Three Poems

Plea for a flotation

Magnus’s melon seeds float
on dark and weighty
tomes of pond. 

Only a sampan built to withstand
a resurrection
(that troubling symbol) will do. 

We have pilchards at tea-time,
with bread roses
and the sod of rusks. 

Far and away the barrier-reef fills
with ballerinas, their
tendonitis and stubbed toes. 

And you, in possession of rusticity
and rude edges. It will kill
us all if you choose not to live.

 

 *

 

My fictional Jane

Tried to O! you, exclaimed you, created you
savage. Un-idle extremist, I made you a nub of cool,
a sand goddess, eave maid, de-futured,
deliberately brave and inconquerable.
You, shining lonester, immune to
shocking quiet, stark lines,
no human leafings. You are there
withstanding a bloom
of ice at your throat. You are
complete, you are unreal.

 

 *

 

Tiny Nudist Colony

No wells for bush fires and all these wasps
that hell must hummer with,
            their untimed flight,
            their sacrilegious gold. 

            Such heat on the hill, I came down here:
green crook of rock pool,
                        spry grass trenches,
                        free-thinking animals.

Your fish – in a weedy world – they are yours aren’t they?

I am in the business of eating apricots nakedly –
            you see.
All the times I sit here
            I am treating you seedy. Stone stripped from flesh
and dunked in the brine.

Lobsters communicating! Have them. 

Dried salted limbs! Take them.