The sea eats glass Til glass itself In repose, reflection Far in the swathe Of polished rip Arm upraised Decrying buoyancy I am fastly turning There are thousands Gulled in lines Eating waffle cones On the esplanade Loudly squawking Laved in oil (Or made filthy by) As if the fatted ungulate In herb and festal truss Prepared itself for sacrifice The sea swallows them up Returns most Turns some Into nubs of glass Lost in gristling sands Small and bright as jellyfish Dying in the oil and ice-cream air Now, far out to sea I start dissolving
Tag: seaside
Parenthesis
The plane trees turn Disillusioned leaves Quite early this year The Dutch elm bug is on his holidays While we sneak out To the dregs of seaside towns A breeze, gull-hollow in the mouth Of a tipped over flagon The day has that wormed-through look Of driftwood and premature age The gulls flock In that senescent, rough drawn game Of wings unfolding In hearts and crosses Someone poured out petrol on the sea Bursting when the sinking sun, dissolved In match-flare quickness Dragged down with waning hostility, a smoking sky As if no-one, in the semi-dark, could still be inflamed I know you know the stars are embers There is a parenthesis somewhere here Time will only take you so far From the edge we see the remnant light Why – I don’t know why That died in self-effacement A shoreline’s length ago
Amanuensis in declining summer
We slow, walking into water Lapping salt, uncertain how to speak Arched words, in the face Of an amniotic resistance To advancing life Remember how the Madonna grieved When her child rose again Counting days like seagulls Above a garbage shore On your holiday towel the stains Of eggs and leavened bread Sister what’s-your-name Can you spare a coin for love? You have a gravid face Breaking open sunshine Just a quiet deception Something fragrant in your mouth Crushed sweet seeds, a flower An azure sea, a breeze below The moon when summer Turns, more or less, as the hand Before your smile Bent as it repudiates God does not write home With platitudes and dreads Homilies about these dismal Seaside coloured days Sandwiches quite stale How the scavengers are blessed When they steal and beg Other frail beatitudes from your disregard The deck chairs bellows semaphores In candy-coloured cyphers A breath as light as new-made saints On convalescent afternoons