Puffins

Puffins on Sanday

The gulls are gliding

The cormorants plunge

The sea is sliding

And squeezing the sponge

The rocks are like cakes

Absorb and crumble

Soak and bake

In the shores rumble

The cliffs of morn

Are wild and free

With the whiffs of a storm

And the breath of the sea

And the puffins dangle

Ship-worn and mangle

Where the white veins bleed

Unearned sworn in profile

Against the gathering cloud’s mobile

They swarm like bees

Agile turgid, tight of body

Like the fish they eat

Rainbow biters

Crunching the colours of the silver scales

Heathland

In the supine truth of his mercy

In the lauded king of the earth

The sallow willow wallows

Down in the mouth

The peat mounds sting in the rain

And damp bark shines black against itself

Sordid sinews of brambles

Conspire to bring

The snakes from beneath the beaten panel

And cowering low the bindweed winds

Soundless to the Sires’ minds

Of the headless hawks

And scruffy crows

Which spread across the old rail road

And chainless seas

Which toss and turn

Far beyond the chalice stone

To comb the pond

And pound the bone

Of dead saints as of badgers

Their scent of flowers pearling crust

In the hallowed graveyard’s dust

And they cheered in transient sun rays trust

That call them to their meaning

And far beyond gravels cliff

That gives rise to the ghostly mist

A fern is praised

As a dew lipped kiss

And candle light draws another Eden

Petitudes

The Darling Pets of May

May:

The legs of the Elephant

Not scare at a mouse

The eyes of a cat

Not burgle a house

The ears of a rat

Not abode any louse

Nor the fever of a dog

Run hot as a spouse

May:

The nose of a rabbit

Be tickled by a trout

The kindness of a kitten

Be smitten by a stout

The radar of a Russian

Be rattled by a lout

Or the uncle of a Kingdom

Be carbuncled by a bout

May:

The hubris of a herbivore

Be preyed on by a quail

Or the vertigo of an eagle

Be debedded by a snail

The notion of a cuckoo

Be knocked by a tail

Or the hailing of a whale

Be disgruntled with a nail

May:

All these and likewise

Never come into fruition

Or else the trees upon which they grow

Be banished from Eden’s Kingdom

May never a more saintly brow

Be mopped up by a vet

And therefore good kind Gents and Ladies

Do look after your goodly pets

Australian Reflections

Notes from a train

In the Out,

The river bed stout

Dry and dry again

Never fall the rains

On the potbellied plain

Of the crumbling green of tufted grasses

The crinkling leaves of trees in copses

The sapphire blue of the infinite sky

Against the dark green of the mountains

The peppered fields peopled by sheep

That peep from a green sea like fish out the deep

And forests, oh forests of spectacular stun

That reach to keep the splendid sun

And jack in the Marsh, rabbit on the hop

The kangaroo is filibustered in the election of the sun

Wallabies hid in the wheat

Spray of yellow rape at his feet

In the afternoon light

That is a delight

Upon the mottled plain

The mountainous lumps

Are stony stumps

Which lie in timeless stages for ages not in vain

The stirring rills which catch and spill

In pearly, swirly swills

Where swallows swoon

And boys fish with a loom

From their mother’s knitting room

Upon Cow Hill

Upon Cow Hill

What a thrill!

The moo of the mountains

As they kneel in the Sun

The pockets of forest

That bristle erect after fog

The dark cloud shadow

That blackens their slopes

Then the face of the loch

The whiffs of steam or smoke

From a factory in windless sky

Hanging like souls not yet ready to depart

Not yet willing to die

The Sequin Sea

Sequin claws

On sequin draws

The rope of the hangman

Hangs heavy on the door

And seasons come and seasons go

As the weather cock does crow

Into the heartland of the fire

Were burning embers glow

Seasons come and seasons pass

The love of a lost one

Leaves its cutlass

Aboard the ship of privateers

The stowaway steals the ship’s chest

To bring his heart to homeland

To sacrifice his death

John Drummond – the merchant Whaler stands

Upon the ship’s crow’s nest

And spies one eye onto the ocean

To fill his glass the best

The mud that lets the river pass

Is melting like the snow

But cracks as ice so the skater knows

He’s walking on thin plate glass

Merchant whaler rolls a drum

That explodes his current bun

Into the arms of James the First

Whose messenger there had come

To lead his navy into further lands than kingdom known

The merchant pledged his life to this messenger’s tongue

And onward now his life must run

Always in bondage bound o this King’s thumb

Down to the heart rug

Of certain pins

The hat that covers up is face

Is the same that ruins his whims

The sadness that holds his joy

Is that which will in him soon destroy

All hope of love all caste the iron men of Troy

To iron curtains rides the horse

Saying giddy up good boy

What’s to come can be no worse

See there’s land I spy, Ahoy!, Ahoy!

One too many mornings

Will you laugh, laugh in the morning

Laugh til the lady bird sighs

And cry, cry for the mourning

Is yet to be gone from her eyes

And love is terrible speed

When it impels our desire and need

To be gone with all fashion

Decorum just leaves passion

And Men are compelled by their greed

So lets chew, chew in the morning

Chew on the terrible cud

That we all must be gone by the morning

For love to be buried in the mud

And the lies that bond us are many

The chains that shackle are few

But they are won by the toss of a penny

And lost like a shipwrecked crew

We will dance, dance in the morning

Dance til our feet soles are worn

Dance in the seas in the morning

Dance for the oaths that were sworn

And the coast will rise up to meet us

And the boats will be rocked on the shore

And the harbour where our souls greet us

Will be purged with the waves that are shorn

Now chime, chime without reason

Chime though the lovers be dead

And speak, speak forth your treason

For it all will be yours and her head

The time came without warning

Its arrows like thunderbolts sped

O the crisp true light of the morning

Where the swallows children are fed

As the holy blood comes in the dawning

And the thorns run rivers of red