waves

tide / goodbye

you couldn’t invent the tide

or the blood in my eye

imagine creating

a land

where waves

rushed in

once a day

then left

sand

like the bare spot on your chin

I see from one side

and wonder if anyone

else has spied

do you feel that

something

between us,

the sea and the sky?

or are the pebbles in my mind

worn too smooth by

tumbling

endless thoughts

washing nigh

turning over and over and

the way they

swell and subside

not even a hangnail

to catch certainty

just a shallow

goodbye

Stormwater

Stormwater makes gutters exciting

clear and fast and rush, rush, rushing

sticks and leaves and grass and concrete

fresh puddles are new lakes

around a drowned playground

the waves offshore huge and brown

with denuded earth from headlands

floating and crashing

flying to shore

soft and high like Tara Brach’s hair

rain, rain, rain for days makes mirrors

everywhere

then it drains like snow disappears

and you wonder

what happened to all that extra stuff

the world absorbs

enfolding elements, renewed

and we observe only

an iceberg-tip of all

 

 

 

Photo: flooded forest by Claire Doble

Wow, it has been more than a month since I last posted, that is a long time for me. I have felt a bit flat and non-poetic lately I guess. I hope this changes!

Kintsugi

 

hold the wind in my arms

ghost trees toss

their shrouds of

pale cloth

while wave-feathers trail

white-peacock fringes

behind surges

irreparable

over rocks

as my tin-can heart

soaks up

songs from

half-forgotten harmonicas

I’m poised

a broken-bevel jewel

seeking kintsugi

to gild old scars

 

 

kintsugi is the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with strands of gold lacquer

Photo:  Claire Doble

these waves

these waves

stacked like trays

in the corner of Vinnes

a mess of levels

all over the place

and whoever said

liquid is flat

a plane of rock

like a jewellery box

glory spots, lots of treasure pools

the smooth grace of sea

draws up her skirt

gathers into a bastion

of Prussian blue and

as wind stipples the topfoam

back in a cockatoo crest

and the rest

tips forward

crashes on and over

those uneven shelves, the

cutlery drawer

of my coastal shore.

elephant-hide stone, I hop

from plane to plane and feel

brave

like the water could

engulf me

at any stage but of course

I’m safe

not near enough the edge

prefer to watch

put my mind

in the boiling blueturquoisewhite

cauldron and thrill

to the thought of

how I’d die, cold and afraid

while a cormorant

slips oilsmooth

quicksilver, alive in the place

that would surely be

my grave

 

 

Photo: Claire Doble

Finally recorded one!

Link: https://soundcloud.com/user-808707280/these-waves

 

Shush owls

where the rocks crash

where the shush owls

turn the lights off

swoop, frothover calls

 

throaty and distraught

no starboard lighthouse

green glass and sheet metal

black box never found

 

where the waves grind

behind old bedposts

ancient lamps move

inexorable warmth, breath

 

This poem was inspired by a beautiful and strange poem my good friend Joh from Milk and Motherhood sent me on a postcard once.

I also finally had the chance to use the “shush owls” phrase I was so taken by in one of the NaPoWriMo poems by Kevin J O’Conner

Thankyou both

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash