Broad in the beam
not much of a looker
this crusty rust-bucket
of nuts screws and bolts
is a crabby old hooker
as luck would have it
dolled up trolling for supper
at any port in a storm
she still gives good service
tho' down on her uppers
now showing her years
deep in the scuppers
yet still on the game
fishing by night for a living
not to sully or bruise her good name
tho' one might unduly call her
a 'Cruiser'
this goodly vessel is truly a trawler
A mottled crab scuppers its sea legs
in fluorescent foam.
Blue pods rattle on green tides.
Bladder wrack, Mermaid’s Hair
washing tangled ankles.
There are voices in my open mouth,
they roll over a briny tongue,
intoning from the breath
of a luminous spray.
Where the sky hangs low,
gannet beaks gape
trawl the unseen upon a tossing surf.
Mother, father, stranger,
we are all here speaking
through a whirlpool’s gullet
we sink and surface, rise and fall
dished up on a roiling wash
never to find nor land.
A mottled crab scuppers its sea legs
in fluorescent foam.
Blue pods rattle on green tides.
Bladder wrack, Mermaid’s Hair
washing tangled ankles.
There are voices in my open mouth,
they roll over a briny tongue,
intone words from the breath
of spray and brume.
Where the sky hangs, gull beaks open
to scoop the bones of a shoaling surf.
My heart is booming
in a hollow seashell.
This is the Church of a God
disrobed of human thought.
This is the roofless house
of the sun and moon,
a place consecrated to the storm,
to the depths of darkness;
to the bright blades
of the suns daggering rays.
This night the rough
tussles with the calm
and they dance at the edge
of a clashing chaos.
Mother, father, stranger,
we are all here speaking
through a whirlpool’s gullet,
yet who has gone ahead of us
to express this sea-glow
and hat surfaces at the edge
of our own shores?
Sonnet 18 – Well, kind of...
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
I said sunscreen would have stopped you burning.
Thou art more lovely and more temperate,
but at times, sorry, just so damn messy.
By thy eternal summer shall not fade,
unless that rain comes back and scuppers it.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
one day I’ll write a sonnet properly.
A mottled crab scuppers its sea legs
in fluorescent foam.
Blue pods rattle on green tides.
Bladder wrack, Mermaid’s Hair
washing tangled ankles.
There are voices in my open mouth,
they roll over a briny tongue,
intone words from the breath
of spray and brume.
Where the sky hangs, gull beaks open
to scoop the bones of a shoaling surf.
Mother, father, stranger,
we are all here speaking
through a whirlpool’s gullet,
yet who has gone ahead of us
to express this sea-glow?
What surfaces at the edge
of our own shores?
Footprints in sand, indelible till the tide comes in,
reliable impressions, etched, embedded, enveloped
to form an album of traces:
crab hole excavations,
scurries of hurrying birds,
seaweed twirls wind-driven in curls,
tiny sand flea hop-craters,
crab claw side-step shuffles,
drift-wood scuffs and scuppers
remnants of tidal riffles and ruffles,
snap-shots of scrapes, stomps, scats and scars.
Footprints like graffiti deface the awe of seascape shore
with a mushyheaded mishmash of double-exposed impressions.
FEBRUARY FIGHT IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC
Turning home with her hold half full,
Wind picks up - raging, all the more
Fierce in its intent to smash her hull
And plunge her deep to the seafloor.
Murderous mountains of watery salt
Filled with cold hatred inside
In their drenching ice-bound assault
Make kamikaze charges along our side.
Snapping rime-heavy shrouds
Tumbling the boat in the chill peril;
Overflowing scuppers foaming in anger loud,
As, engine screaming, she regains her keel.
INTO THE STORM (PART 1)
A few drops predicting storm, large, heavy, hard.
Black clouds, low, hanging, turbulent.
Wind drops as a boxer lowers his guard,
Confident of the helplessness of an opponent
Facing the forthcoming fury omnipotent.
Waves, solid mountains of etched glass blocks
Swashing their black masses on the decks,
And she shivers with the shocks.
Bow crashes the watery wall ahead and checks.
Shards of black mass assault faces and necks.
Drops fly from ropes stretched straight to snapping,
Decks awash with black glass’s foaming flume,
Wind has horizontal pennant frantically flapping,
Rain lashes the leeside scuppers full of foam:
As we plunge into the black heart of the storm.
(to be continued….)
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