Sea Gull (Leith Docks, 1995)

Once before I've heard this
anguished cry

A long-drawn note of many-lettered woe,
The great open beak straining 
against the roar of raging surf;

Head, thrown back, taut
against the distant sails

Anger flickering in eyes flecked with amber,
rolling in lonely knowledge,
this bond servant of the sea,
tied by its giant wingspan 
to the torturous flight of sainthood

Martyred
in its terrible existence
murdered
by the yellow fog of banality

Victim 
to the squalor of urban beachfronts , 
snuffed out in the face of its own metaphor
screaming curses unto heaven,
proud to the very last;

''Once before'', I said,
''I've heard this cry''.
 


(from ''Burnt Offerings'', 1996) 

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