Can yew cut a bow
from a bough,
anyhow,
and a string,
in the spring,
to make a zing,
to shoot a thin,
dowel thing
a little way.
Hey!
As much as anything its the smell
of salt, wet mud and algae
and tideline strewn to dry
in shrubby seablyte,
ozone and decay.
We walk ahead and talk,
Urshie and I,
under strong sun, blue sky
(in nipping wind, fresh as February,
but thin, mean and starving)
of Vegans and of animal husbandry,
remarking at the black bull
staring at us from the emerald field
down there over the ditch - such
a long way off but he
fixes us nonetheless.
And then in the pines, heady resins
and buzzing mellow beams,
while we deprecate the whims
of swell-headed zoo boards
slaughtering unfashionable wolves.
Wagtails on the shop patio,
fly to each and all of my loves
and semaphore my care there,
tapping your pied tails,
cocking your masked eyes.
Say I wish them be fair,
where e'er they fare,
over common lands or rare
towers of light.
Strange bird tracks in the sand.
I say the owner has a shell beak,
starfish for feet,
this Crike, which stangles
in the lonely night.
We'll Google it.
It's far too cold to swim
so we go in,
Urshie all the way,
Joe and I - Ow! - deep paddling.
It is too cold, but hey!
Urshie is a heroine.
Only swimmer these beaches,
this holiday.
High, half-dissolved cloud,
precipitating slowly as shadows lengthen -
feathery quill pens.
Come. Let me clutch thee,
since only eight per cent of battery.
Sundreams in the
stones stepped on from conservatory
to the patio,
and people with Oreo smiles -
a gleam in dream,
and gentle dimming of a
modicum of tasteful alcohol.
The creepers and the jeepers
and the peepers,
and the climbers and the
Jemimas;
and Joe still has beachsand
crusted around his eyes.
...
YOU ARE READING
Bare Shouldered
Poetry"The difference of high Sensations with and without knowledge appears to me this - in the latter case we are falling continually ten thousand fathoms deep and being blown up again without wings and with all [the] horror of a bare shouldered Creature...
