborhood had neither curb nor pavement; every strip of grass was our sidewalk. Trees doubled as bike stands, and pine cones as hair brushes. Chain-linked fences were suggestions to work around, and trellises for wild honeysuckle vines. Backyards spontaneously erupted into blackberry patches leading to hunting expeditions ending with empty buckets but purple chins and fingertips. A muddy hundred yards of concrete culvert delivered us to our hidden place where fairies and fireflies were equally real and equally magical. Mason jars once filled with tadpoles hold rainwater sun tea, the hostage

Sleep by Mahi-Fish, literature

Literature

Sleep

Watchers 157

See all

ShawnPikul

LucasCAPS

Venry

Self-Intoxication

ATrue

JStavridis

QuiEstInLiteris

polkadottd

hymnsforheathens

dialtonepoetry

Elmara

KelpGull

Watching 91

See all

EliteLiterature

21st-Century-Artist

Your-Creativity

betwixtthepages

Poetrymann

BeccaJS

ikazon

noomisan

angelStained

CyneNoir

nycterent

Halatia

HugQueen

theWrittenRevolution

Jade-Pandora

DDs and DLDs

Poetry Self-Edit Checklist by Mahi-Fish, literature

Literature

Poetry Self-Edit Checklist

Cajun Boy by Mahi-Fish, literature

Literature

Cajun Boy

Without Her, Without Him by Mahi-Fish, literature

Literature

Without Her, Without Him

David by Mahi-Fish, literature

Literature

David

David There is only one photo of him and in it he ages slowly while his memories - and memories of him fade to nothing. His smile, gone these forty years returns when his eyes or fingers trace lines of poetry. His speech softly stammers and classrooms quiet to accommodate his frequent pauses. Tragedies project onto his eyelids; the soft hum of his voice disguises the scar he bears. When he heard the news the second time he threw himself across the pyre though he didn't know whether it was to be consumed by fire or to extinguish it. He planted flowers in the ashes, a tribute to the woman he once loved and the daughter he

Favorite Favorites

Favourites

See all

craneo de un caballo by Jade-Pandora, literature

Literature

craneo de un caballo

Soon it was clear that the moon was a horse's skull, and the air, a dark apple. The gearshift shudder of a heavy-laden truck fades, all the while, the sustained drone of bees; past their prime and sluggish, their wings cannot be stilled. A dull glint behind the eyes of a yoked pair of oxen, standing at a crossroad between myself and the fields that bake in the August of a Spanish sun, waiting for the hammer and anvil to sing, for the echoing refrain of rifle shots beyond a stand of distant trees shimmering from spent cartridges in the waning afternoon of your exquisitely curved spine.

River Dream by Jade-Pandora, literature

Literature

River Dream

Where I exist, the seasons linger or die too soon. I cannot see the subtle changes, or hear the cadence of their wings. I feel the shift and taste the residue between our lips, and on the air where it also lingers. His passing will bring the rain but I covet him more, suspended as we are between the seasons. And when dusk is touched by the brows of moths, he will fade away, a harbinger of autumn's end before it begins, while I drift a river dream over which a new moon ascends. An oar dips silently and I shiver.

Quicksilver by Jade-Pandora, literature

Literature

Quicksilver

Yellow streetlights bleak wearing necklaces of rain- pearls against the streak of finger painted windows overlaid with quicksilver brocade and nests of spider eggs. Where once this place was abandoned, in a room the creak of floor boards drowned by thunder's boom, revealed by shadow and lightning strobe, paint-by-number puddles trace around two who sleep sound in the aftermath of their heated tryst that causes the panes to mist and condensate. Moisture trickles down brittle wallpaper paste and folds of stained flesh amidst mottled reflections as the sound of rumbling deep in the sagging rafters stumbles, tumbli

Seasons Change by ArchArad, literature

Whispers by Jade-Pandora, literature

Literature

Whispers

"Whispers" lovers and their touch- incoming waves spent against the curves of shoreline lovers and their whispers- foam washes into an abandoned conch, holding their secrets lovers and their passion- sea lions call to each other as swells roll in from deep waters lovers and their song- floating above sunrise, gull cries echo again and again into sunset lovers and their dreams- midnight ocean calm, a shooting star meets another shooting star

Understand by indiana-w, literature

Shaman by Jade-Pandora, literature

Literature

Shaman

the blinding light makes me cry, hurting me even as it heals where it comes from, the earth shaman pulls it from the sky from the mist that keeps him from entering heaven, where it rains silver-blue and gold, his hands pull from me black spots of disease, white-hot threads pass through turning bile into pure energy, going inwards the blessing of his craft his selflessness - the gift he himself cannot partake of his kind eyes, from which his own tears now fall

Sun by indiana-w, literature

Literature

Sun

Unafraid of the rainwater her heart is like a lion; like a warrior She dances around in a parking lot and through my mind ever after on cloudy days and sunny days after-the-rain Each visit makes her smile a little brighter She might be weary, she might be worn but her spirit is full of light She dances and holds everyone as if in orbit cycling through weeks the storms a small ordeal next to her grace The night is worth it to see her rise in the morning

Deviation Spotlight

Ink by Mahi-Fish, literature

Ink

Mahi-Fish

Group Member 9

Group Admin 1

the-haiku-club

About Mahi-Fish

See all

United States
Deviant for 14 years
He / Him

Badges

My Bio

Jade says:
It's like you jumped into a wading pool - you know, the kind that parents would blow up with
Scott says:
dynamite!
Oh wait. My family are rednecks, we blow up pools differently down here.

conversation with Jade-Pandora
(7/19/11)

snowflake-
how perfect you are before
my poem

-Dick Whyte of SOLARTS

T. Scott Fisher was quite the poet
And made sure all the world would know it
but he commented too often,
his hands fell off from exhaustion,
and he could no longer press submit.

-InverseAngel

There once was a fish from Texas
that of watchers had built a nexus
but it troubled him so
he had to let some of us go
now he fears this decision may vex us

-Djoseph

Jade says:
shall I call the monastery?
Scott says:
Oh my. I think that if you do, it would break my last vow of chastity.
Then what kind of monk would I be?
Jade says:
a monk fish!

Posts

See all

Mahi-Fish

Jan 11, 2012

Updates

0 min read

Hi all, Just wanted to give some updates.  I've moved the poems that I included in my submission packet to storage today.  I did a check online to find any unauthorized postings of my work, and found two.  One was considerate enough to leave my name on the poem and to provide a link to my page.  The other didn't do either.  I appreciate that others like my work, but wish they would contact me before reposting to make sure it was ok.  I've contacted them both, and should have that resolved soon. I heard through the grapevine that schools have begun reading application packets.  I hope that mine finds a way to float to the top.  I even joined

Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In

Mahi-Fish

Jan 1, 2012

A Fish's New Year

0 min read

I've never been a big fan of New Year's resolutions.  In fact, as a teetotaler, New Year's is one of the toughest holidays for me.  The very first time that I was offered alcohol after deciding to stop was on New Year's, and it was the first time my resolve was tested.  Nearly every year I prefer to sequester myself from friends and family who celebrate with alcohol, and I've grown to be a bit of a scrooge when it comes to all things New Year's as a result.  Generally speaking this includes resolutions. I've worked in health focused industries and was a long term regular gym attendee for long enough to have watched the self improvement cycle

Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In

Mahi-Fish

Dec 13, 2011

The Time

0 min read

Well ladies and gents it is about that time.  My close friends have already probably noticed my diminished presence here, and I've talked about it at least once before.  There are two major things going on that contribute to this, neither of which are negative things about deviantART or life in general. I've just finished applying to graduate programs for an MFA in writing.  I have no idea how good the competition is, or even if my poetry is good enough to get me into these highly selective programs.  But if I don't try, I'll always be left wondering if I was good enough.  The programs I've applied to are: University of Texas at Austin (two

Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In

Profile Comments 1K

Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In

I-meghan-I

Aug 10, 2014

mahi-scott where did you go?
i miss you and your writing

when you were around the poems were flowing and i was rolling around within the community making friends and making words sound nice together and now it's all stopped.
you inspired me to write and i miss your words and what they made me think i could do.
pm me so we can get back in touch if you see this