Rerunning Nighttime Maritime Weather Report
two dogs on his lap
to stroke, to stroke,
general synopsis
at midnight, he struck
one as the clock
struck one,
not yet stricken
with sleep, low fair isle
996 moving slowly southeast
no usual window-pelt
of rain to progress
the night, only aired
tide, weather or not
losing its identity
keeps keeping him,
too fluid too, from sleep
he reads and listens,
a page to turn, he
turns, new low expected
german bight 985
by midnight tonight,
for one reading
too often, left to right,
time writes backward
from 3:15 till 8:45,
synopsis at midnight,
the long night ticking
into the past, moving slowly
southeast, filling slightly,
listening, listening,
to the lull of the sea,
not, wave, but language
of wave, foreign
tongue of current and gale,
unspoken, not saying
though speaking, occurring
or not, the stroke on the rock
regardless, southeast
becoming cyclonic, timeless
as the hour not ticking
in the lamplight, in
the moonlight, or northwest
5 or 6, in the starlight, the fade,
perhaps gale 8 later,
as each stroke, veering, slows,
lulled by viking north utshire
south utshire, bearing sleep,
drone of night, and
a dog’s withers wither
as it circles and circles
its tail around itself,
the sun moves backward,
decreasing southeast forties
on the other side, the hands
of the clock in his lap
the day changes, the wait
changes, losing the very change
waited for, he changes
into southeast forties,
time for fishermen and sailors,
but he, still awake, recedes
as they set sail for severe gale 9
awake, he sailed with sailors
east southeast, sea-crossing
for the retrograde,
and each crossed, fair
or poor, one
by one, and sailed
home half-asleep
Page(s) 142-144
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The